Music Man 65 Head

It is pretty basic - a lot like a fender in its own distinct way. I just traded my Sovtek tube midget with this sixty five. It is one of the early versions. I had to take it to a guitar-tech immediately due to a bad tube job that the the previous owner did himself. I haven't heard it with the new resistors, but the reason why I post this review is because of the curious fact that people think it is an all tube amp. It isn't as earlier posted - even the early models had a solid state preamp. It is a reverse hybrid.

Standard features. The Hi Lo power settings are nice and WAY ahead of their time. You can basically make this into a 30 watt head at the flip of a switch. A stand by switch would be nice so I gave it an 8.

Excellent for Blues players. Fender clean and sparkle without the mud. Everything sounds like it should. Clear highs, smooth mids, punchy bass. I do recommend using a smooth speaker with this head... like a Greenback or a G12h30. It can sound a little harsh at times when playing alone, but at the same time, this is what cuts through the mix when jamming with others.
Every amp I own has some weak spot. Orange - thin bottom end. Fender - sound can get muddy. Dr. Z - has the papery sound at low volumes. Super Reverb - dark sounding. This amp has ALL the bases covered. However, this is not a metal amp unless you want to add pedals.
If you get your hands on one of these and it doesn't sound right, replace the caps and tubes.

Legendary reliability. You can get replacement transformers from Mojo and hardware from Ernie Ball, if you need them.

None.

I still wish they made these amps. If people could get over the solid state preamp and just listen to how good these amps sound, these would be going for $1000.00. Oh well. We'll just keep it one of the best secrets in the Music World.

Hybrid amp: solid state preamp, two EL34 tubes. Two channels (bass and normal), two inputs per channel (hi and low), 65 watts, 8 or 4 ohm switch, two "bright" and one "deep" switches, Hi and LOW power selector (tip: use the low one, it sounds better and keep your tubes living longer). You don't need anymore. Hi-gainers and metal monsters, BEWARE! this amp is not for you. I'd wish it with a nice Accutronics reverb, but i get it from my Boss, so no problem at all. I'd like the Stand-by to be in the front instead of the back, but i can live with it.
I mainly play a blend of 70's pop, 80's synth music and 90's indie and it suits all my needs in studio and on stage.

Everybody is talking about how good is sounds with Teles and Stratos in clean mode, so here i go: I use it with a great pre-lawsuit '74 Ibanez ES-345 Custom (built using the best pieces from three different guitars/same model from that era, pickups are humbucker Ibanez/Maxon Super 70's!!!) thru an Ibanez TK999 (japanese version, not U.S.) Tube King (treble at 0, middle at 7 and bass at 4), i love old Ibanez stuff, as you can see. I use to add a very little reverb with my Boss RV-5 to give it that "roomy" feel.

The sound is really AWESOME! i've tried lots of amps: Orange (ad), Marshall (jcm 800 and 900), Fender (twin reverb, deluxe, super reverb, deville...), Hiwatt (super lead), vox (ac-30) and this amp BEATS them all. The sound is very crunchy and tight, i play it with the bright switch off, bass at 4, middle at 8 and treble at 6 using a single Fender standard 12" cabinet. I've tried it with a 70's 4x12 Sinmarc cabinet and never heard this punch in any other amp in the world. It is so noiseless so you can use it in studio withou a problem.

Clean sounds, as you can read in the other reviews is great too. I've used it with a Rick 4001 and a 15" Celestion cabinet and sounds amazing too.

Built like a tank, so solid, i've been using it for FOUR years and i've spent literally hours hitting it to eliminate a strange hiss (some kind of annyoning "rainy" sound) so i ended opening it with a screwdriver and found that there was a chip on the board with dirty contacts (amp is more than thirty years old so i can't complain). I've removed it from the socket, cleaned it and... voil??, noise has gone forever. Very solid, and even lighter than you can think at the first sight.

Sadly, Music Man stopped making these amps in the late 70's. Now they are into Cyber-Twin and weird re-editions... SO SO sad.

Get one if you can is a MUST, and should be included in every vintage amp book of the world. It deserves it!

mid to late 70's, we play power pop/ groove (xtc)..I run it into a POD 2.0 awesome!

One of the best clean tones Ive ever heard. When we play big shows I will buy a good mic to put on it.. They'll be like what? no big cabinet?

No, not yet but the tubes arent very expensive so no big deal...

They are very helpful...

