NAD 1966 Dual Showman.

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Markedman

Markedman

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Those who know, this is the sound that you hear when you listen to the radio. The amplifier sold for $900.00+ in 1966 when new, although it came with a 2X15 cabinet which comes up for sale frequently also on cl, many times with the original speakers for cheap. I have many cabinets that I will try out.
I was in the market for a mini head and almost pulled the trigger on a small Marshal when I thought to myself, I already have two great high gain heads, so maybe I should look in the other direction.
1966 Fender Dual Showman by John Bazzano, on Flickr
Amp cl ad by John Bazzano, on Flickr
 
Nice! I bet that thing sounds glorious!
 
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Good deal there. Little combos are all the rage these days so it’s a good time to find stuff like this. If those tubes are still good it’s an even better score.
 
Markedman said:
Those who know, this is the sound that you hear when you listen to the radio. The amplifier sold for $900.00+ in 1966 when new, although it came with a 2X15 cabinet which comes up for sale frequently also on cl, many times with the original speakers for cheap. I have many cabinets that I will try out.
I was in the market for a mini head and almost pulled the trigger on a small Marshal when I thought to myself, I already have two great high gain heads, so maybe I should look in the other direction.
1966 Fender Dual Showman by John Bazzano, on Flickr
Amp cl ad by John Bazzano, on Flickr
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So jealous
 
Holy crap, just read they are 126lbs. Some pedals could sound pretty epic into that thing. If you like the core sound you can mod one side and leave the other alone.
 
It’s not 126 pounds, more like 30. Great tubes ?? clean sound all the way up to 10, it just gets louder. Most of the cabinets I played through sounded great but the overall winner was a 2 x 12 half-open back with Celestion GT 75s.
 
Markedman said:
It’s not 126 pounds, more like 30. Great tubes ?? clean sound all the way up to 10, it just gets louder. Most of the cabinets I played through sounded great but the overall winner was a 2 x 12 half-open back with Celestion GT 75s.
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I got it off this site vintage guitar and bass but I think they were including the weight of the 2x15 cab without saying so.

“Fender 1965/1966 guitar catalogue. Page 6. Details of the Fender Dual Showman, Showman, Twin/Reverb and Super/Reverb amplifiers. The Dual Showman was a particularly impressive amplifier, the biggest, heaviest and most expensive amp in the Fender line at the time, weighing 126 lbs and listed at a whopping $915! The Dual Showman and two Showman models were equipped with high-end J.B. Lansing speakers.”
 
Markedman said:
It’s not 126 pounds, more like 30. Great tubes ?? clean sound all the way up to 10, it just gets louder. Most of the cabinets I played through sounded great but the overall winner was a 2 x 12 half-open back with Celestion GT 75s.
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Congrats! I've had my Poppop's ol bf Dual Showman with matching big 2x15 cab since I can remember. Loves V30s. Takes pedals pretty good. Break it out every once in a while to mess with. Made this last time I did, just a bunch of ideas using different pedals:
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14277329
 
So after trying a half a dozen different cabinets and getting settled in to the channels and the EQ, I started to want to play high gain with the amp. ?

The normal channel has treble and bass knobs, when I turn them both all the way down there is still sound. The second channel, or tremolo channel, has treble, mid and bass, if I turn those all the way down, there is no sound coming from the amp. Very interesting.

I haven’t used a distortion pedal ever since I bought a boogie amp, which was about 10 years ago. I had had many high gain amps, but they all fizzed out and got sloppy when I got the distortion up to the level I want to play at. Boogie was the first one that I could turn the gain up to eight or nine and it still had the bight and everything that I love about a guitar in it. Boogie’s are also the first amp that I didn’t turn on the gain to ten then use a boost or distortion pedal along with it to put it into the tone I was hearing in my head.

There is an impressive array of choices for distortion pedals. I’ll start watching some videos and check in on previous posts to see what might work the best, just for the fuck of it I will hook up my mesa quad preamp and go straight in the input from the send of the effects loop on the quad preamp.

Part of me says I must be ? to have bought the amp because all I play is high gain music. But there is something about these old fenders that just can’t be replicated by modern amp builders.

It’s all in the parts. Those wonderful old American made parts.
 
