Fender Bassman 100

Mine is a 70's one with 4 12's in an inverse pyramid configuration. Pure tube, all the way. No reverb, no tremelo, no frills. "Bass Instrument" channel with "deep" switch, bass and treble. "Normal" channel with bright switch and bass, mid and treble EQ.

Be aware that to get it to crunch up and overdrive, you do have to crank the volume up. But when you do, it's awesome. See below.

Fantastic. This is the bright, chiming, warm Fender amp sound. And it's not just that: 100 watts of speakers as tall as your shoulder means it's deep, loud, and HUGE. Jamming with this in the basement takes me to another world - the sound swallows you up when you crank it.
No intentional distortion, but when you crank the volumes and the mid/high EQ's, you can crunch it up and get great classic overdrive, ala The Who. The overdrive depends on how hard you play, since it's actual OVER DRIVE, so the dynamics are tremendous. You can play for hours with nothing but this and your guitar.
I mostly use this with a strat or Gibson SG running through the Line 6 amp modeler and delay modeler. I have jammed for hours and hours on just one setting, that's how good the tone and dynamics are. Regardless of what I use, it gives life to the music. Like someone else said, it just sounds GOOD, period.
Honest to goodness, a 10 is appropriate. I can't think of any way that it could sound better. It would be very hard to go to a different amp if I had to lose this one.

I got it from a bar and grill that had been using it for their car club PA speaker! Once I got the french fries cleaned out of the back and a set of new tubes, it sounded perfect. After all those years and all that abuse, the speakers are flawless, the knobs don't crackle, and I have no complaints.

Haven't needed anything.

I've been playing for about 10 years, I record, and I pay a lot of attention to sound. I've been gradually upgrading my setup from multieffects to real pedals, so the whole signal chain can match up to the quality of this amp.

I love the hugeness of the sound, the clarity, and the natural dynamics when it's cranked. I dislike how much space it takes up, and the fact that you HAVE to crank it up to get some overdrive.
If it had reverb and tremelo, I could die happy.

Nothing compares to the real deal.

The size, sound and tilt back features were perfect for my needs. However, my experience with four (4) of these amps was extremely disapointing...(see my rating of reliability).

The amp sounded very nice when it worked. Not a ton of volume, but a fairly nice tone for a small amp with limited controls.

Dont waste your time on this one!

The size, sound and tilt back features were perfect for my needs. However, I went through 4 of these amps before I gave up. After 2 weeks of light use in my home, I couldnt get any sound out of the amp. I exchanged it for another and the same thing happened. I exchanged that for a third amp and within a week the light on the power switch died. Normally, that would not be a big deal, but in view of the other 2 amps, I started wondering if the store was trying to stick me with factory second or refubished amps, so I went to another store and the Bassman 100 that they had on the floor was completely dead. 3 experienced bass players/salesmen could not get a sound out of it. If nothing else, I knew that the store where I bought the amp was not trying to stick me. to the contrary, they were very aplogetic and cool about exchanging amps.

I made several calls to Fender during this period and they disavowed any knowledge of this amp being problematic. Fortunately for me, the manager of the music and Music and Arts store where I bought the amp was a real stand-up guy and gave me a pretty good deal on an upgrade to a Fender Bassman 150. I have had it for 6 weeks and so far, so good. The 150 is as nice as the other reviewers on this site say it is.

Fender was willing to have the amp fixed under warranty, but I paid for a new amp. Why would I want an amp that a tech had to take apart after only a couple weeks of use. Four goofed-up amps in a row tell me that the Bassman 100 is a dog. But Fender would not fess up to a bad production run, design flaw, or the like.

As previously noted, the manager at the Music and Arts store was all about customer satisfaction and so far, I am happy with my upgrade to the Bassman 150.

This could have been a great little amp, but it is not. And that is truly a shame.

Not many features to talk about. But if you bridge the two pre-amps with a little 6" pedal cable then you get more gain and you control all the knobs at once. Then it has just the right amout of features for me.

By far this is the punchiest amp ive ever heard let alone played. A new set of nice tubes was a godsend. It will cut though everything if you need it to, or send the smooooothest wall of warmth over the crowd.

Ive had mine for 7 years. An old lady gave it to me after her husband died because there was the fattest rat nest in the back of it. I changed the tubes right away after i cleaned the rat crap out and its been as epic as ever. Oh, and the old lady gave me 4 10" celestion speakers, and 2 12" fender speakers all of witch i made cabinets for and use with the 100. Haha, suckers.