No complaints, of it were stolen I would really be sad, and buy another one then.

USA made Seventies Something, With good outboard reverb you are good to go pro. I gig regularly, Classic Country, Southern Rock etc. If you are considering this amp, you know it dont have a ton of features but it does have a ton of tone options ie. bright, deep, to very deep. If backline volume makes your live mix muddy? Who wants huge power. Sixty Five watts is enough rouse the neighbors. Solid State Pre amp, very well made, Tube output. This amp flat takes pedals well. I discovered an Alesis Midiverb 4 gives the sweetes reverb and other time delay FX you could want. Do not care for the tone with the Floor Pod.

Think Fender Twin kind of clean with less chance of the 12 ax 7s going harmonic and messing with the sound. This head is more geared for classic and vintage sound buffs, not the "High Gain Eighties Rocker" although, Mark Knophler uses one. It sounds best (so far) with P 90s, Tele Single Coils, Humbuckers, in that order. (just personal taste here)
very quiet amp, very warm.

Hey, its bullet proof. Main Board System is my "Backup"

Yeah right, Leo's Dead and Earnie Aint talking bout MM amps these days.

thirty Plus years. Getting paid only the last three or four.
If stolen, I would retire from my day job and make like Charles Bronson for a season or so it would take to find it. I have several vintage amps and recent Hot Rod DeVille (which is bargain tone by the way). This one is better when coupled with the Alesis Midiverb 4. Someday I may spring (no pun) for a Fender Spring Reverb Unit. (400 bucks ouch).

I might add, I play this head through a Music Man 18" cab beats the heck out of four twelve set up, not flabby but my oh my what bottom end.

I'm submitting this review solely to make sure people understand that the model with a 12AX7 is not using that tube for preamp purposes. The preamp has always been solid state. Initially they used a 12AX7 as a phase splitter. In the reviews below that talk about their amp having a tube preamp, they are incorrect. Many have made this mistake. The 12AX7 is not a preamp tube, it's a phase splitter (or phase inverter). The preamp is solid state.

Music Man amps, if well maintained, are excellent amps. Their idea to use a solid state preamp and tube power amp is a good one, and it works way better than the modern hybrids which use a tube preamp and solid state power amp. I own 5 Music Man amps. I've owned every other amp that history finds noteworthy. Music Man beats them all.

Surprisingly, the low power setting (takes it down from around 1000 volts to around 500 volts of plate current) sounds best for clean and dirty.

MIGHT, i stress MIGHT need a cap job. Other than that, throw it through a brick wall and it'll work fine.

N/A

This website and the musicmanamps website is the best you're gonna get.

Particularly if you don't mind using pedals for your "bells and whistles", this is the best guitar amp there is. Try it through a 15" speaker and you'll never look back.

I've not heard the model with reverb.

1974-77 EL34 tubes 65watts RMS, tube phase inverter so its an older one, one channel, basic "tone stack" controls (low, mid, high), 4 inputs: 2 guitar 2 bass (which can be handy if you want to jam with some one else on the same amp, master volume 4, 8 ohm speaker selection. i lucked out and got one that wasn't used very much over the years..

