Going price for 70s SF Deluxe Reverbs, in the UK?

Babones

What price can one expect to pay for an original, UK voltage, SF Deluxe reverb in good electrical working condition? BTW i'm not selling one.

Ossyrocks

£1200 - £1400

jpfamps

I'd concur with that.

If you're looking to buy, try to find one with a Utah speaker as these in my opinion are better than the Oxfords.

Ossyrocks

jpfamps said:

I'd concur with that.

If you're looking to buy, try to find one with a Utah speaker as these in my opinion are better than the Oxfords.

I personally would replace any original speaker in a SFDR, there areas many better sounding speakers you can drop in there. My blackface however, came with a Jensen and I was really happy with it. I knew I was risking it by gigging it, but it sounded so good. Anyway, it did inevitably blow. Fantastic amps. Rob

ICBM

I would probably look for one with a replaced - preferable completely inappropriate, eg some sort of Celestion - speaker, since that will keep the price down, probably by more than the value of the speaker. Then replace it with a good speaker.

It should also be mentioned that if you buy one it should be checked over and serviced by a good tech, and the mains voltage selector should *always* be disabled if it hasn't already been. They are a safety hazard, more to the amp than to the user.

darcym

the reissues, the 65 and the 68 models they are currently selling are excellent, so unless you want the actual bragging rights to say "it's a vintage you know" it's really really worth a look at the current reissues, they are fantastic and the price is excellent

DJH83004

@ICBM, 100% agree, to me biggest area of weakness of all export models I come across, I either hard wire them or fit this simple little mod (a crimp lug, flattened and bent 90 degrees :-) ) 

ICBM

I always hardwire it, by moving the centre wire to the 240V terminal (not bridging them). If you've got to be inside the amp to check it over anyway it's only another 30 seconds of work.

But the absolute biscuit-taker for dangerous voltage selectors was on an early-60s Japanese Teisco amp I worked on a couple of weeks back - the mains switch was a two-way centre-off with 220V one way and 110V the other! Thankfully someone had already disconnected the 110V wire before I looked at it.

Ossyrocks

Lots of good advice here. I have had 5 or 6 SFDR's and they have all been great amps post service and recap. I know some people will disagree, but I had one serviced up and recapped, the put a Weber California in it, a plug in solid state rectifier and some NOS 6L6WGB's. That and had loads of spank! It was running the mains tranny on the edge, but it never failed. It's not the classic deluxe sound but I had my blackface for that, it was just something different. Like a little portable Vibroverb. Rob

Babones

Good feedback, thanks. Its strange they didn't go for a voltage selector that requires a flat head screwdriver, ie more difficult to change.

ICBM

Ossyrocks said:

I know some people will disagree, but I had one serviced up and recapped, the put a Weber California in it, a plug in solid state rectifier and some NOS 6L6WGB's. That and had loads of spank! It was running the mains tranny on the edge, but it never failed.

I like the sound of them like that too. I don't think it's a major stress on the PT if you do both things because the lack of rectifier filament current offsets the increase from the 6L6s. On the reissues the bias trimmer has enough range to run 6L6s with no other modification, but I'm fairly sure that's not always true with originals (going from memory).

The interesting thing is that the stock OT ratio is incorrect for 6V6s with an 8-ohm speaker, but very close for 6L6s. That means you get noticeably more power with the 6L6s as well as a bigger sound (it would be the other way round otherwise) and leads me to think the DR was originally intended to use 6L6s, before someone realised that 6V6s would do almost as well and were cheaper...

Ossyrocks

ICBM said:

Ossyrocks said:

I know some people will disagree, but I had one serviced up and recapped, the put a Weber California in it, a plug in solid state rectifier and some NOS 6L6WGB's. That and had loads of spank! It was running the mains tranny on the edge, but it never failed.

I like the sound of them like that too. I don't think it's a major stress on the PT if you do both things because the lack of rectifier filament current offsets the increase from the 6L6s. On the reissues the bias trimmer has enough range to run 6L6s with no other modification, but I'm fairly sure that's not always true with originals (going from memory).

The interesting thing is that the stock OT ratio is incorrect for 6V6s with an 8-ohm speaker, but very close for 6L6s. That means you get noticeably more power with the 6L6s as well as a bigger sound (it would be the other way round otherwise) and leads me to think the DR was originally intended to use 6L6s, before someone realised that 6V6s would do almost as well and were cheaper...

That's really interesting! I have tried it briefly in my vintage '65 but went back to 6V6's and a valve rectifier because in the end I was worried about hurting it. At the moment 6V6's are working fine for me, but it's nice to know if I can do the mod at some point in the future if I need it. Cheers, Rob