I first heard of Traynor amps in 1970, when I was a sophomore in high school. In those days we had real rock bands instead of DJ's at high school dances, and it was then that I saw a band from Detroit called "Julia". Julia used all Traynor amps. In a fit of nostalgia I recently went looking for them in the internet and surprisingly found info on the band and their association with Bob Seger and Bill Mueller, now called Blue Miller, the great lead guitarist of that band.
I didn't hear much of Traynors after the mid 70's until the early 2000's when I started hearing good things about them on amp forums. Sean Kilback has a great site about the YBA-1A which convinced me I wanted one. I ended up with two.
Both these amps sounded good when I got them, but after a time the tubes started to wear and I ordered new SED (Svetlana) EL34's and EH 12AX7's for them. After installing the tubes I was still having trouble with bad tone, and could not get them to bias correctly. I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong, so back to Jeff at Andrews Amp Lab. Jeff nailed it right away: a bad power tube in one and a bad resistor in the phase inverter of the other. When I got them back they sounded sweet. I hosted a jam at my place about a week after I got them back from Jeff and was VERY pleased with their performance.
I am not going to go into the history of these amps other than to say the circuit is based on the Marshall Plexi/Fender 5F6A Bassman. They are built like tanks. Heavy duty steel chassis, Hammond transformers, quality parts, careful wiring. If this amp was built today it would cost $2000.
I haven't done any serious mods to these amps, although there are lots of things possible. A lot of folks do a total conversion to the Marshall Plexi circuit, but as they are vintage amps I don't want to do that. Plus. I really like the way they sound, so I'm not moved to do anything at this time. A few things I have done:
- Add trimpot to allow the bias to be adjusted.
- Replaced all electrolytic capacitors.
- Add grounded cords and remove the Death Caps.
- Added jumper between pins 2 and 7 of the 1st preamp tube allowing the channels to be mixed together.
