Fender M-80? Can it be used for Bass?
 

I have a bassist who needs to buy a new amp because his practice amp is useless and wants to use this to play on. It's meant for guitar as far as I know, but has a bass knob. I just don't want to destroy it though.

Any suggestions and help are greatly appreciated.

i wouldn't run a bass through it more than i need to. the 'bass' knob is for your EQ settings (similar to bass and treble knobs on stereos)

you'll probably be fine running a bass through it for a few days / weeks if you're careful and don't crank it. would you be running it through a guitar or bass speaker cabinet?

I don't really know what that is, but if I had to pick I would say guitar.

I just wanted to know before I could tell him to not use my amp and just stick to his for now. He only used it 3 or 4 times. I don't want to make it a habit.

my friend blew out my old amp playing bass too loud through it, i wouldnt suggest it.

general rule of thumb

guitar into bass amp = yay

bass into guitar amp = nay

is your M-80 a combo amp or a separate head powering a speaker cabinet? if it's a combo (speaker and amp built in one) then i'd definitely be hesitant about running a bass through it. if it's just a head you can probably make due if you run it into a bass cabinet (wouldn't crank the bass knob though).

from what i understand it's pretty rare to actually blow the amplifier these days regardless of what you run through it. speakers are a lot more fragile though and can be blown with relative ease if you're not careful.

This is a very old amp. Perhaps twenty or thirty years old. It plays very well, but I'll forbid him from using it now. Thank you both for the information, I really am grateful that you saved my amplifier.

EDIT: Yes, it's a combo. If you mean that the amplifier has a sort of round thing inside of it and no attachments out of it then yes. Everything's inside of one single speaker amp. Thanks for clarifying that. Otherwise I would have not known what I was looking at. I'm a bit unclear if I got it right or not, but it seems self-explanatory.

yeah sounds like a combo. the round thing would be the speaker. the amp itself would be a metal case that houses the knobs and input / output jacks and power plug.