NAD: another old doom machine

[broj15]

Decided to hit up the pawn shop a few blocks from my house since I hadn't been there in a while. They had this Acoustic 370 stashed away with all the PA equipment. Didn't have a tag on it, so I asked how much they wanted for it and they told me $100. Aside from the writing on the front (should come off with one of those magic erasers) and the missing slider covers on the graphic EQ this thing is pretty clean. Pots have little to no crackle and everything functions as it should.

Now, this isn't to be confused with the Acoustic branded stuff from guitar center. I haven't dated it according to the serial# yet, but I'd have to guess this probably from the early-mid 70's. It's rated for 265w at 4ohm or 365w at 2ohm, which seems pretty conservative to my ears. I ran it through my eminence loaded 2x15 with guitar and bass and got pretty good results. Super uncompressed and very responsive. Stays pretty clean and nearly shakes itself off the cab with the volume on 10. Put a dirt pedal in front of it and welcome to doom city. Super crushing tone coming out of this thing with just my boss OS-2. Not as sought after or romanticized as some other amps from the era, but for the price it does what I need it to pretty well.

 

[BananaDemocracy]

I always find it interesting when people find a pawn shop treasure that’s so old that it goes unnoticed . Enjoy!

 

[broj15]

I always find it interesting when people find a pawn shop treasure that’s so old that it goes unnoticed . Enjoy!

Pawn shops are usually hit or miss, but I've found enough deals in the weirdest places that whenever I pass one I have to to stop if I have time. It just so happens that I've found a few nice things at this place (bassman 2x15, sunn beta bass, and they have an old Aims 4x10 tube combo there right now) and it's only a 5 minute walk from my house.

 

[BananaDemocracy]

whats the verdict dude
worth recording with or just a fun beater upper for summer time jamming outside"

 

[broj15]

whats the verdict dude
worth recording with or just a fun beater upper for summer time jamming outside"

Tried it out with my Dyna 5 string and a beat up affinity p/j, both tuned to drop A and it handled both pretty well. Honestly it required very little eq'ing to get a good tone (boosted highs and lows ever so slightly, cut the mids just a smidge). Also even with the volume cranked all the way to 10 (unnecessarily loud) there's absolutely no feedback & no distortion what so ever.

For now it's a keeper and I'll just use it as a back up amp/might experiment with running it in stereo with my other amp. I didn't think it would be a replacement for my main rig (Peavey Roadmaster) but at the price I paid it was hard to pass up.
In the mean time I plan on cleaning it up and tracking down some replacement slider caps for the graphic eq, and then eventually flipping it to fund other gear, but in the mean time it will be great for experimenting with different tones.

 

[broj15]

Also, forgot to elaborate on the guitar tone. Honestly it reminded me a bit of a sunn beta bass I used to have (only better) as well as my PV musician 400, but not as finicky/noisy and easier to dial in. The settings I have dialed in on the picture I posted are what I was using for guitar (old aria with some kinda paf style pups tuned to drop A). After owning a few of these old high wattage solid state amps it's like they all share a quality that's hard to describe. Very uncompressed, and when you do start to get natural distortion (I'll elaborate on how this amp behaves in a second) the low end gets very huge and loose, but everything still stays relatively defined, and when you mute the strings everything goes dead quiet immediately, almost like a noisegate would do in a wierd way.

Now, as I said in my previous comment, I couldn't get it to break up with my bass with the volume on 10. With my guitar it started to break up around 6-7 when the eq is set flat. When I started to dial it in, however, it seems like the more mids and highs you add to the signal, it starts to add more distortion, but depending on which frequency you boost changes the character of the distortion. Very wierd, and very interesting.

All apologies. I was Indulging in some of the devil's lettuce when I was testing the amp/writing this comment.