Welcome to the greatest and most exclusive bass club on Talkbass since the Rock Stars Who Use Behringer Amps Club! This is a place to post pics, swap tonal secrets, and discuss the different tones of the greatest low-power bass amps known to man...the Ampeg Portaflexes.
The only qualifications for joining is you must own an Ampeg Fliptop and have a pic you can post so we can ooh and aah over it. Optionally, please tell us a little of the history of your amp(s), any mods you've made, anything special about the speaker, etc. I will make one exception to the Fliptop rule...if anyone owns an Oliver Powerflex bass amp with the motor that raises and lowers the head, you are also permitted to join the club and you are highly encouraged to post a lot of pics.
Here is a pic of my two Fliptops...the first is a 1964 B-15NC that I recently had completely restored by Jess Oliver, the amp's inventor. This thing was a mess when I got it. The previous owner bought it from a guy for $50 because he had dropped it and made a total mess of the power transformer and dented up the chassis pretty badly, and it was rusty and very neglected. The cab was also covered badly in generic black tolex and had some crappy 90's Eminence PA speaker. I bought it for $150 and used the heck out of it for 7 years, and decided to get it restored earlier this year. Jess recovered the cab and dolly and added new hardware, put new grillcloth on it (yes I know it's a little crooked but he IS 81), built a new power transformer, replaced two pots, and cleaned it up as much as possible. I recently bought a 1966 CTS Ampeg custom speaker for it, too, which was a great improvement over the Eminence. It's still not the prettiest B-15N you'll ever see, but it's a Jess Oliver resto and has a nifty little certificate inside! It's amazing how modern it sounds. The cab has a strong upper mid and a warm but tight bottom end, and the CTS has a very strong high end for a 15".
The other one is a 1977 B-15N I bought a month and a half ago from Bass Central. It's in a lot better shape, although it had a broken latch and a pretty dirty grill that I've cleaned up quite a bit. It didn't have a dolly and I bought an early 70's dolly for it from Ebay just to have one, but it doesn't match the tolex of the cab, so if anyone has a dolly with the proper tolex, I'm interested. The speaker is a 1970 CTS, which was apparently switched to Eminence by the time this cab came out. I'm not complaining, though. It's a lot darker than the 66 CTS, and highs past about 2K are non-existent, but the low mids and lows are so great in this cab that you don't care. This has been my main gigging amp since I got it. It's so completely different than anything else I've used in the past, and I'm really digging its ability to pummel its way through a mix as opposed to cutting through like the other cabs I have. I'm also amazed at how I'm able to nail the recorded tones of a lot of the songs we do with this amp. It's by far the amp that people who work with me like the best because it sounds like BASS, so now I try to emulate it in every amp I use.
I'm looking forward to hearing the stories behind your Fliptops as well. There are a lot of us who have them on here, so let's all get together and gloat!
EDIT: Geez, that's a bad pic...I'll try to replace it with a better one tomorrow when I can take them out in the light.
SECOND EDIT: Anyone with an Ampeg Bassamp from 1960 or before is also eligible for the club.
The only qualifications for joining is you must own an Ampeg Fliptop and have a pic you can post so we can ooh and aah over it. Optionally, please tell us a little of the history of your amp(s), any mods you've made, anything special about the speaker, etc. I will make one exception to the Fliptop rule...if anyone owns an Oliver Powerflex bass amp with the motor that raises and lowers the head, you are also permitted to join the club and you are highly encouraged to post a lot of pics.
Here is a pic of my two Fliptops...the first is a 1964 B-15NC that I recently had completely restored by Jess Oliver, the amp's inventor. This thing was a mess when I got it. The previous owner bought it from a guy for $50 because he had dropped it and made a total mess of the power transformer and dented up the chassis pretty badly, and it was rusty and very neglected. The cab was also covered badly in generic black tolex and had some crappy 90's Eminence PA speaker. I bought it for $150 and used the heck out of it for 7 years, and decided to get it restored earlier this year. Jess recovered the cab and dolly and added new hardware, put new grillcloth on it (yes I know it's a little crooked but he IS 81), built a new power transformer, replaced two pots, and cleaned it up as much as possible. I recently bought a 1966 CTS Ampeg custom speaker for it, too, which was a great improvement over the Eminence. It's still not the prettiest B-15N you'll ever see, but it's a Jess Oliver resto and has a nifty little certificate inside! It's amazing how modern it sounds. The cab has a strong upper mid and a warm but tight bottom end, and the CTS has a very strong high end for a 15".
The other one is a 1977 B-15N I bought a month and a half ago from Bass Central. It's in a lot better shape, although it had a broken latch and a pretty dirty grill that I've cleaned up quite a bit. It didn't have a dolly and I bought an early 70's dolly for it from Ebay just to have one, but it doesn't match the tolex of the cab, so if anyone has a dolly with the proper tolex, I'm interested. The speaker is a 1970 CTS, which was apparently switched to Eminence by the time this cab came out. I'm not complaining, though. It's a lot darker than the 66 CTS, and highs past about 2K are non-existent, but the low mids and lows are so great in this cab that you don't care. This has been my main gigging amp since I got it. It's so completely different than anything else I've used in the past, and I'm really digging its ability to pummel its way through a mix as opposed to cutting through like the other cabs I have. I'm also amazed at how I'm able to nail the recorded tones of a lot of the songs we do with this amp. It's by far the amp that people who work with me like the best because it sounds like BASS, so now I try to emulate it in every amp I use.
I'm looking forward to hearing the stories behind your Fliptops as well. There are a lot of us who have them on here, so let's all get together and gloat!
EDIT: Geez, that's a bad pic...I'll try to replace it with a better one tomorrow when I can take them out in the light.
SECOND EDIT: Anyone with an Ampeg Bassamp from 1960 or before is also eligible for the club.
