The Last Bass Outpost

so i bought a trashed Blackface AB165 with no trannies or knobs to rebuild as a 100 watt amp and to use my 100 watt power tranny from a twin 2 reverb and hopefully a new OT if i can find one to have a 100 watt pre CBS Blackface amp.

Personally, I'd go for the post-CBS ultralinear output transformer of the later Twin or Bassman 135, two great power platforms that had the misfortune of having a shitty preamp/ bias scheme in them. You could keep the Blackface bias, which is far superior to the later 'balance' control, but still have much more clean current on tap to give your Fender-clone a beefy punch. The only caveat is that you'll have to find VERY good 6L6GC's (probably 7581's or KT66's) and a voltage doubler/reduction network for the higher plate and screen levels out of the PT and possibly a separate filament tranny if you go the KT66/6550/KT88 route or go with a bigger PT entirely.

 There used to be guy on Talkbass who made an amp exactly like that, but I'm banned from there and don't remember his name.

Please explain further, oh Lord of the Amplifier...

Don't start talking to me like I'm Willie Whitaker, aka "Lord Valve." My ego doesn't need the help.

Whizzer cones are separate drivers wired in parallel internally to the voice coil mounted on the same magnet structure and woofer cone; that's why your speakers are 12 and not 8 or 16 ohms. Their primary use is in PA since the smaller driver reproduces upper mids and highs while the "main" driver acts as a pseudo-subwoofer. Finding them in a "guitar" cabinet is extremely rare, and undoubtedly why yours sounds so good for bass. Marshall did lots of oddball stuff like that. It would be well worth it to get them reconed.

Those have whizzer cones! You have PA speakers.

 ass tone   

...not the good ass: the bad one, like a midrangey fart, only with less substance and more nasal honk. I don't care if you're into double anal fisting ala John Waters' standup routine, that bass is going to sound like garbage.   

If you want something to dink around on or a platform for weird mods, it is a solid instrument, but it is otherwise unremarkable.

That's the signature model I talked about playing at the Gibson Store in another thread. They wanted $650 for a used one few years back. It plays really nice, but the EMG's are very 'blah' and generic sounding. It's too expensive to buy  and then have to reload the pickups, but I have been eyeing that auction for awhile.  In person, the fretboard stars are much more prominent and the maple gives the strings an odd snap acoustically, like crossing a Stingray with a T-Bird, which unfortunately, does not translate through the pickups. It sucks to see such a gorgeous instrument end up sounding like any other generic imported bass.

If they are a Gibson fan, at least make sure they visit the Gibson Store out near the Opryland Hotel.

..only if you want them disgusted. It's in the Opry Mills Mall and I've been there several times in recent years, and most times they have less than ten Gibson/Epi basses AT ALL, and of those, finding one that doesn't make a Guitar Center setup seem expert or the instrument not all cheesed-over with dead strings from the mall wankers is impossible. There are also several Tobias and used basses in equally poor condition.

 They did have a couple of cool T-Birds the last time I was in there, but they are priced on the old retail model of pre-internet days, and for the money they were asking and the condition of the instruments, the price was inexcusable, especially when there are literally hundreds of Les Paul guitars in there immaculately maintained with fresh strings and decent setups. FWIW, the coolest bass I've ever seen in there was the Epi Les Paul signature model (can't remember whose) with a maple fingerboard, but that was three years ago.

 The only good thing I have to say about the store is that the mandolin/banjo factory is next door and there are plexiglass windows for viewing.