i use a '75 guild s-100 with stock pickups (rock!) and a modified (for the better) kramer pacer with a EMG 81 in the bridge. its a very quiet amp, it has a VERY good clean tone (its this amps best point), and has a great classic overdrive tone kind of 60's/70's esque, but it isn't over the top. its from the 70's so its not a high gain amp. JJ EL34L tubes kind of make this amp achieve its best, due to the extended lowend, and extra headroom. but the real secret to making this amp sound its best and to reduce possible hum is first, replacing the signal path capacitors (the flat rectangular caps on the main board (usually yellow, and yes the .1MFD 250v IS .1uf 250v, if your wondering..), and the orange-drop (usually brown) caps on the driver board, (the board in between the tubes and the rectifier board in the corner by the power cord.) and elsewhere inside the chassis. the reason behind this is, over time, (after about 20yrs or so) capacitors degrade, so the signal becomes muddy, and not as clear sounding as it once was back in the day. and to keep the transformer and other components from a possible meltdown, replace the metal electrolytic caps (the voltage/power movers, current smoothers/60 cycle hum removers.), because like the signal path caps, they tend to degrade and have a tendency to go after time, not good. especially the ones around the bias trimpot if one of thoughts go, you could be rewinding a transformer that hasn't been made in a LONG time, and that can get VERY expensive.(and don't forget the big ones under the metal cover on the underside of the amp!) all this is basically preventative maintenance that i did, on my amp it wasn't that bad because it wasn't used that much, but after all this time, that can be bittersweet because signal caps seem to degrade faster without use, then someone using it everyday. but it saves on wear and tear of other components in the amp, like resistors, diodes etc. just make sure to look out for discolored components, and if in doubt, check them with a multimeter tester to make sure they still are within designated value in the ohm setting (usually within 5-10% for carbon resistors, look through the allaboutcircuits site for instructions on meter checking diodes, semiconductor > diode and rectifier section, and to find the value of the resistor in question, type it in here: http://www.electrician.com/resist_calc/resist_calc.htm), all in all, i think it would be best to get these components replaced asap no matter what condition your amp may be in, due to the vintage of this amp.. it because i didn't want to guess how much time i had left before one or more of the electro caps wanted to give out. and plus, i can't say the tone was very clear, or the amp sounded that good prior :\ if your wondering what brands to replace the caps with, for the electrolytics, sprauge atom's are the way to go, there just about the best current production power caps you can get. as for the signal path, roederstein's polyester sound great (both you can get from mouser.com). good brands include mallory, sprauge, roedersteins, possibly more, its best to research and ask places like diy audio forums (diyaudio.com), about quality of brands, if your in doubt. (try to stay in good brands because they tend to sound better and have a consistent production quality, and each cap manufacturer can have its own affect on tone, depending on how much the circuit depends on the caps, and other variables like construction material: polypropylene, film and foil, etc. the polyester roedersteins seem to sound great (and is what i put in mine), as far as original tone is concerned.).. as far as availability is concerned, go for the roedersteins, they have all the values.. but, heres a heads up for newbies, like i once was!! if you do the job yourself you have to solder the caps to some tinned jumper wire (component wire) because the leads on the roedersteins aren't long enough, (accept for the .47ufs) i just "piggy-bac

i think i can depend on it, soundgarden did for quite a few years, as did sevral other pro players (newest being i think tom morello of audioslave) i think i could gig it without a back up, i would just bring extra fuses and a extra set of tubes.. the construction is very solid, the relaibility can be greatly increased with the cap job.

the company is long gone, but there is a good site to maybe answer some questions, www.musicmanamps.com it has a great message board. :)

i've been playing for 4, i own a guild s-100 from the 70's and a overseas kramer pacer, if it were stolen or lost i would probally end up getting a peavey VTM 120, but i'm not sure, i love the cleans and over drive, can't say i hate anything about it, its a well built amp. i guess i've kind of compared it, i chose it because i heard the tone soundgarden was getting back in the early 80's when kim thayil was using it, and i fell in love, i kind of wish it had a little bit more gain, but i can't complain. thats why i'm gonna get a peavey VTM, because i also love the tones soundgarden got from the VTM around the badmotorfinger era. the #1 reason i baught this amp is because of the price, and the great sound it puts out (same applies to the VTM 120) you can't beat the sound to money ratio, even though it doesn't have channel switching, heck, for the money you save you can buy another head and use an a/b box! endless possibilities..

Not sure on the exact year, but it is all tube (that places it in the mid 70s). Extremely versatile amp, I found it in a closet at a local middle school and they gave it to me. It was used as a small PA for keyboard and mic for the jazz band there. I belive it has 4 channels (2 inputs each for guitar and bass). No FX loop or headphone jack, but who wants to play this amp quietly?? I am a bass player, and have been running biamped with this and a carvin pb100-15. Through a single 15" this amp cooks! If you flip the impedance switch and use two 15"s, it is almost unbearable to stand in front of. It has a main spkr jack and an ext. jack as well. Has standby and impedance switches. Great overdrive tones for my rock band!

I use this mainly biamped(as mentioned above), with a Carvin B5 bass. Usually use a chorus pedal, volume pedal, and a multieffect for tuner and gain boost. This amp sounds great clean, very warm and musical. I almost exclusively use it for hard rock playing, so I rarely see the mellow side. Great variety in sounds, can go from mellow and sweet to evil and crunchy.

I found this amp(and matching cab) in the basement of my middle school when I was in 8th grade I think. To my knowledge it has never been serviced or had anything done to it. I have had it for almost 6 years now and have never done anything apart from clean it. It has never broken down, and is a very reliable gig amp. In fact, I used it by itself at a gig because I forgot my carvin's power cable!

no customer service because the company no longer exists. Ernie Ball uses the name to reissue stuff, but there is no support for the vintage amps.

