Last week I was lucky to find a Yamaha TA-60 amp on Ebay.
A very cool unique amp!

I can imagine the engineers at Yamaha discussing the exceptional product they planned back in the early 60s
They were about to design their first guitar amp for the international market. The goal was to design a super powerful combo amp using the latest technology available. A state of the art silicon transistor amp, a revolutionary non-directional speaker and an exceptional cabinet design.

Amp
They obviously studied the best tube amps on the market and designed the new amp using the concept of replacing each tube with a three-nfb-transistor circuit. Two channels with Treble, Midrange and Bass controls. Spring reverb and tremolo.
For the power amp they used the silicon NPN power transistors from Hitachi.
A traditional tube amp have a transformer on the output. The Yamaha engineers found a way to place a transformer before the power NPN transistors. This was an innovative way to create a quasi-complimentary push-pull driver. (Complementary NPN and PNP transistors having the necessary matched characteristics were not available at that time.) Power rating is 100W music power.
For optimal weight distribution the power amp is located on the bottom and the preamp board at the top.

Speaker
Unique "Natural Sound Speaker".
Traditionally, speakers cones are made of a stiff paper that pump the air. A big cone is needed for a good bass response. Unfortunately the big cone is a drawback for treble that becomes very directional!
At Yamaha they found a solution in making the cone flexible in a way to use only the center of the cone for treble and the whole area for the bass response!
Two "JA 4001 flexion speakers" are used for the TA-60 and its remarkable how well these speakers still work after 50+ years!
These speakers are highly efficient and non-directional.
My impression is that the Flexion speakers softens up the sound from the solid-state amp and the treble is truely non-directional. The very low end response is not very "tight", for that a stiffer cone would have be needed.

Cabinet
A unique design and and an exclusive anodized alu look. The build is very robust and well designed with many interesting details. The speaker has an open back covered with grill cloth. The build is quite advanced and with low weight as a priority. Two openings on the back, one for replacing fuses and one for keeping the mains cable during transport.

Last edited: Feb 22, 2024 06:42:31

I've never seen such a thing before!
Looks great - the dimensions look really practical, nice and thin.
I guess the sound is less than amazing - otherwise that design would have revolutionised the industry!

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Very cool! I've seen photos of those before, and have always been interested in trying one out. They clearly don't take up a lot of space. How heavy is it?

edwardsand wrote:

Very cool! I've seen photos of those before, and have always been interested in trying one out. They clearly don't take up a lot of space. How heavy is it?

About 20kg

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTT!

Thanks for the samples!

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Is it the same speaker as a Fender Bantam Bass amp?

“The Fender Bantam Bass was a bass amplifier made by Fender. It was introduced in 1969. This silverfaced amp used an asymmetrical trapezoidal Yamaha speaker using a white styrofoam cone, and so the speakers blew very easily. As a result, the amp was not a commercial success, and it is rare to find a Bantam Bass today that still has its original speaker.[1] The Bantam tone circuit was used in the Bassman 10 combo amps, introduced in 1972, but these were barely good enough to compete with the other amps available at the time.”

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Tele295 wrote:

Is it the same speaker as a Fender Bantam Bass amp?

“The Fender Bantam Bass was a bass amplifier made by Fender. It was introduced in 1969. This silverfaced amp used an asymmetrical trapezoidal Yamaha speaker using a white styrofoam cone, and so the speakers blew very easily. As a result, the amp was not a commercial success, and it is rare to find a Bantam Bass today that still has its original speaker.[1] The Bantam tone circuit was used in the Bassman 10 combo amps, introduced in 1972, but these were barely good enough to compete with the other amps available at the time.”

To use the Flexion speaker in a bass amp seems like VERY stupid idea.
The advantages of the speaker are the non-directional sound and high efficiency, not the lowest bass response.