It has had the blackface mod done to it and I really wish it hadn't.. It did add some warmth to the tone,but man,this amp starts to break up at about 4 1/2,and there is very little volume until about 4.. It is just about completely useless for steel except as a practice amp.. It is about as loud as a decent 30 watter. I had 2 Peavey Delta Blues and they were both a bit louder/cleaner than this.

I don't really blame the forumite that sold it to me,but man,if he plays steel, it is real easy to see this amp is NOT a good backup for my 68 Showman...If anything the Vibro should have MORE volume and headroom than the 80 watt Showman.It has MUCH less!!

quote:

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it should treat you better than that.

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considerably better...

Time for a trip to the amp doctor.

When you bought the amp, did you find out from the "modifier" what the plate voltage was, what the bias voltage was, what the transconductance of the output tubes was, what the amp was putting out in RMS when measured etc. If you did not get this info then you got what you got--an amp that had potential to go either way, good or bad. Hopefully you don't have more than a $100 in this.

Just blackfacing the amp will not make it sound this bad. You have an amp with a problem.

I will do like I always do in these situations... Sell it, disclose ALL the problems to the next buyer, and take the hit.. It happens a lot to me... Thats the price you pay for buying online and having to trust people.The thing that troubles me, is this is a forum brother. Its possible he didn't know however.

I WILL give him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed reasonable and friendly in his communication, sent all the old parts and the details of the mods that were done. He even told me the reverb tank was too close to the transformers and it caused some noise which is true, but its not that bad unless you turn the reverb up into the "space echo" zone..
I dunno,, I'm just tired of this crap. I can't remember the last thing I bought online[especially amps] that performed well.. I have been getting one "SOMEBODY ELSE"S HEADACHE" after another,and another ...

I just took a $ 60 loss on an MSA steel that was sold to me as a natural maple guitar.. when I got it, I found the guitar used to be BLUE, and ALL the stain had faded out of it.. WORST fading I have EVER seen on any instrument. I sold it for $60 less than I had in it,PLUS did a total set up on it... changed all the pulls to the new owners copedent. Took several hours of my time. I sold it to an appreciative student of Neil Flanz, who did not mind the less than perfect cosmetics.. However he DID know about them before I took his money.

I'm about to NEVER buy anything on the net again... If you can get beat here on the forum, you can get beat ANYWHERE!...

Just so everyone understands... These types of things are isolated on this forum... I have done other deals here I was VERY happy with.. however it only takes one worm in the apple to spoil it.... sorry for the rant.... bob

[This message was edited by Bob Carlucci on 14 April 2005 at 08:55 AM.]

Musicians don't sell fantastic amps; they keep them or pass them onto their best buddy. If you buy a used amp, even if it's from the local preacher, understand you're getting that amp because he didn't like it. He may be up on technical issues or not but don't expect it to be absolutely wonderful out of the box. This is the rule; getting a great amp online is the exception.

[This message was edited by Bob Metzger on 14 April 2005 at 09:16 AM.]

I just sold a beautiful Orvis bamboo fly rod on eBay. It's vintage and perfect, but I just don't need a bamboo rod for large salmon, which is why I sold it. I got $315 for it, which I could use, and the buyer got a beautiful rod.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Bob, $350 is not bad for a Vibrosonic chassis that plays but needs work. I would send that Vibrosonic to a good amp tech and tell him to restore it to silver-face specs and retube it. That will probably cost around 2 or 3 hundred, but is something you need to do on almost any used tube amp you buy, unless the seller has recently done it. Then you would have 5 or 6 hundred in this amp, and it would be in much better shape than any used tube amp you can buy. You would not find another Vibrosonic for that, and then you would need to spend another $200 tuning it up. I assume I will need to spend 2 or 3 hundred on a tune-up for any used tube amp I buy. They are still cheaper than new amps.

You're bound to need at least SOME new tubes in it...

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Go get you a decent dig meter, a soldering iron and a schematic. These old Fender amps are not that hard to work on.

If you own old Fenders and don't know how to tweak on them, you are always at the mercy of someone else--usually at about $50+ an hour!

