NAD Think I just accidentally bagged a bargain!

chrisjac2

Long story short, I moved from a Peavy Delta blues to a Laney cub10 as I couldn't be doing with lugging a heavy amp about every week. So being a Lazy git when I saw a 100watt Head and Cab going for £50 I though I Could get it and leave it behind the stage where we rehearse and I would only need to have 1 trip from the car with guitar and pedalboard. And save my amp for gigs.
Thinking if anything happened to it, it was only £50 you get what you pay for right?

Anyway when I picked up the amp i've been blown away! Its a HH VS Musician with Session 12" Cab. Clean channel is rich and warm not at all harsh as I was expecting and the dirty channel again is full and rich and cleans up nicely when backing off the guitar volume. 
Takes pedals well and the best bit is it glows green behind the dials like your dads old stereo in the 70's.

Does anyone know anything about these amps or Cabs or have any experience with them?? I am genuinely impressed!

thecolourbox

@HarrySeven aren't you the forum HH expert? Amongst many other qualities

EricTheWeary

Ooh, nice. I don’t know the specifics of the models but they were a common sight once upon a time - find old clips of punk or 2Tone bands you might see HH in the background. Plus Wilko Johnson and Daniel Ash of course ( although I don’t think this is the right model for them). I used to go to a rehearsal room that was part of the old HH factory, there’s a small housing estate there now. 
Bargain. 

Hush

Last time I heard one of them, was about 6/7 years ago a member of a band I was playing with was using it, and it sounded dreadful, farting, popping and rasping all the time. LOL

Moe_Zambeek

I really like those heads - not a sound I’d use all the time, but still fun to play occasionally.

Reverend

I have a friend that uses the head. Loads of bands in the stoner scene spends thousands on a Matamp and boutique fuzz pedal set up. They sound almost as good as one of these That You can pick up to £100.

HarrySeven

thecolourbox said:

@HarrySeven aren't you the forum HH expert? Amongst many other qualities

I do have a (very) soft spot for HH products, ‘Tis true!

What you now need is one of these...

https://goo.gl/images/9ccwba

Wazmeister

Great scoop mate !

When I first started playing in a band some 37 bloody years ago, we used to goggled at the HH stuff in guitars shops and dream

Simple days. 

ICBM

Hush said:

Last time I heard one of them, was about 6/7 years ago a member of a band I was playing with was using it, and it sounded dreadful, farting, popping and rasping all the time. LOL

Probably because the filter caps were knackered, which is now getting very common on them - just like 40+ year-old valve amps. They are not difficult to change, but it's sadly barely worth it as a commercial job - especially if any other maintenance needs to be done - because of the low values of the amps.

I was recently given a pair of HH 100W slave amps, both with faults, which I managed to make one working one out of without buying any new parts, but even with that minimal amount of work it probably wasn't worth it economically since I doubt I would get even £50 for it.

Interestingly, when I plugged a guitar into it to test it - no preamp at all, the input jack connects straight to the volume pot and then the power amp board - I immediately heard that characteristic slightly gritty HH tone, so that's clearly a function of the power amp and not (as I assumed it would be) the preamp.

A VS Musician is more likely to be reliable than an IC100 as they're slightly later and the caps seem to have been slightly better quality to begin with, and the Session cab probably has a G12K-85 in it, so you did pretty well for £50.

dazzajl

That takes me back. When I was in my teen band the drummers dad was in a proper band and lent us one of those (amongst other very cool stuff) 

Only wish I’d have known or appreciated what amazing stuff it was at the time. 

ESBlonde

Great sounds, I too remember all the best local gigging bands having an HH PA amp (with a slave or two if they were posh) and at least one IC100 head or combo  in the backline. The later VS range was to counter the 'it's not a valve amp' criticism leveled at the earlier IC100s. To be honest the sound was of a time but I heard some great live bands use them back in the day and they certainly didn't sound crap. If it's reliable it will give many modern amps a decent run for thier money as a pedal platform and even just as is for lead.

robwright

HH and Session - my favourite amps EVER - now have 6 Sessions (no idea why!!) and three HH heads including the fantastic 100w bass head. Oh, and an HH 2x12 combo that weighs the same as a small car!

The irony is that none of them get used for the reasons that the OP ditched the Peavey delta Blues - I'm now using a ZT lunchbox!

EricTheWeary

Not sure which exact model but just reading that Johnny Marr uses an HH on some tracks on his new album:

'A lot of guitar sounds on the album came from an old HH Musician transistor amplifier, which all the British new wavebands used in the late 1970s and sounds crazy good.'

ICBM

Same model, although more likely the combo which is more common. Maybe finally vintage solid-state amps will become sought after!

Currently you can easily pick up a 100W HH combo in reasonable condition for about £100. (Although pick up might be the wrong expression... )

Creed_Clicks

Used to play one years ago through a Marshall 4x12 cab. It was brilliant. I've been looking for one since, but haven't been lucky enough yet to find one.

Arjailer

First amp I gigged with was my dad's 2x12 HH Musician combo - I remember not being very impressed at first ('cos it wasn't valves) but it actually sounded pretty decent with my Metal Zone shoved in front of it   

I have memories of my dad making a channel footswitch for it too, but it was narrow and kept tipping over if I didn't stick it down   

(this was around 1989)

impmann

ICBM said:

Same model, although more likely the combo which is more common. Maybe finally vintage solid-state amps will become sought after!

Currently you can easily pick up a 100W HH combo in reasonable condition for about £100. (Although pick up might be the wrong expression... )

Yes, HH combos had their own gravitational pull!

I've owned quite a few HHs and Session amps... they have their own thing going on. If you approach them as valve amp substitutes you may get disappointed but if you approach them as something else - and accept that they don't react the same way as a valve amp and can produce sounds that are pleasant/nasty in a different way, they are great.

Good score!

PhilKing

I had the 2x12 VS combo in the 70's.  It was great at home and recorded well but didn't really give the same sound when cranked up for a gig (mind you it was up against a Marshall Major on bass and a Marshall 100 on the other guitar).  I ended up going back to a Marshall JMP 50 & 4X12

Paul_C

My first guitar amp was a VS Musician, followed by a Studio 100 which for a while I ran in tandem with a Marshall 50w Combo using the stereo out of my Ibanez Chorus

chrisjac2

Loving this so far but think it's being limited by the single speaker. Anyone got any recommendations on what 4x12 would go well with this? Have seen a Laney extreme 4x12 that I thought could do the job?

ICBM

chrisjac2 said:

Loving this so far but think it's being limited by the single speaker. Anyone got any recommendations on what 4x12 would go well with this? Have seen a Laney extreme 4x12 that I thought could do the job?

Not ideal - according the spec it's loaded with Celestion Rocket 50s, which are hands-down the worst 12" speakers ever made...

An older Laney with the HH-badged speakers - they later bought the old HH brand, and used it for the speakers, although they're not identical to the old HH custom-made ones - or any other Celestions, would be perfect though.