ex Noddy Holder (Slade) modded DR201

[Stu_R]

I'm going to put a few gut shots up for the collective thoughts of everyone who wants to chip in, with any thoughts, critiques or suggestions.
This pic is just a test for the sizing of the rest of them.

[mhuss]

Ex-Noddy and you're worried about turning it up?

--mark

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Cool!
I like road warriors.

[Stu_R]

Yeah he wasn't known for his subtlety , after their last ever tour - USA 1984 - all of their backline was stored in a damp lock-up. There it languished until 2001 when bassist Jimmy Lea did a fund-raising gig for Downs Syndrome, asked Nod to help & he put his share of the Hiwatts up for auction. As well as the 200 Nod also boosted it with a 100w slave. My only concern, despite 2 x professional reassurances is that 18 years in such an environment has weakened something.



At first I thought the FS was referring to a footswitch connection; but Nod didn't use them. So I have to assume it's referring to cab references. All of their cabs had numbers on the back.

[Stu_R]

The slave out & DI level mod; I very much doubt I'd ever use either of these.



if anyone wants to see pics of any part in particular please just say - the amp is still out of it's shell for now.

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Thanks!
Do you know if the Direct Out was installed by HIWATT?

[Stu_R]

They weren't no; they were spec'd by their sound engineer Ian "Charlie" Newnham & installed on all of the band's amps by a shop called Modern Music in Dudley, a small town near where the band lived & had been used as agents for all of their equipment previously.

I was told, by Dave Hill their guitarist (& confirmed by Dave Donovan who was one of their crew & still lives in the area), that it was there mainly to help eliminate feedback from micing up cabs. In Nod's case a line ran to the desk, had a bit of chorus added & fed back out again to the PA.

[Stu_R]

View of the front, with the protectors off the pre-amp tubes.



Yes, yes I did ........ I put Groove Tubes in a Hiwatt. When I got it it had two Mullards, a Brimar & a Mazda in it. A few months later it lost almost all volume & a blown pre-amp tube was diagnosed. One of the Mullards had very obviously blown - and the Brimar didn't look too healthy so I replaced them both with all that I could find in Edinburgh at that time.
If anyone has any suggestions as to whether moving the tubes around would benefit I'd be interested to hear.

[Stu_R]

OK - getting to the serious concern here. Two pics of the LHS caps looking at it from the open chassis.



Anyone spot anything to be concerned about? Since it's an odd size, colour & has been bulked up with tape to fit the holder I'm taking the top one to be a replacement during Nod's ownership?

[Dr.HI-TONE]

Those are all originals.
I would replace them. They are clearly bulging and I am confident that you will notice an improvement in clarity and firming up the low end.

I don't know how much life the GEC KT88s havae left in them either. I hope Lots and Lots, but they may be getting "tired" too.

[Stu_R]

Those are all originals.
I would replace them. They are clearly bulging

Is that the circle "bulge" at the bottom of the two green ones? I'm totally naive on all this - you may have spotted that.

OK.... now for the other side......................

[Dr.HI-TONE]

indicated with the red arrow.
Once you know what to look for, you will never miss them.
I have recapped dozens of Hylights all with very positive results.
It is one of the first things I do when I get one.



I did post some pics in the other thread, I took them last night.

[Stu_R]

Thanks, yeah I thought that's what you meant, but didn't think so obvious for the first ones I posted - as I say - my inexperience in not knowing what to look for.
Are such caps readily available, or would a resultant "re-cap" look markably different? Just wondering how less "authentic" it would look.

I've seen similar caps on Ebay but one tech said he was dubious to their suitability.

In an ideal world I'd track down "Charlie" & see if he could still do the job, he maintained all of Slade's amps.

[Dr.HI-TONE]

replacements are available at audiocap.co.uk or at HI-TONE-Amps.com

see this thread, I recapped my 1971 DR201

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=471

[Stu_R]

Very useful, thanks!........... and still looks near as damn it as it used to.