The first thing that I would do Bob is go to the bias adjust pot on the inside of the amp. Hook the meter up and alligator clip the black probe to the chassis. Touch the red probe to the output of the pot and read the voltage in DC volts. It will be negative (-) on your meter. Remember the number and take a small insulated screwdriver and turn the pot all the way up and then all the way down to see what kind of voltage swing you have. A lot of the "blackface" modders fail to address the resistor value on that pot to give you the full potential of bias on the output tubes. Without having seen your amp, I would guess that the biggest problem right now is incorrect bias on the outputs. When you read and make a note of the upper and lower numbers, then return the pot to the value you found it.

If you had access to a dig meter that reads DCmA then I could tell you how to do a quick read on how much current is being drawn through the outputs. That would tell you in a second what was going on with the low output your talking about having.

All you have to do is be careful while poking around in there and you won't get hurt--at least not too bad. As long as you are not standing in a puddle of water barefooted or grabbing hold of a wet water pipe while poking your finger in the amp innards you will live to see many more days. Just remember the old addage about keeping one hand in your pocket while working with electricity and someone standing close by you with a baseball bat to knock you lose if needed, you will be just fine.

Now that there seems to be a "tube fever" spreading here, everyone should realize that the chances of getting a 20 to 40 year-old tube amp in really good shape (working and unmodified) are pretty slim. I've seen a lot of what's out there, and it's not encouraging. With tube amps, it's kind of accepted that a $400 amp will cost you about $800 by the time you get it back in reliable playing condition.

You can easily spend upwards to $350.00 for a total cap job, new tubes and the rest of the services that it may take to get an old tube amp back into good shape again!

I am missing something here? Do you really think you can honestly disclose everything wrong with this amp and still sell it for what you have in it?? Are folks really paying this kind of money for a Fender head in a Gibson cabinet that does not work correctly? Maybe I am missing something.

On the other hand, unless somebody specifically says that they've essentially restored it electronically, I always assume an old tube amp needs some work. I always expect to pay more for one that really has been restored, and somewhat less if it hasn't. Further, it's difficult to argue about things like 'tone', 'headroom', and 'vibe', since no two people view that stuff the same way.

Just so you're clear on the vintage market value for this, an 'Excellent Condition' '72-81 SF Vibrosonic Reverb Amp (with the 15" speaker in the full cabinet) lists in the 2005 Vintage Guitar Price Guide for $650-750. I think that a lot of what passes for 'Excellent' these days is not what I'd call 'restored', although it should be completely functional. The Excellent grading is based more on originality and cosmetic condition. The equivalent head, a '73-81 Dual Showman Reverb head, lists in the VG Price Guide for $500-650. I think that's the reference price you should deal with. This is obviously far from Excellent, which implies completely original except for proper electronics servicing. You clearly bought a working chassis, nothing more, and should be significantly downgraded from Excellent.

Frankly, it is sooo difficult dealing with vintage tube amps from a distance that an awful lot of dealers and private sellers insist on selling them locally. I've done some deals from a distance, but I find it's much harder to have a meeting of the minds with the other party. I'm usually reluctant to buy/sell old tube amps from a distance unless I know the seller/buyer and their expertise.

There is a technique to ferret this kind of stuff out from an honest but perhaps not professional seller. That is to have an exhaustive checklist of every aspect of a guitar/amp, and to simply run down that checklist and get a definitive answer on each point. This generally gets anything but outright fraud, which is obviously not the case here.

Bill, you're right. Many of the 'big dogs' simply won't ship amps, or if they do, they say 'final sale'. The problem is that there can be 'invisible' problems in anything electronic, and the logistics of helping the customer are terrible when it's an old, out-of-production tube amp. Even a very conscientious high-volume seller winds up with some angry customers. It's just bad business. Now if an old amp like this is sold 'as-is', and price accordingly, or sold by someone who restores them, it's different.

Of course, these are great amps, set up properly. It costs a fortune to make a new amp of this quality, and I have usually found they're worth restoring. But you know, Bob, you might find a guitar player who just loves this amp as-is. Most guitarists hate the ultralinear versions, and many will pay a premium for a blackfaced example. My old guitar shop (still running, but I'm out of it) has always made a sideline out of blackfacing SF amps. Don't look at the bottle as half-empty, it may be mostly full.