Bought this early 70s Traynor YRM-1 off CL today. Came with the YT-12, 2x12 cabinet, which is dated 1971. This amp has a somewhat interesting, yet at the same time boring, life story: This amp was a middle school's vocal PA system back in the day. When it quit working, they just stowed it away. Well, the guy I bought it from was a band teacher at the school, and one day he sees this thing sitting out ready to be hauled out with the trash! So, he takes it and gets it serviced...amp just needed some new tubes...or a tube. Anyway, it has been entirely re-tubed with Groove Tubes.
Now, this guy is really a drummer/producer. He has a studio built into his house, where this amp has resided for the past several years, getting very little use. He says the speakers are bad in the cabinet. Well, I get it home and open up the cab...speakers have some strange white, powdery corrosion on them. One ohms out good, the other seems blown, but I wiggle the little connector tabs a bit, and then it ohms out good. Haven't run sound through the speakers, yet, though. They are somewhat odd speakers (Philips/Norelco "whizzer cone" speakers), but are well regarded by some, and seem to be fetching around 50 bucks a piece on the 'bay.
Anyway, the amps sounds good...not great, but good. Lots of headroom, nice crunch when cranked, but a little dark. Truly all tube: tube driven reverb and tube driven tremolo. Not crazy about the tremolo, but the reverb is good. This thing uses an el84 to drive the reverb.
All hand wired and super clean inside:
From the back:
Handy dandy schematic mounted inside the top, which easily unbolts from the rest of the cabinet...no need to remove the chassis for servicing!
Inspection tag mounted on the cabs baffleboard:
I'm looking forward to playing it more, and maybe doing some minor tweaks to the circuitry. Probably do a cap job on it soon, too, although the thing plays perfectly.
