Traynor YBA-1A

I have a 71 Traynor YBA-1A. I bought it for $150 in about 2000? Plenty of power and enough tone options for bass. As a guitar amp the tone is great but it lacks reverb etc.

This is the best sounding amp I have owned. I also have a GK 400RB and USED to have a 79 Ampeg SVT and the Traynor sounded better! Very warm tone for bass and guitar and breaks up very nicely when used with guitar. I would most closely compare it to a Marshall.

Very reliable but it is a 71 tube amp so my GK goes with just in case.
Never had to resort to it though.

Find a good repair shop that knows old tube amps

I've been playing it since about 2000 and its my first choice for guitar and bass.

1973 4 input, non master volume, 90 Watts RMS

This amp is like a early bassman on steroids. It is LOUD! The tone is sparkly and clean up to about 4 and then you can get a good crunch out of it. Turn it to 6 and you will crack the plaster off the walls. I have a Superlead Marshall, and this amp is everybit as loud...... it even sounds very, VERY close to the Marshall power tube distortion tone. This amp is the best kept secret around. I was lucky and found mine with the original Mullards. I did change the tubes out (to reserve the Mullards for recording) .... and there is a noticeable change in tone ....slightly less warm and less silky smooth

It is funny, this tiny little head looks so dorky, but it will make you stand up and say HOLY CRAP!!!!! ..... you can easilly put some of the Marshall guys to shame....unless they are really dialed in.

Built like a tank. Excellent workmanship on this amp. Big beefy Hammond transformers.

There is all kinds of support on the web along with excellent schematics and mods.

I play a USA Tele, a Les Paul Custom and an Ernie Ball Music man. Been playing since 1978.

I like this better than my 64 Bassman head. It is way better than my JTM45 reissue.... but once I replaced the output tranny and installed better tubes, the JTM sounds ok....... still the Traynor is a powerhouse and will smoke the Marshall in an outdoor gig where you crank it up.

I do like the Marshall Superlead tone and it is slightly different, but not by much. The Traynor has a nicer clean tone and makes a much better bass head.... so over all, a great deal for the money.

I very recently recived this amp. I bleive it is from the early 60's (my serial # is only in the 500's so I assume that it is an early amp). I has two channels (each with a high and low gain input), one is for bass and the other is for guitar. it has two volume controls (no master though) treble, bass and high and low expander nobs (the latter two knobs change what range of sound the treble and bass knobs effect). it has a fuse (not a cercate breaker) and a power and stand by switch. Two outputs so two speakers can be pluged directly. A nice noisie fan (O.K. it isn't realy that noisie but it can be anoying when you are playing a song with a lot of quiet parts) and a excrushatily heavey weight of 75 pounds (that is just the head). The amp is a little skimpy on controls and lacks any form of distortion (unless it is cranked but that is way to loud for any reasonable use) and it could realy benefit from a reverb. But it does deliver a suprisingly large variations of tone from the few controls it has. I only gave it a 6 because it could have a reverb and gain.

Wow! this amp is F-in loud. I play a telecaster (made from cheap parts ordered from Dan Torres and Lindy Fralin pickups [they are fenominal]) and it runs threw one 15" speaker. I have taken the volume past 2 on no more then 5 ocasions (with my guitar volume almost off). ushualy, for inhouse use the amp is at 1.5 and my guitar is around 5-7 (hard to tell on those damn telly nobs). This amp delivers an absolutly phenominal clean tone. Between the amp and my guitar I can get it unbarabley bright (so much twang it hurts),warm and deep or a kind of boxie tone that sound like a resonator guitar. this is great for my style of folk blues and bluegrass (with some rock and roll and jazz). If you want distortion stay way clear of this (unless you have a realy nice distortion pedle). It has a little hum to it (the stock plug is only two prong and I have yet to change this) . This amp compleetly trashes the fender bassman re-ishus that I have played (again i do not like a lot of distortion so...) It is an 8 because it is not for most players but is great for me.

I have not had this amp for too long (6 months). I got it mailed to me from Canida... This may not be the best idea in the future. When I got it the speaker had pulled all of the skrews holding it in position out and it was tumbeling around loose in the cabinate. After fixing this (thease amps have tones of screws holding them together) I hooked it up and when I went to throw the standby switch it kinda fought me and then the switch went loose. What had happend (I discovered after opening it up) was the the little plastic peice inside the switch had snapped so I had to dig through my house and find a peice of plastic (do not use mettle, this will mess up your ground) that fit and the amp was fixed. I was suprised to find that this was the only problem considering what happend to the cabinate and I have been told that thease amps are invincable (and I don't doubt it one bit). However, haveing to fix my amp before I even played it was great for me as If i had not had to fix it I would have eventualy opend it up and and played around with it and I probebly would have messed something up. its a 9 bassed on many noteworthy sorces praysale of it's reliability, but after all, it is a tube amp and they do have problems

Traynor is gone (although a reishue amp is soon to be released) but Yorkville sounds (the company that owned them) has done a very good job at makeing infromation (schematics etc.) avalable on line and as I hear are very good about helping you out.

I realy love it. Great clean and loud enof for any concert I will ever play. again, low on features but this dosen't bug me much (I play mainly acoustic guitar and banjo so this amp does not see exsesive use) but if I played it more it might. This amp is realy heavy. I'm going to say that again for emphasis. this amp is realy heavy. the head is so small so you look at it and think "Oh... it's cinda cute... I think I'll move it over hear." and then you pick it up... or at least you trie. I can barly cary this thing out the door. I like to think of it as a anti-theft device. This amp is not good for most people, only those who want a good clean, bright tone, and who are willing to have early onset back pain from moveing it. a 7 because it's not for most anyone (but it's damn good for me).