Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Richard H]

As some of you will know, my other main hobby is music and I have been searching for a nice big bass amplifier for some time. I was so pleased when I found an old valve amp in a secondhand music shop locally. It's a 150w amp from the late 70's, made by a company called H&H and I was very disappointed when I plugged it in and it didn't work, well, it lit up and the volume control worked but it was really quiet. The chap in the shop said it was working when he last tried it, but it was covered in dust and had obviously been in there for years.

If I can find out what's wrong with it, I might put in a cheeky offer and get it repaired privately, my friends think I'm mad and should just save more for a new one but I like it, it has a lot of character and is small enough to fit in my A35 (I knew there was a classic motoring link there somewhere!)

Any ideas?
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Richard Hughes

[Rich5ltr]

I remember H&H although they are a little modern for me I have a 50W Fender Pro Reverb amp with JBLs. When I was in the band I could blow the others off stage with it set to about 6 or 7 even though they all had 100w or 150w stacks... Happy days...

[peter scott]

Hi Richard,

Old electronic devices normally fail due to excessive electrical leakage in capacitors. Smoothing capacitors in high tension supplies end up shorting out those supplies and coupling capacitors between stages cause the biasing of following stages to be taking way out of range.

It is best not to run such equipment for any length of time as there is a serious risk of causing further components to fail due to short circuit currents being drawn through them. Resistors will burn out and more expensively transformers will also burn out.

If you would like to attempt repairs yourself then you'll get lots of expert and friendly advice on the Vintage Radio forum:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/index.php

Peter
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https://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon