Introduce yourself

[hohohiwatter]

hi i'm chris
live over in the uk.
an registered about a month ago, loads of good info on here! came accross it on a google search of hiwatt.
after researching this site an m.huss site i went an bought a 100w hiwatt head off ebay that just happened to pop up!

purchased off the original owner 22/01/10 on ebay. a hiwatt dr103 head, with SAi 4x12 straight cab, + fuel costs for 1200pounds. i've registered it with mark also.
ex cond, it is all original, never bin touched, org Partride codes, Cap codes, Pot codes- dating it manufactured late '72, org mullard el34's, org brimar pre's, org bulgin power lead. Inside, no H.J. sig but all the solder joins have the red pen mark, still got all the org mustard caps an blue resistors, the only time it has seen a solder iron was when it was made, infact i'm sure the only time the chassis has bin out of the box was when he took pics to put on ebay! comes with org black with blue pipe cover, even came with original reciept of purchase when new in feb'73 for 90pounds! WOW! (apparently the weekly wage back then was about a tenna a wk!) i am a lucky boy! apparently he used to have 2 dr103's with 2x hiwatt 4x15's which he played bass thru during the 70's an its been in his front room since the early 80's! he was really quite sad to see it go, as i will be if i ever have to.

so after 10hrs of travel an 600miles later i got home an took the head out of the box an it was fantastic, so vintage, so new! as described above. sorry no pics dont have a camara! will post some pics if i ever get around to it.
he said the cab came from a guitarist friend which he gave to him when he stopped playing bass, to have something to play the hiwatt thru, an was made in the same period, which i thought well it looks a bit tatty, no holes in the grill cloth, but no vynal on the bottom an grazes on the edges an corners, so well gigged then. got the back off an was amazed to find not only a lovely well built ply cab pretty much the same construction (looks the same) as hiwatt cabs (same handles, height, width, depth etc) with what looked to be the original speakers which were.......... pre rola celestion 16ohm 25w greenbacks!! again i think the cab back has never bin off (no marks, no cobwebs, clean as inside) with 3x '70 an 1x '71 date codes!
so after havin played thru the dr103 for a few wks at home an band rehearsals with an old 70's roost cab i have with goodmans audiom 60's (which sound better than the greenbacks to me, an can handle the power more being an 8ohm 240w cab) it sounds awesome!! i had to change out the 4th posistion ecc83 tube, which was causing noise an low output (have changed all the pre's for some old shield logo mullards i had lying around, an changed the el34's for some jj's which have tightened up the sound somewhat, an to keep those lovely old mullards as spares for recording maybe?)
i now have bin intouch with a fella who has 4 sound city fanes (which need recones) that i'm gonna try in the SAi cab an see if they sound better than the goodmans. dont no what to do with the celestions as i have no use for them at the mo.

so a month on from finding this lovely place it seems i have also found my amp sound that i've been lookin for for 25 yrs! having always used valve amps, fenders, g.t. amps, carlsbro, simms watts, sjb, an many other little valve amps (dallas/scala, epiphone, danelectro) oh an a ibanez starfield 100w stereo head! not marshalls tho, dont like them! but mostly fenders for gigs ('71 super rev+ '72 bassman 50 head)
i am very glad that i have come accross this forum an got my self a little bit of vintage hiwatt history. an thought i'd share the experiance man!
cheers chris

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Hi Chris,
Welcome to the Vintage HIWATT Forum!
Congrats on finding such a great HIWATT and story to go with it.
I would love to see the reciept!
-Doc

[OldSchoolDave]

Welcome, chris!

As Dr.Hiwatt said, a scan of that original receipt would be very cool to have posted in our gallery (if you don't mind).

Sounds like you uncovered a gem. I can understand why the Goodmans sound better to you with that Hiwatt than the Celesions. Nothing against pre-Rola Celestions, just a better combination, IMHO. Plus, you needn't worry about melting those greenbacks with all that Hiwatt POWER.

Dave

[hohohiwatter]

cheers fella's
will try an scan reciept when i get chance, tho havnt got a scanner! will see what i can do. hey i've got a laptop not much else, no money cause i keep buyin guitar stuff!! ha!
oh buy the way where is the gallery? cant seem to find it.

[OldSchoolDave]

oh buy the way where is the gallery? cant seem to find it.

http://www.vintagehiwattconvention.com/gallery

Hasn't been updated in awhile. We've been busy with VHR (and other) stuff.

Dave

[guitar_tod77]

greetings from sunny nebraska. wait... no just nebraska.

i've lusted over hiwatts for years now. it all began with a few hits of an 81 custom 50. since i was immediately addicted, and it wasn't in my possession, i had to find a way get my daily fix in order to live a normal life. i scored with a sound city 50 + but that still didnt get me the HI i needed. enter professor HUSS.

i contacted VHR in regards to their kits, to see if they would/could build one for me. mark was gracious enough to part with the one he assembled for the instruction manual and recorded the demo clips posted on the VHR site, tubes and all. he warned me, this was a loud amp. my wife, cats, and neighbors will definitely attest to that. now, if i just knew somewhere to gets me a quad of some good drivers...

[mhuss]

Welcome aboard the best Hiwatt forum on the 'net.

--mark (in freakin' snowy Pennsylvania)

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Welcome!

[miwatt]

Hello,

Good to see and read there are more Hiwatt 'enthusiasts' just to say it in a nice way. Already thought of myself as being a mad man collecting and playing Hiwatt amps. Played Sound City as from the 70's but somewhere in the 90's bought my first Hiwatts. Since that time these amps and cabs follow me.

Thanks to M Huss, his site and EBay I was able to restore amps and cabs to their original condition. Additionally this forum is a great and incredible source providing information about the real Hiwatt generation.

Thanks,
Marc

IMG_0751smallest.jpg (144.56 KiB) Viewed 2686 times

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Hi Marc,
Welcome, you are in the right place!
Hope you can make it to the Convention.

[OldSchoolDave]

Already thought of myself as being a mad man collecting and playing Hiwatt amps.

Hi Marc!

You may be a mad man but, the good news is, you're not alone here .

Nice group of Hiwatt heads you've assembled!

Dave

[mhuss]

Welcome...and nice wall you have there!

--mark

[thames]

Hello all !!

Been posting for a few weeks now, but I realized I never introduced myself.
now that I found a Hiwatt, I guess Im part of the family ?? !

I live in Quebec, Canada (Chicoutmi exactly).... Been playing for more than 20 years.. blahblah.... Big fan of ol'school 70s music ... blahblah..

Im into a Zeppelin tribute project (nearly 4 years and going stronger).... http://www.led-zepped.com
Ive been into a huge Floyd project previously... and Im playing with various musicians/bands here and there on a regular basis.

So far, my main amps were Marshall or "inspired-by" Marshall.... ... I took the plunge into Hiwatt territory by buying a Trinity Amps Triwatt Custom Lead (22w)... I really liked its tone, but missed the clean power of a 50w+ head ... so I got a great deal on a 1979 DR504 2 weeks ago... it needs a restoration job... some mods here and there... but all the critical parts are in there.... !

See ya on the board !

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Welcome Thames,
congrats on finding a real HIWATT!

[hongsta]

Hello Everyone. Longtime listener first time caller here. My name is Andy and I reside in SoCal. I'm a proud owner of 79' DR504 (SN 13982), 80' DR103 (SN 14416) and 69' DR103 (SN 640 - just received yesterday!). I would like to thank Clayton/Mark and everyone else that makes this board possible. It's been enormously helpful and I look forward to continue being part of this proud yet nearly deaf community