Vintage Hiwatt Content...

Norwegian_Blue

This just arrived at the studio... circa 1972 DR103! Mine for a few months, Can't wait to plug in and have a good play! Bought in 1985 by the current owner for about £150...

BigMonka

Brilliant! How does it sound?!

Alnico

You

Jammy

Git.

Looks awesome.

BigMonka said:

Brilliant! How does it sound?!

This !

??

thermionic

BigMonka said:

Brilliant! How does it sound?!

Brilliant, if you plug into the Brilliant input. Otherwise quite Normal.

Norwegian_Blue

BigMonka said:

Brilliant! How does it sound?!

Will find out tomorrow! Have been bugging him for it for ages! If it's anything like the '69 Sound City i tried a few years back...

The transformers are enormous! 

ICBM

Norwegian_Blue said:

The transformers are enormous! 

Nah… they're little.

*These* are enormous .

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p480/PeacefulMusician/DR405top1.jpg

DR103 behind for comparison.

http://i347.photobucket.com/albums/p480/PeacefulMusician/PICT1487.jpg

From memory, the DR405 power transformer weighs about as much as the whole DR103 chassis. The complete amp weighs more than a Fender Twin Reverb combo...

thermionic

I bet that hums like a sub-station.

Norwegian_Blue

Jesus! Is that the Bass variant?

ICBM

No, pretty quiet if I remember right. I've worked on a couple of them at different times. They're actually less aggressive-sounding than the DR103, although obviously capable of staggering real volume. They are the most powerful production-model valve audio amps I know of.

Both of them metered at around 450W at the point of clipping and over 750W fully distorted - although mostly they were used for bass, so they would not have been turned up that far usually. I had to use special dummy loads for them, which I made from an old kettle and a fan heater .

Norwegian_Blue

Had a good play today... what a great amp! It's not in perfect working order, and the normal channel volume knob doesn't like going beyond half without making a fuss. But it's a big sound, and even at that point on the volume it's loud, so i'm going to take it out tonight and run it alongside my Divided for fun!

Aidanspaghetti

If you can get it cranked it's an amazing experience..

I was selling one of my old Hiwatts and went to the chaps house and got to crank it in a big room and I wanted to keep it lol.

Now get some Fanes

Norwegian_Blue

This was serious fun! For those in the know with these, possibly @ICBM...  The Blug cab is rated at 60w, so currently I have these amps running into each others cabs as the Zilla is over 100w, but if i'm running the Hiwatt as you can see, with the Master all the way up but the channel volume on about 9-10 o'clock, will i be risking it by using the Blug cab with it?

ICBM

Norwegian_Blue said:

This was serious fun! For those in the know with these, possibly @ICBM...  The Blug cab is rated at 60w, so currently I have these amps running into each others cabs as the Zilla is over 100w, but if i'm running the Hiwatt as you can see, with the Master all the way up but the channel volume on about 9-10 o'clock, will i be risking it by using the Blug cab with it?

It depends how loud you're playing, which depends on the input signal as well. With the MV that far up and the channel volume low, the amp could easily be close to full power and you wouldn't know.

The short answer is that unless you're playing clearly and obviously at low volume - which I'm guessing you're not, from the screens - then it is a risk.

Bear in mind that these amps don't put out 100W at full power, either - closer to 130W clean usually, and well over 200W when into full power-stage overdrive.

Some speakers are tougher than others, but basically I wouldn't run that amp with anything less than two 65W Celestions, or two 100W speakers of any other make.

Norwegian_Blue

Awesome... thanks @ICBM, wise words! The Divided cab is a 65w and a 50w WGS so I'll stick with that, the stage volume is really quite low on these gigs, and with two amps working neither is having to do too much! May have to wheel out the 4xGreenbacks later...

ICBM

Even four Greenbacks is risky, if you're going to turn it up. Although from what you're saying it doesn't sound like you're cranking it, there's no way that could be even close to "really quite low volume" .

If you're at all worried, simply remove two of the power valves from the Hiwatt (outer or inner pair) and set the impedance selector to half that of the cabinet. Have a listen and see if the tone has changed much - it shouldn't with one of these.

impmann

WHS - an old friend killed a 100w Marshall 4x12 using one of these monsters. He said it sounded "epic" just before sounding like "Godzilla anally raping a washing machine" (whatever that means). But yes, all four Celestions (greenbacks IIRC) were fried.