Too old.

If you can find an old widow with a broken garage door and her late husband was a bass player you should look for the trail of hay and crap to you hidden treasure.

1972 Fender Bassman 100 4x12 Cab, 4 6L6 Tubes. Silverface, Original Speakers all running perfet no tears or problems.

Awesome. I play bas through it and there is no distortion and sound problems when cranked on 9's across the board. Competes with my guitarist's 2 Marshall 100's and sounds great as the rythem behind the lead. Very Versatile souds with the bass and treble but ur amp should be dialed in and then your guitar to get the perfext sound, which is not hard to find with this amp.

Very Dependable amp and cab. When i first got it i brought it to my Technician for all of my band's equipment and he fixed a bunch of initial problems that i found with it. It now runs cleaner and louder than it used to and it has all the original tubes and speakers in it. The cab is very heavy but what do you expect with a vintage 4x12 massive cabinet anyway? But it hold together very well. THe head itself is one-sided in wieght because of the massive power distributor behind the tubes. But if i dropped it it would hold together and maybe have to replace the tubes...god forbid..

Fender doesn't deal with vintage amps anymore, so speak to local shops and see if they know anyone who is basically a Technician and can fix up ur amp for about 100 bucks. But talking about replacement parts on warrenty, unless ur famous, your not gonna get shit.

I have played this amp for over a year running a Custom shop Jazz through it and i don't want anything else. It is heavy to cart around and looking into cases for the cab and head would be a good idea for gigging. But once you get the thing onto the stage, the sound that comes out is worth the work to get it there. I will probably buy two more of these for my stage rig.

'75 Silver Face, Rated @ 100W RMS with dynamic headroom up to 135W and it meets the specs. Basic Volume, Treble, Mid, Low, Bright/Nora; Switch. This amp makes mincemeat out of many other "Great" and "Awesome" Marshalls, Hartke, and the like. I play Bass and guitar through this amp and both have unequaled tone using a 4x12" Celestion home ade cabinet that looks just like a Fender cab. Bass & Guitar are both played through a 1980's Ibanez PUE 5 Tube Screamer multi function pedal. I use primarily short delay times, moderate reverb, and the Tube Screamer function when playing my SG through it. With this combination, I get every sound I want from Martin Barre of Jethro Tull, to Clapton clean and everything in between.

Sounds tight, warm, clean, vintage and purely a Fender sound. Power and sound even throughout the Volume settings.

It depends how much you beat the crapp out of it,. I don't recommend dropping, tossing, puking on, pissong on, smashing ANY electronic equipment. Mine has never failed me.

Fender is ALWAYS GOOD, Expensive - but good.

1972. I use this mostly for bass. Prefect for my style of playing. Guitar and Bass inputs. I use this amp for big gigs because i use the matching 4 -12" cab which is a pain to lug. Its perfectly loud. Tube bass amps cannot be matched.

This is mostly a clean amp. No effects, stays clean almost all the way to 10. It runs quiet and the bass sounds huge through it. If you play in a three piece this amp is perfect to fill and sound gaps. You can play chords on a bass with no muddy sound. I plugged my SG standard in this thing and the sound could have killed a man.... absolutly huge.

I usually depend on this amp. There were a few times when it started crackling during a gig, but when I switched inputs it was o.k. The amp probably needs a service due to its age. Overall, even when it starts to fail it will still make it through a gig. Its a tube amp, none are perfect.

Online scematics galore, thats all you need. If you have a god amp guy he will know what to do.

I've been playing bass for over 10 years. It took me almost that long to find a bass amp that I like. I gig with this amp or an ampeg rocket bass for smaller gigs. I will never part with either. This thing is really heavy due to the huge transformers for high wattage, but the tone is unmatched.

Well, this is a pretty basic tube amp. It doesn't have effects loops or any of that which is fine by me. It does have two channels each two inputs w/ a master and pre-amp volume. The regular channel has bass, mid and treble EQ and the bass channel only hass bass and trebel. One cool thing is that you can plug into one input of one channel and use a small jumper cable to run from the other input to the other channel thus bridging them and giving you more tonal options and pre-amp gain.

The tone controlls only give you minor shaping, you can't EQ it all over the place for a million different sounds or whater which is just fine w/ me since it just means this sounds good no matter how you set it. It sounds like a Bassman 100 and that's all it aspires to.