This is my favorite amp out of all Ive played through, and it was free! (thanks band director!) If it was taken or anything I would hunt the person down....you get the picture. I would find another one if possible. The only gripe I have is the weight, but since its all tube I cant do anything about that! I wish it had a direct out so I could record with it, but overall I am EXTREMELY satisified.

The Music Man 65 was made between 1974 and 1979. Between 1974 and 1977, the amps had a tube driven preamp. After 1977 the preamp was solid state. I believe that all models had tube driven power amps. The model I am reviewing has a tube driven preamp, so it was made between 1974 and 1977. The preamp is driven with a 12AX7A and the power amp has two EL34's.

This amp is very versitile. Very good cleans and distortions. However, it has only one channel per input (2 inputs-guitar and bass), so you can't switch between clean and distorted without turning the knobs.

The amp comes with plenty of power to drive my 4x12 (Peavey) cabinet pretty hard. I haven't played out with it, just jammed, but I'm sure it would kick hard in a gig.

Unfortuanately, this amp doesn't come with any other features such as reverb, headphone output, or line out. But the tone makes up for that.

I use a Fender Standard Stratocaster with the pickups it came with. The Music Man 65 compliments the strat so well. I will play this amp before I play any solid state amp.

The amp suits my music styles well. I play mostly classic rock and a little bit of metal. It's best for the tube overdrive sounds desired for classic rock. There is a lot of versitility in the dirstorion amount. It can go from clean to gritty to overdrive to just about in-your-face. However, I wouldn't recomend this amp if your playing style is all metal. In that case, get a solid state.

I have not had a problem with noise with this amp. The cleans are very clean even at high volumes.

The variety of tones from this amp are infinite. You can go from the deepest lows to the highest highs. I can't get over how far out the limits of frequencies are for this amp. In the clean mode, I can get the most golden, genuine sound out of my strat. Very nice.

Since the amp is pretty old, I don't think I'd take this out without a backup. Soon after I got the amp I took it in to have the tube current regulated. The repair guys found that my output transformer (the transformer between the tubes and the speakers) had a short on the primary side. This was due to corosion which is inevitable with age. Finding an exact replacement for the transformer is next to impossible, and rewinding the transformer is very expensive. Luckilly, the repair man was able to put a 2-ohm Fender Super Reverb output transformer so that I could run at 4 ohms. The 2-ohm transformer was used because Music Man takes the voltage on the tubes a lot higher (~700 V) than most other amps (~420 V).

The electronics in the amp are very simple and otherwise reliable, so I don't anticipate many future problems.

Music Man as it was back in the day is no longer.

I have been playing guitar long enough to know what a good amp sounds like.

If I no longer had this amp, I would try to replace it, but it would be difficult to find. If I couldn't find a replacement, I would definitely get something that sounds very similar to the Music Man.

I love the tone of this amp the most. You won't be able to get it in any amp built today. They just don't make them like they used to.

The only thing that really concerns me is the fact that it's old and that it may poop out. But any old amp will have that problem. Further, compared to amps made today, this amp is quite easy to diagnose and fix.

I totally recomend Music Man tube amps, especially the Music Man 65. If you find one, get it.

Pobably a later model, like a '76 or '77 because it has a solid state preamp with two 6ca7's for the juice. The earlier models had a 12ax7 reamp. Pretty straight ahead controls...has a "low" setting so you can really crank this sucker and not peel paint. No reverb or tremolo, but any high quality 'verb unit will do the trick. I use a boss rv3 and it sounds great. I like simplicity.

Badass. Loud and clean. I run it through a fender 1x12 cab and it sounds awsome. I used to have a fender 4x12 and I could blow the doors of the joint. Any guitar sounds good through this amp. Slap a tube screamer on your line and you got about the most organic sounding overdrive you can imagine. I even play saxophone with effects through this amp and it sounds good.

Built like a tank. Leo Fender made these amps after he sold Fender and these amps were made better than any Fender amp at the time. 6ca7 tubes are hard to come by so you have to use EL34's, but you have to get the amp bias adjusted. I still have the original tubes and they still cook. Other than forseeing tube replacement, nothing wrong with the durability of these amps.

Music MAn is no more, but any competent tube amp tech can servive these amps. THey are very simoilar to fender amps.