This amp is a bit of a classic from my hometown, Brisbane. Vase Trendsetters were very common back in the day, and many are still floating around. If you couldn't afford a Marshall, there was a good chance that you had a Vase.
They were mostly fairly simple amps, and pretty well made - I'd say they were all designed for working musicians, as I'm not aware of any budget low-wattage combos being produced. I've only ever seen Vase heads and cabs.
VASE TRENDSETTER 60
This amp has already been very well docuemented here on on Aussie Guitar Gear Heads (thanks Mike), but as a recent acquisition, I thought I should add it to my blog anyway.
It’s working well and sounds great, but it needs a bit of attention to the wiring where the old spaghetti insulation has crumbled away.
Photos to be added as I commence work.
SCHEMATIC
Excellent trace by Mike - so good to have all of the voltages etc on hand like this. Vase are also known for a lot of minor variations on their amps - so if you have a Trendsetter, this is probably a really useful guide, but don't be too concerned about little differences, as it may have left the workshop that way.
FURTHER READING
https://ozvalveamps.org/vase.htm
https://guitarnerd.com.au/2010/10/vase-amplifiers/
https://reverb.com/news/a-history-of-brisbanes-vase-amplifiers
4 comments:
I have a 1970 Stramp 2100a as used by Leslie West. It’s a 1959 Marshall clone. Schematic dates from 1969. Not much video on it on the web. I should make some
Hey - it's good to document these little known amps before they're lost in time. I've never heard of Stramp until now.
I could still see it in second-hand musical instrument stores in the 2000s – very nostalgic. I took a look at the circuit diagram and noticed that the input impedance of this amplifier is designed to be quite low. Is that considered a 'problem'?
Hi Ding – yes, it is a low-impedance input compared with the more common 1M input. By modern standards, it’s not ideal.
I don’t know what the designer’s intention was, but this sort of thing isn’t unusual in the Vase amps I’ve seen. Sometimes they used a different impedance on each input.
That said, I doubt most people would plug into the amp and immediately think there was something wrong with it. It still sounds good. I'm not going to change it.
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