Markedman said:
So after trying a half a dozen different cabinets and getting settled in to the channels and the EQ, I started to want to play high gain with the amp. ?

The normal channel has treble and bass knobs, when I turn them both all the way down there is still sound. The second channel, or tremolo channel, has treble, mid and bass, if I turn those all the way down, there is no sound coming from the amp. Very interesting.

I haven’t used a distortion pedal ever since I bought a boogie amp, which was about 10 years ago. I had had many high gain amps, but they all fizzed out and got sloppy when I got the distortion up to the level I want to play at. Boogie was the first one that I could turn the gain up to eight or nine and it still had the bight and everything that I love about a guitar in it. Boogie’s are also the first amp that I didn’t turn on the gain to ten then use a boost or distortion pedal along with it to put it into the tone I was hearing in my head.

There is an impressive array of choices for distortion pedals. I’ll start watching some videos and check in on previous posts to see what might work the best, just for the fuck of it I will hook up my mesa quad preamp and go straight in the input from the send of the effects loop on the quad preamp.

Part of me says I must be ? to have bought the amp because all I play is high gain music. But there is something about these old fenders that just can’t be replicated by modern amp builders.

It’s all in the parts. Those wonderful old American made parts.
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Just hit it with a Tubescreamer and crank it up.
 
I'm not very much on pristine cleans, I always want at least a hint of grind. But those old Fenders are really nice clean-machines. Nice score!
 
I swear those old fenders, especially the ones with a switchable bright cap, are some of the finest pedal platforms I’ve ever heard. I bet that thing sounds huge.

My bassman takes MIAB pedals unlike any other amp. Oddly, it has a ton of midrange push and grunt that really comes to life when a gain pedal is thrown at it
 
japetus said:
Just hit it with a Tubescreamer and crank it up.
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The DS is a different beast than your Bassman. No dirt to be had here. It needs a real distortion pedal for the high gain.
I have a few straight up distortion pedals. Analogman DS-1 with mid knob, Okko Diablo and Steel Panther's Butthole Burner.
The Okko is like a hot JCM, DS-1 is like, well Nirvana. The BB sounds like this into a clean Fender:




On the Dual Showman, I like going into the normal channel, brite off, then jump into the vibrato channel with brite on, kind of use it as brightener to the main tone. Normal channel punches harder, sounds better, imo. Have fun!
 
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I got to try the Walrus Audio Eras Distortion pedal into a Fender clone combo a few months back. Pretty impressive for heavy tones on amp that couldn’t really get dirty. A classic combo is a Rat into a Fender as well.
 
LPMojoGL said:
The DS is a different beast than your Bassman. No dirt to be had here. It needs a real distortion pedal for the high gain.
I have a few straight up distortion pedals. Analogman DS-1 with mid knob, Okko Diablo and Steel Panther's Butthole Burner.
The Okko is like a hot JCM, DS-1 is like, well Nirvana. The BB sounds like this into a clean Fender:




On the Dual Showman, I like going into the normal channel, brite off, then jump into the vibrato channel with brite one, kind of use it as brightener to the main tone. Normal channel punches harder, sounds better, imo. Have fun!
Click to expand...

Was wondering about jumping the channels. Do you know what the ohms are out of the speakers outputs? I have only been using one output with 8 or 16 ohm cabinets. Can I run 2, 8 ohm cabinets?
 
That’s a nice score. I’m more of a Deluxe Reverb/Princeton/Bassman guy myself but would live a DS.
 
That’s sweet man.
I come & go through those Fender season’s
every decade or so.
For me, it’s the Pro Reverb.
Those old school blackface Fender’s have SOUL.
Difficult to find a pedal that blends with the midrange when the amplifier’s break-up.
That’s the most challenging component.
So I just bust out my best Scotty Moore licks
and leave the cruncher’s for the EL-34 100 watt
amplifier’s into 4X12 cabinets.
 
Markedman said:
Was wondering about jumping the channels. Do you know what the ohms are out of the speakers outputs? I have only been using one output with 8 or 16 ohm cabinets. Can I run 2, 8 ohm cabinets?
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Dual showman wants to see 4 ohms, so 2 8 ohm cabs in parallel will work. I like using an 8 ohm cab paralleled with a Suhr RL to knock off some dbs.
 
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