Roland Blues Cube 60

[jrcorp]

I bought one of these the other night through CL. I didn't get a great look at it, but I was optimistic and I've had good luck lately so I figure d at the worst I could flip it. Took it home, and it's in fine working condition but there's a little work to be done. I took it apart and cleaned it up (getting to be a habit), and played through it at low volumes... seems fine and sounds pretty good.

 

I bought this thinking maybe I would consider selling my HRDx in favor of a more portable amp that may sound almost as good. What the heck was I thinking, not sure. Yeah for a solid state I guess it sounds good, but no way. I know HRD's aren't popular either, but even with my cheap gear I don't think I can justify keeping this.

 

There are some little things off... 4/10 knobs have the top insert missing, there are plastic nuts missing or cracked on nearly all (5-6?) of the jacks, the input feels loose. The main issue is that the grill cloth is shot. I have little experience here, but it looks like the cloth is stapled or glued onto the baffle, which is securely glued or somehow attached to the amp. I've seen an amp on eBay that had the cloth replaced, but I'm not sure I could pull it off.

 

I figure I could try and sell it as is, order some new hardware and/or jacks to fix it up, or do that and try replacing the cloth. I don't see a lot of these for sale, but the BC-30's have gone on eBay for $150-185 and GC sells them for $100-200 depending on condition. Should I try selling this one for maybe $175-200 as is, or would a little work help the value to maybe $250+?

[Sandy Cheeks]

Is it the 1x12"? There was a clean 3x10" BC for sale here for $300. I managed to resist, but it's a really nice amp. Best sound of all the Roland cubes, some say.

[jrcorp]

Yeah, it's 60W through a 12"... 2 channels, effects loop with a blend control, rectifier switch (tube sim), reverb. I think those are the main differences from the 30W. Roland has pages for these amps still, pretty handy.

 

I will play some more later but I bought the amp planning on moving something back out. If I can't let it go or break even, I'll leave a solid state in my friend's closet if I play at his place. I'm sure it sounds great, the few decent demo videos I heard were awesome.

[jrcorp]

Just playing around with this, using my entry level Washburn with a JB/Jazz set and coil taps, sounds awesome. Obviously it's not tube but for being solid state I would say it does a damn fine job. I guess if I were looking to play super clean the diode/tube rectifier switch would serve more of a purpose.

[StankNasty]

I never understood why they discontinued those.

[jrcorp]

Unfortunately I am probably going to sell the thing in order to fund a bass setup, but it's a lot of fun. It's either that or a Vox AD30VT, and the Vox gets a better variety of sounds for its value plus it's lighter and smaller.

[jrcorp]

For the record, I ended up selling this locally for $120. Bought it for $100... so taking into consideration gas money, the time I owned it, and the time put into cleaning it up... probably wasn't worth it. I didn't take the time to buy parts and fix it up though.