Is it worth it?

[V-Spot]

Alright, I found a very vintage tube head on eBay, and I was wondering if this was a worthy purchase. I've been dreaming of owning a boutique tube amp, but never a head! And it's at a price that can't be beat!

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=10171&item=7334967616&rd=1

Oh, and if any of you buy it on me, I'll be sure to hunt you down and toss you in a meat grinder

 

[SpiderVenom]

Re: Is it worth it?

Maybe I should buy it then, and you'll have an excuse to travel to New Zealand :laugh2:

Personally, I never liked the whole boutique amp thing. If I want a vintage amp, I'll buy a new one and wait twenty years.

99c? Well... in that case... although, given the exchange rate, that's like $65,207,990 in New Zealand money :smack:

 

[V-Spot]

Re: Is it worth it?

Maybe I should buy it then, and you'll have an excuse to travel to New Zealand :laugh2:

Personally, I never liked the whole boutique amp thing. If I want a vintage amp, I'll buy a new one and wait twenty years.

99c? Well... in that case... although, given the exchange rate, that's like $65,207,990 in New Zealand money :smack:

I'm still trying to keep my laughter down after that last statement! :laugh2:

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: Is it worth it?

Very cool!

I'd find out how much the 6AU6's cost before I committed.

Luke

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Is it worth it?

For $.99 it's a steal if it's a working amp. But you'll need to put alot of work into it before it'll sound like a ballsy guitar amp. The tone stack will need to tweaked for guitar and the gain changed to give it a ballsier tone. Most likely it'll sound flat and bland without modifying it. Plus, I doubt you can even plug your existing guitar chord into it the way it's set up now...I don't see a 1/4" input jack. But those old amps can be modded by a skilled professional to sound pretty cool...it's alot of work but it can be done.

 

[Docrock]

Re: Is it worth it?

I wouldnt do it...
These amps were intended for clean use, even though they have alot of knobs..they dont offer much for sound manipulation. If you want a clean amp then yes, but your really not gonna get the clean you really want. Back in the day when these were made...they didnt have transistors...everything was tube...so that being said...would you want to go down to radio shack today and grab a cheap mic ampliphier and use it for your guitar? Thats really what most of these are.

 

[Scott_F]

Re: Is it worth it?

Vintage versus boutique... two different animals. boutique tends to iimply top quality components, small company, hand-wired, some newish designs/some not (most everyone's amp design can be traced back to a very few designs.)

Definitely check the tubes and if you can still get them. Lew is right about the tweaks as well, plus it'll need new capacitors (very likely at least).
If you can get it cheaply enough, it might be worth taking a risk on. There's not much out there in the boutique world that is less than $800. (Dr. Z for one).

Good luck.

 

[V-Spot]

Re: Is it worth it?

Well, I sure am glad that I'm asking the right people. I'll probably skip it, due to what Lew said, and also because of he fact that it seems "too good to be true".