Also, it's making a little intermittent ticking noise after I have switched off the power. It sounds like it is coming from the tubes. Normal?

to get that lightbulb out, after you've got them gem off, push the bulb gently inward (into the amp) while turning it. I wanna say counter-clockwise to get it out, but I always forget. You'll figure it out.

have you removed the fuse from the rear of the amp and had a look at that? it's probably not the problem, but check everything, right?

the preamp tubes don't glow brightly or anything, but they should have a faint glow to them that would certainly be visible in a dark room. the just pull out, downward. they should be held in place snugly, but also shouldn't be terribly hard to pull out. reseating one of them might be the answer, so give them all a try.

you might as well take the top off and have a look inside for anything that looks broken, charred, dangling wires etc. all you need to do is remove the four heavy screws from the top of it, and lift the lid off. don't stick your fingers inside there and grab at stuff. just look. sometimes it can be super, super obvious if something is wrong. if not, if you have a camera and can snap a pic or three, that might be helpful.

I got it working!!!

I don't know quite how.

I changed over the bulbs and the operate light came on. So it must have been just the bulb going. One of them still doesn't work but I'm getting sound through this sucker now.

The preamp tubes were all lighting up too in the dark, but it started working so have not checked if they are seated properly.

I wonder why it is now working. Oh, well.

Thanks everyone.

Great news!

I'd recommend taking it to a tech anyway, or your buddy who's a qualified tech, or something like that. It's always a good idea with an old amp, that's new to you, to have it given a once-over to make sure everything's as it should be.

If and when you get to cranking it up and giving it a workout, I'd recommend keeping an eye on the output tubes to make sure they don't start glowing red.

Yeah, gonna get it serviced pretty soon.

This amp is so fun.

Just ran a Big Muff through the front end, then I wondered what the boost buttons did.

Woah!!

just saw that I missed your post about the ticking sound from the tubes when it's powered down. that's totally normal. it's just the sound of the tubes cooling down.

chairman_hall wrote:I wonder why it is now working. Oh, well.

Thanks everyone.

Exact same thing happened when I last bought a valve amp from Ebay. So much stuff to come unseated in transit - in my case a twiddle of a fuse was all it took.

I love this amp. It's great for guitar, I get a lovely abrasive sound out of it.

I have a few questions though.


When I'm playing gigs and stuff it distorts really easily and I need to have the volume and the master volume up high to get up to my band's gig volume. It sounds great but sometimes I just need a clean tone, what is the best way to go about this?

I have a clean boost pedal which to be honest I have not tried yet but would this work for me?

Also, there is a wattage switch on the back. I have only used it on 80w, there is the option to go to 160w. Would this help me get more headroom? And would it effect the impedance of the amp and thus would I need a different speaker cabinet?

That's another thing, how do I find out the impedance of my amp?


Thanks in advance.

There is a wattage switch? I'm guessing it's a mod for a pentode/triode switch. You'd certainly get more clean volume in pentode mode. Also, I have my YBA-3 modded for 6550's, which gives more headroom, but I don't think it sounds quite as nice for guitar as the EL-34's (I use(d) mine for bass mostly). I don't think clean boost will do much for you here, as that will just drive the input harder and cause more clipping.

As for the impedance, if I remember correctly, the original transformers can drive basically any load down to 2 ohms. But, to answer your question, the 'wattage' switch shouldn't effect this.

Hey thanks.