It's a hundred watt head from the silverface era. This means it's loud as hell and has tons of headroom. One of these on a 4x12 is loud enough to compete w/ just about anything.

I play a 1972 and 1975. The 1975 has a pre-amp out but the 1982 does not. I could see that coming in handy but I haven't tried it.

I use mine mostly w/ an SG or a G&L ASAT special. It sounds great w/ both. It really lets the character of the guitar come through so w/ the SG it's crisp and biting and w/ the ASAT it's got a smooth, full sound w/ a ton of sustain. The clean sounds on this are great for this reason.

As you crank the pre-amp, it distorts a bit but never gets saturated like you might want for heavy metal. It's a real, nice rock and roll kind of sound--maybe a bit like a Marshall but not so midrangy at all. It sounds even better when you start juicing the power-amp section as well. I tend to like it at eights across the board, which is punishingly loud.

I use a variety off effects that I don't care to get into but I will discuss distortion since you need it to get real saturated sounds out of this beast. Currently, my favorite pedal is a Rat II which sounds great but cuts some low-end if you aren't careful. This thing really takes to pedals well I've used all manner of fuzzes and overdrives and they alway kill. The one thing I've never been able to truly get is that completely scooped Mesa Rectifier sound. If you want that, look for something w/ multiple gain stages in the preamp. The Bassman 100 is somewhat simpler and provides you w/ a more pure tube tone.

Everyone says their amp is a tank including folks w/ flimsy-ass Sovtek Mig-50's and Peavy practice amps but this really is. All Fender amps were handwired until 1982 and the housing is really heavy and sturdy. I've dropped these things about w/ no hassel. Over the years, I've had to replace the tubes a few times and a few other minor maintanance issues but that's just what happens when you run a thirty year-old amp at eights straight across the board for fifteen hours a week at least.

You can still get these under four-hundred bucks and they're a steal. A great loud tube amp that will pay it's dues for anything but nu-metal. It's got a unique sound to boot.

All said before!

This amp has a very warm sound when using a guitar, and a very bright sound when using a bass. None-the-less very well rounded sound. If you use bass I would recommend a sub to accompany your Fender Bassman 100. I play bass and that is what im considering doing.

This amp when I first purchased it was in perfect condition. Some random guy let it sit in his room since he purchased it in the 70's. IT LOOKS BRAND NEW! Owners manual, scimatics an recipte all in the back of the amp from the 70's LOL he didnt even fill out the warranty.

This amp is FN heavy for waht it is, but is reliable. I need to replace the origanal speakers with new ones but still very reliable.

NONE AT ALL ANYMORE FROM FENDER I ASKED

Not quite the best sounding amp i have ever played but pertty damn close. this amp has alot of character and that is what sold it for me. i can deal with the lack of bass. i think it is awsome i can use my bass and switch over to my guitar and not have to change setup's a very unique feature not many amps can do. MUST HAVE IF YOU FIND ONE

not much to it really, volume, bass, mid, treble, and master volume.. pretty simple

i play a warmoth custom jazzmaster and a 1978 les paul custom through digitech whammy>budha wah>turbo tube screamer>modded big muff>blackcat super fuzz>ibanez tube king>seymor duncan pickup booster> several other pedals as well. the amp is desently loud, very warm, and quite dark aswell.. very unique.. i am running 4 sovtek 5881 power tubes instead of the stock 6l6's. sounds good, but doesent cut through the mix very well and i am looking for a replacment as im writing this..

its a fucking tank yo..

n/a this amp is old.. but evan if it were brand new fender is fucking worthless anyways..

this amp has been a very good amp to me for the last 10 years and we have been through alot together.. but i think this thing is truly meant for bass players and im just looking for more in an amp now..

1973 Fender Bassman tube, with the 4x12 cab.
its all been said

I use an old onyx bass through it, but it makes it sound great. i crank it and jam to my hearts content.

its awesome, i have owned mine for 3 years, and it has never died on me. It had been obviously neglected for many years by the time i bought it. but she still runs strong. (i have not changed tubes since i bought it.)

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it is beatiful, it always sounds good. I do have a little trouble with the speakers getting little tears in them due to age and the fact that they are made of cardboard.
I also have problems with a hum or buzz that is present constantly. I think it has something to do with the resistors connecting the on light to the earth. If anyone knows what this is, please email me.