Hiwatt Heads up

Gassage

This looks a beauty to me

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hiwatt-DR103-vintage-100-watt-all-valve-amplifier-head/291364369939?_trksid=p2047675.c100013.m1986&_trkparms=aid=555012&algo=PW.MBE&ao=1&asc=20140107105714&meid=7cefd089fc4743409e60065fca593aa9&pid=100013&rk=8&rkt=29&mehot=pp&sd=111565461229

Nerine

Are Hiwatt still going?

thisisguitar

Dammit James!! 

Deijavoo

Lol

Gassage

If anyone does bid bear in mind you'll need to spend 250 min to recap it

ICBM

Gassage said:

If anyone does bid bear in mind you'll need to spend 250 min to recap it

Not as much as that. Unless there's something else wrong with it I would say about £150 including any other necessary work, including hardwiring the mains voltage selector and replacing the Bulgin socket with a TAD IEC one.

Gassage

Nooooo! Bulgin sockets are totally cool!

meltedbuzzbox

why does it have to be recapped?

ICBM

Gassage said:

Nooooo! Bulgin sockets are totally

illegal, unreliable and potentially dangerous.


It's not actually illegal to own one, but there are places you won't be allowed to use an amp with one, and you may need to be careful about selling one if you're a business.

Rightly so. They were never safe really - the cable retention in the plug is too poor to provide any strength, the most common type can be taken apart without tools while the other end is plugged in, the size of the socket holes in the plug is larger than ideal, and the contact between the pins and the tubes they fit into is questionable.

Get rid of them on anything other than a collector's item. They have no place on any working amp - not least because if you don't have a spare one, if you lose or damage the cable you're stuffed. An IEC cable can be much more easily replaced.

meltedbuzzbox said:

why does it have to be recapped?

Because they degrade over time, and can leak, short-circuit or occasionally explode, sometimes causing damage to really valuable parts of the amp like the transformers. Thirty years is a sensible cut-off for life expectancy, so any 70s or older amp needs doing really.

meltedbuzzbox

ah right. 

I will stay with my ethically questionable version then 

TheCount

They always come up when I'm skint. Aaahhh!!!

meltedbuzzbox

TheCount said:

They always come up when I'm skint. Aaahhh!!!

buy one man!

Cacofonix

Trouble with these is you never hear of anybody decent playing through them.

randomhandclaps

Imagine if you did buy this, you'd also get invited to the secret meetings @Gassage, @meltedbuzzbox and myself have where we drink copious amounts of ale and discuss inferior clean tones.

meltedbuzzbox

@randomhandclaps I think if someone on here landed this @Gassage would stop these secrets meetings and branch off to discuss mullard valves, vintage tones and ethical practices with said new owner

me and you would be at the secret location left alone and slightly bewildered 

Gassage

@icbm

Gassage said:

Nooooo! Bulgin sockets are totally cool

illegal, unreliable and potentially dangerous.

You still haven't addressed the cool issue- you bloody techy types don't get this...

meltedbuzzbox

fire = cool ?

I'll allow it

randomhandclaps

meltedbuzzbox said:

@randomhandclaps I think if someone on here landed this @Gassage would stop these secrets meetings and branch off to discuss mullard valves, vintage tones and ethical practices with said new owner

me and you would be at the secret location left alone and slightly bewildered 

You have a point mate, we'd be like the lower 6th formers and they'd be the too cool for school upper 6th.  Shit, imagine if it was an old bloke who bought it?  Them two would be huddled up talking about 'Hiwatts back in the day' and even if we did survive the culling they'd be imposing a cardigan, slacks and orthopaedic shoes club dress code...

Can't let that happen.  I am going to report the listing and get it pulled in order to maintain the brotherhood.

ICBM

Gassage said:

@icbm

Gassage said:

Nooooo! Bulgin sockets are totally cool

illegal, unreliable and potentially dangerous.

You still haven't addressed the cool issue- you bloody techy types don't get this…

Not being able to play a gig because you lost or damaged the cable, or because the H&S jobsworth told you you can't use it is cool? Hmmmm….

Bulgins were always crap, even when they were legal - they're just a poor design, both for safety and reliability. The only reason they are now 'cool' is because they were fitted on many old British amps, presumably because there wasn't much else available at the time.

For what it's worth I don't like to see bodged IEC conversions either - which a high proportion are, unfortunately - but the new socket sold by TAD solves all the problems other than having to file the centre hole out slightly - it fits the existing screw holes, and completely covers the Bulgin hole so you don't get the gaps top and bottom. Why it took thirty years for someone to realise that if you just turned the IEC round through 90 degrees it would fit better, I don't know! I won't use anything else now, anyway.

http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/images/products/thumbs/MBBREP--canvas-x_800-y_800.jpg

For what it's worth the pull-out voltage and impedance selectors used by Marshall especially - the Hiwatt ones aren't quite so bad - are also crap and need to be replaced or hardwired, since they are not only potentially illegal (the voltage one) but are a risk to the amp (both of them), particularly the transformers.

What's cool is being able to use the great sound of a vintage amp safely and reliably, not some archaic piece of Bakelite on the back .

TheCount

meltedbuzzbox said:

TheCount said:

They always come up when I'm skint. Aaahhh!!!

buy one man!

It's tempting. I've got 9hrs to talk myself out of it.

streethawk

There's one near me, recapped and a Laney 4x12 cab for £700.

http://www.gumtree.com/p/other-guitar-accessories/hiwatt-dr103-amp-and-laney-gs412l-cab-new-low-price-of-£700-collection-only/1096638859