Fender Bassman

The Fender Bassman was a bass amplifier introduced by Fender in 1952. Although it was originally designed for bass guitars, it was frequently used for normal electric guitar in rock and roll, blues, and country bands.

It was introduced in 1952 and discontinued in 1983. Up to until 1954, the Bassman amps had only 1 speaker (circuit 5B6), but it was the four 10" speaker combination (officially introduced in 1955 as model 5D6-A) that came to be the greatest and most sought after amplifiers in history. The first 4x10 Bassman amplifiers started with a batch of prototypes in November and December 1954, model 5D6. No schematic for the 5D6 circuit have ever been found, and only 5 of these early examples have been found to have survived. The earliest serial number known to still exist is 0013, but 0035, 0075, 0077, and 0780 are also known to exist. These rare few are known to sound better than the revered 1959 5F6-A circuit, and are fetching prices in excess of $15000 USD.