# traynor amps sound like mud



## a Pack of Wolves (Sep 5, 2007)

okay let me explain

i'm a fan of the new traynor stuff 
(say the guitar tube combos from last few years)



i know these things last forever,
i've owned a few of them myself
but 
generally speaking i find the old tube models are often muddy sounding to my ears 

i know they are really luved by young cats who are into arty college rock stuff
and old timers who remember them fondly

i'm just missing something about the 
'cult of late 60's/early 70's traynor' i guess

is it just a matter of crummy tubes or the speakers or what?

i am way of base here?

opinions please...

-example-
recently i played a 100 watt guitarmate (maybe a bassmate)
through it's cabinet (2 by 15),
not only was the volume totally unmanagable
but it was a giant wall of mud.

i put the head through a marshall (4 by 12) and it was still mudcity.

the amp was serviced/cleaned and retubed by amp's plus (in k.w.) recently
so it's all running sweetly on the tech side of things.

i just don't know y'all.

______________________________________________________
i'll admit i've gotten into amps 30 watts and lower in the past little while,
so i maybe biased.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Retubed with what? Cheap Sovteks?


In any case....

The old Traynor combos were loaded with Marslands. Few people like them, most replace them when they get a vintage Traynor. I heard these speakers being described as muddy and dark.

The tubes maybe be too old or just bad, too. The capacitors could also need to be replaced.


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## a Pack of Wolves (Sep 5, 2007)

you maybe right about the speakers...

a guy i know was using an acoustic brand solid state 130 watt guitar head (maybe a p.a. head) through a traynor 8 by 10 bass cab,for guitar tuned down to B (like fripp's new standard tuning)

it was bowl moving /window breaking mud 

you could feel the air move but there wasn't any pleasure to be found in the tone
for me.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

Never ever heard of a 100 watt Guitarmate or BassMate!

That would be like finding a 7 string '59 Les Paul!

+1 on the old Marsland speakers. A new Eminence or old Celestion does wonders.

:food-smiley-004:


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

The 100 watt Traynor may have been a Bassmaster Mark II (90 watts out of two EL 34s). If it was, these amps are hardly muddy; in fact they are often too bright. My guess is the tubes are dead or are supper cheap new manufactured tubes; a lot of new cheap EL 34s will not handle this massive amp.

Yes, Marsland speakers often leave lots to be desired but it really sounds like the amp you played was not working correctly.

OTOH, feel free to bash Traynors all over the net; that way the price man remain sane!

TG


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

traynor_garnet said:


> The 100 watt Traynor may have been a Bassmaster Mark II (90 watts out of two EL 34s). If it was, these amps are hardly muddy; in fact they are often too bright. My guess is the tubes are dead or are supper cheap new manufactured tubes; a lot of new cheap EL 34s will not handle this massive amp.
> 
> Yes, Marsland speakers often leave lots to be desired but it really sounds like the amp you played was not working correctly.
> 
> ...


Yeah, they still are a great deal cheaper than their Fender equivalent, but their go for almost 50% more on eBay than they did 6 months ago.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

a Pack of Wolves said:


> you maybe right about the speakers...
> 
> a guy i know was using an acoustic brand solid state 130 watt guitar head (maybe a p.a. head) through a traynor 8 by 10 bass cab,for guitar tuned down to B (like fripp's new standard tuning)
> 
> ...


Tuned down to B, huh? That could be part of the problem! Were you playing in that low tuning through the Traynor?

Lead guitar tube amps can often have problems with lower than standard tunings. The reason is that a tube amplifier that's going to handle those lower frequencies must have a larger and heavier output transformer. Physics says that that's just the way it is! If you compare a lead guitar amp with a PA or bass amp of similar output power you'll quickly see that the OT is about a third beefier. That's a lot!

Easy comparison would be between an Ampeg V4 and it's cousin, the V4B bass head.

I get this all the time. Somebody will phone up complaining that his SLO 100 sounds muddy. I always ask and sure enough he's playing full tilt boogie in open C or something where his strings are so loose they're threatening to fall off.

So it's not the amp. It's being asked to do something outside of its design parameters.

I once modded an old Traynor Custom Special for a nephew in a shredder band. This was a bigass BASS amp of over 100 watts of tubes. Actually, when it was first introduced it was the loudest bass amp ever invented, thanks to Pete Traynor. Among other things, I ripped out the preamp section and grafted in one like a JCM800.

This amp was NOT muddy! The first night my nephew played with it at a club I came out to see how it would sound. I especially wanted to compare it with the other guitar player's sound. He had a Booger Dual Rectifier and my nephew had been using an old SF Fender Bassman I had blackfaced for him. The Booger had always drowned my nephew out.

