vintageHIWATTconvention.com

Awesome story! Nice to know it is going to a good home too

Hi,

I'm jub a hiwatt fan for a long time and a new owner of an SA212 50 100% original down to mullards tubes !
just need a cap job I think

Thanks.

Hello and Welcome to The Vintage HIWATT Forum Jujub!
Nice amp and congratulations!
post more pics of it in the Hylight section.

thats a nice amp that, and quite rare!
just be carefull when u give it a clean up!
post more pics inside an out.

Welcome -- nice piece!

--mark

Thanks post about it just done

Hi there,

My names Tom and I've joined due to the praise of this forum by John and Caileen (TFC and TRFC).
I have had the pleasure of meeting the two above members on the Gilmour Gear forum and at a jam we had last year.
Johns knowledge is outstanding on all vintage Hiwatts - and the bloke doesnt even play guitar!!?!

The only Hiwatt I own is a Custom 7 head that I purchased when living in Aus for a very reasonable price.
For home playing I think its a cracking little amp, its just falls short as soon as anything as loud as a drummer is introduced.
Sometime over the next few years I want to take the plunge and invest in a vintage Hiwatt and wanted to gear up on knowledge first.

I am a big Gilmour and Townshend fan and love collecting pedals. I am fortunate enough to own many of the original units used by Gilmour throughout his career (including nearly all the Cornish units he's used).

I play bass in a local covers band and guitar in an originals band that shares the same players as the covers band (plus a few more).

Glad to be on board and looking forward to chatting with you all.

Cheers,

Tom

Welcome to The Vintage HIWATT forum!

Nice to see you arrived at last Tom.
C

New to this forum but on the PP Forum and LP Forum as dtw576 and Gear Page as NativH. Played in a Houston rock band from '76 though '82 with a '73 Marshall 1987 and '73 Hiwatt 4123 which was my first experience with Hiwatt. That introduction to cast frame Fanes has stayed with me all these years. In 2000 I joined a band again (after an 18 year hiatus) and wanted that low end with my '71 Marshall 1987 and couldn't find a "real" Hiwatt 4123. So I bought one of those MG 4123's and loaded it with some cast frame Hiwatt Fanes I did find. For all the MG issues, that box construction hasn't been all that bad. One of the Fanes was toast and I got Ted Weber to recone it with a Thames kit before he quit doing that. I don't play it enough to hear the difference between the three good Fanes and the recone. To my ears, the recone isn't bad sounding at all but perhaps the other three are just covering it up. Well that band phase didn't last long (some musicians are such turds with no concept of good tone) so I'm back to bedroom playing when I get the time these days.

I had a '76 DR103 that I sold several years ago and I missed it almost immediately. So last year, I finally found a '70 DR103 (#1032) and it sounds pretty good to me. I know the head has a bias mod, plus looking at some of Mark's schematics, some of the preamp resistor values are different than expected. But it appears that those components are original but I am far from an expert. I can't wait to learn more about my DR103 and Hiwatt architecture in general. Until that time, I will just continue to rattle the walls with clean punchy power when I don't want to play my JTM45, 1987 or 1959. Thanks for admitting me to the site as this place has "THE" knowledge base on one of my favorite guitar amps of all time.

Here are some "poor" pictures of my DR103 chassis. I will try to get some better ones when I get a chance. The original box is in decent shape and this is one of the cut down nameplate models.

Welcome to the Vintage HIWATT forum NativH!

Nice DR103!

Fellow aficionados, thank you for accepting me in your midst.

As an addict of the true British sound, a while back I set out on a quest for a new amp that could produce just that exact tone that I enjoy so much. Only to get more and more frustrated along the way.

What I encountered were endless line-ups of supposedly “Top-Quality” valve amps, that turned out to contain nothing but PCB’s. “Point to Point Wiring”, that must be good, right? No, not when it’s obviously been executed by the apprentice! And even then the parts this fledgling is soldering together, preferably in the right order, are taken out of a big box marked “Made in China”… Somehow I just cannot get very enthusiastic about those products.

The sad conclusion is that true quality new-production amps are very, very hard to find. The exception to the rule are of course those few dedicated boutique amp manufacturers. But even they battle to find parts of a quality that can match that which we made the mistake of taking for granted only a few decades ago. Progress in this case unfortunately means that high quality has become too expensive to produce to be economically viable on a larger scale.

And then of course there is the option of a “Replica”. Yes, that is indeed a possibility, but the point of the quality of the parts chosen remains an issue. You can get close, very close. But for some of us the attraction of “a piece of history” proves irresistible. Nothing moves me like the tone of a Hiwatt!

And at that point one joins the Vintage Hiwatt enthusiasts forum:
One more of US and one less of THEM!

Welcome aboard.

--mark

Welcome to The Vintage HIWATT Forum!

Hey folks

My name is Phil and I am a friend of TFC and TRF and Tomb1112 - we all met through the Gilmour Gear Forum and I have met up with Tom a few times across the year. I currently own a Hiwatt T40 head which I am very pleased with with the Harma and Tung Sol valves I have in there.

I am more into collecting rare vintage cabinets, so things like the Hiwatt SE320 and the WEM Bass Reflex cabinets appeal to me.

I currently have a WEM Starfinder 2x15 converted to 2x12 by the extremely able and talented Jeff Swanson of DST Engineering. Mr. Swanson is also making me a Hylight style cabinet as we speak.

I suppose my dream amp setup would be:

Hi-Tone 50 Watt
WEM 2x15
Swanson 2x12
Yamaha RA-100

Of which I have 2 of those currently. I might take the plunge on a fully specced Hi Tone later this year - we shall see.

With help of Clay I have also bought a few Eminence Tonkers as he says this is the closest to Crescendos I can get.

Thanks to all the guys who make this forum what it is with the abundance of knowledge available.