Bedrock Royale?

[madvek]

Not a lot of information on this but one is for sale locally. All I know is it's a 1x12 22W 6V6 combo. Seems like Bedrock had a decent reputation mid-90's as an early boutique amp house then went under. I am in the market for a Princeton/Deluxe type amp

Any first hand experiences?

[Tom Gross]

Those are great amps. Grab it.

[madvek]

Originally Posted by Tom Gross

Those are great amps. Grab it.

Thanks Tom, I did. Kind of starts out like a gorgeous Tweed deluxe but it gets a lot more aggressive with preamp tube swaps.

Needs a little cleanup, and looks like it's missing a faceplate, but a cool retro look. Kind of reminds me of some of the Carr models.

[fierce_carrot]

I owned that exact model of amp and like an idiot sold it. They are rare gems that very seldom ever surface, so consider yourself lucky.

Do a seach for Bedrock and you'll find quite a few resources out there. Jay Abend of Guitar Fetish (GFS) is the guy that built and designed the Bedrock.

[Stormy]

I own a brown & cream tolex Bedrock Royale Reverb which is a 35 watt 2x12 combo powered by EL-34's. I have played the 6V6 Royale combo and liked it very much - it screams! These amps are RARE.

[Stormy]

This site has a lot of info on Bedrock amps:
http://bedrock27.tripod.com/bedrockamp/

[teleharmonium]

The pictured amp looks a lot like an old Guild.

like this two tone model 99-J:


I used to have a Bedrock that had extremely high plate current, and oscillated like crazy as a result. I've heard of other of their PCB based amps with that issue. Even after I had that addressed with zener diodes, the sound wasn't anything special. It was a BC-50 that for whatever reason was labeled on the chassis as a BC-75.

But, their hand wired amps (which I think the Royale series was) seem well regarded, and I always liked their looks.

[Stormy]

I heard that the BC-50 ran the tubes pretty hot too. I haven't heard the same thing about the Royale series though.

The Royale Reverb that I own takes EL-34's and either the plate current is not excessively hot or the Svetlanas that I use are stout tubes because I don't have to change them often.

Cool looking Guild amp by the way.

[WoodyTone com]

Just to educate any of the curious who are unfamiliar with Bedrocks and might click on this thread: Do not buy any. Stay well away from them. They are only for trained professionals, so please call if you spot one and we'll send a truck right over....

[madvek]

I'm really liking this amp! Seems like one of those beasts that is going to have it's quirks, but the payoff is huge. It will probably go through tubes way to quickly as these seem to have the reputation for, but whatever...

The pre amp came loaded with an old RCA 12AU7 and an old Dynaco 12AX7. Schematic shows two 12AX7s but the seller thought (correctly) that the U gave it more clean headroom. It also cuts way back on available volume, (is that normal?) but still plenty loud for my needs. I swapped those out for new Tung Sol and EH, which quieted some noise.

I need to change up my pedal board with this one. I no longer need a compressor, beautiful clean sustain straight in, even at low volume. I don't even miss the reverb, just a touch of slapback delay and I'm set. Looking forward to Monday's country gig with this rig.

Gut shot:

[teleharmonium]

Your amp has a very different power transformer and circuit than the ones that have the high plate current issue that leads to short tube life, so I would guess you wouldn't have that problem.

If the amp uses fixed bias, you might want to have the bias and plate voltages checked the next time it gets power tubes, but that's true of any amp.

It looks like a cool amp for gigging to me. I'm personally not a fan of the V30, but many people are, and they are efficient. I'm sure I would like them better in a simple amp like this without lots of gain stages, compared to gainier brighter amps.

Re the 12AU7, yes it's normal that altering the preamp gain structure with a sub is going to have an impact on overall volume. But you can finesse it by trying various other 12AU7s, or 12AT7, 5751, and 12AX7 types to try to find the right balance between headroom and volume. You can do these experiments both of the preamp tubes.

[madvek]

Thanks for the info teleharmonium! I've learned a bit more about the amp, such as it's cathode biased, so power tube swap shouldn't be an issue. I was also getting a lot of hiss when I went back to using the intended 2 12AX7s in there. This was solved with two new good tubes.

Using one 12AU7 in there works great when I'm looking for more clean headroom for my country gig, awesome vintage tweed type tone. Barely using any OD, just a rare clean boost from my KOT... and no longer need a compressor on my board.

I went back to the 2x 12AX7 for a blues gig, cranked that baby up and it was just gorgeous tone with a P90 Reverend straight in... no stinkin' pedals, no reverb!

[Label Bob]

I own the prototype chassis of the Royale reverb

[moosewayne]

Gear comes and goes--that's just the nature of the beast--but the only things I REALLY regret selling are my Bedrocks.
I'd love to find one of Jay Abend's Vox AC-15 prototypes.