They had barely finished the first song and the Boogie guy was whining! "You're too loud! We're out of balance! You have to turn down 'cuz you're drowning me out! We're out of balance!"

He had never complained about balance when the shoe was on the other foot!

I laughed my butt off!

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure that's your problem. You need to compare apples and apples.

:food-smiley-004:


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Good story Bill! It's fuuny this discussion has come up. I worked at The Ottawa Bluefest this summer and Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar fame was playing one night. The amps he was using you ask? Two ampeg SVT heads and two 8X10 cabs. It sounded incredible and really LOUD. Those amps have so much range....all to say: want big deep and clear tone? Go for a big OT and 6550's if you can:smile:


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## a Pack of Wolves (Sep 5, 2007)

i wasn't trying to say it isn't a brand of well made products because they clearly are

i think their newer tube combos are really killer for the price.

i can't say that i'm actually right or trying to brand them as crummy.

i've owned a few different models and had very reasonable use from them.

it's just that after say 20 years of playing guitar,
i think i've only within the past few years started developing my taste for what i dig in 'tone'.

i just haven't found an older traynor that has blown my over tonally.


i'm just wondering if there is overly warm feelings about 'em
because we all had them when we were kids. 
now we're grown ups who can afford gear, we want we go to what we know.

-also not sure about model names or types in my first post-


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## Adicted to Tubes (Mar 5, 2006)

As wild bill will probably attest to,most old Traynors have been around the block.They need servicing and those awful marsland speakers need to be turfed.although some came with RSC speakers which were great.
And the low-tuned crowd needs the mids scouped out and the gain turned up.When you do that however,the bass is often way too much and it needs to be turned down.And then there's the silly volumes these guys play at.
The 100 watt,4 tube Traynors were the Mark 3's and they were just Traynors' version of the Twin Reverb.There are more examples.
Those 15" speakers are definitely not for scouped mid thrashing.
Many Traynors were just like Plexi's and 2204's with master volumes.
The later Traynor's were not as nice sounding as the early Pete Traynor built ones.The assembly line had lots of yo-yo's working there.


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## NB-SK (Jul 28, 2007)

Adicted to Tubes said:


> As wild bill will probably attest to,most old Traynors have been around the block.They need servicing and those awful marsland speakers need to be turfed.although some came with RSC speakers which were great.
> And the low-tuned crowd needs the mids scouped out and the gain turned up.When you do that however,the bass is often way too much and it needs to be turned down.And then there's the silly volumes these guys play at.
> *The 100 watt,4 tube Traynors were the Mark 3's and they were just Traynors' version of the Twin Reverb.There are more examples.
> Those 15" speakers are definitely not for scouped mid thrashing.*
> ...



The Mark 3 combo is a 2x12. I should know, I got one in my bedroom (in Canada, halfway around the world. :frown: ).



Oh, and Wild Bill... I bet you must be his favorite uncle. Any chance we could be related?


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## Adicted to Tubes (Mar 5, 2006)

Yes,they did make a 2-12 mark 3,but they also made a head version.The original poster said he played through a 2-15" CABINET.
I bet your 2-12 sounds great.


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## LPBlue (Feb 2, 2006)

This thread takes me way back, to the late 60s/early 70s and we all complained about the same "muddy" tone of the Traynor amps. Had our brains been as full back then as they are now we would have realised the shortcomings of the Marsland speakers and not blamed the amps. Every kid (present company included) in Toronto in a band back then absolutely had a "Traynor Era" because that was what you used while you were saving up for that Marshall:bow: or the odd Fender:wink:, c'mon admit it the rest of you old guys! The amps Pete Traynor built have always been great but at the time some of us were too young and "iggernent" to figure it out and as a result they got cast off and unjustly ignored for quite a few too many years

These days I use my Fender/Marshall/Mesa amps mostly through my 1973 top 'n bottom cabs with the original G12M 25w greenbacks, still going strong after all these years and it is the sound I was looking for back then and I still have it:food-smiley-004: One day if I can find a nice old Bassmaster or Custom Special that I can afford to buy, I can have a place to go where I can use the Marshall speakers and be 15 again for a little while when I want to. Oh yeah!

J.R.


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## Nemo (Oct 18, 2007)

*Just the opposite!*

This thread takes me way back too! In the first band I was in, I had a Custom Reverb and a 2x12 cab with the 'whizzer' cone speakers, and I thought the sound was too buzzy with not enough bottom end. Couldn't wait to get rid of it for a Marshall stack  Can't complain tho, it was the reason (mostly) that it was my first band :tongue: (I had a YGM-1 before that, and it wasn't cool enough.)


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