Coulda got this Laney VC30.


Listing has ended. Why don't I have it? My workplace has screwed up sending my first paycheck and it's been delayed. My first real amp has just taken a step further away from me

Mate, I saw a VC50 (Much better amp) for £200 on jemsite!

Let me look for you now

Here you go.

Buy!

Amazing amp

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f28/fs-uk ... light=vc50

it has a pre-amp feature on the back too which really pushes the vales at low volumes - much like a built in attenuator.

I'm in love again.

Also I lol'd at the drama queen picture. I honestly thought I couldn't find a similar deal. Will the VC50 self attenuate enough for a room when at practising levels?

Thanks Anthony, great help!

Yes, the amp sounded great at bedroom volumes for me.

From the seller:

"Now, here's some news from my end... a buyer came today to see the amp so we kept turning it up to test and it's probably the cheap damn chinese valves the previous owner installed but now the output volume is pretty tacky, keeps going up and down. The power section is perfect, no issues there but the preamp stage is having trouble. I hadn't fired up the amp for over 2 months and it worked fine at bedroom volumes before.

Anyway, I had one spare balanced valve (groove tubes) so I replaced the power driver stage in the VC50 and while that has bettered things it's far from perfect. You should know this but based on my experience I can confirm upgrading these chinese preamp valves will have the amp singing again. I'll keep my groove tubes valve in the VC50's v6 position (phase inverter/power driver).

I'm also happy to get it fully re-tubed for the buyer, but that will cost about 70-80 quid more. If you've already got some valves you can bring them to confirm the amp is working."


Baww. Still, if it got retubed, and I could collect it for £280.... that's not bad at all... is it?

Will change thread name accordingly.

ohsht. Could a moderator change the thread name to "First time buying amp issues" or something relevant.

Done

Ah thanks Lamer!

Wanted to ask, how much should 6 replacement ECC84 preamp valves would cost? They tend to be around £10 each at some UK stores, is this an ordinary amount? I may just replace them myself.

Any other valves I could use in the preamp section?

In the US current production tubes usually range between $10 and $30 a piece. £10 is about $15 so thats within that range.

Are you sure it uses ECC84 valves?

An ECC84 is still a dual triode valve, but has a different pinout to an ECC83 which is typically used in valve amplifiers. An ECC84 has a mu valve of about 24 as well, as apposed to an ECC83 which has a mu of 100.

Really sorry, I DID mean ECC83. Typo'd that.

All I'm saying is that the amp would need 6 ECC83s. Are there any other cool tubes to try? Not sure what they all sound like. Seller mentioned EL34's, KT77's or 6L6's, thought the manual says ECC83 for the preamp, and 5881s for the Power Amp.

Anyone know a good source for valve info?

Theres tons of info on tubes online. I'd have to search for a good introduction to tubes. There are some tube primers here http://www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com/Primers.html They can get kind of technical though. They are a few years old, but theres still plenty of good info in there.

5881's are a type of 6l6. ECC83's are 12ax7's. So you can search for tubes under those names also. There are other types of tubes that you can substitute for 12ax7's but they are lower gain. I wouldn't worry about those for now.

Looking at the manual the VC series amps came stock with 5881's but also have a bias switch on the back panel so you could use EL34's.

Damn, 6 of them? If someone could find a schematic for the amp, some advice could be given on what some useful valve substitutions would be. I have no idea of the topology of a VC50 so suggesting different valves at this point and randomly swapping in different valves would be a bit crude.

But just to clarify, EL34's and 6l6's are power valves, whereas ECC83's are preamp valves. In person you can clearly see that power valves are physically much bigger, and fit larger sockets, so there would be no confusion in trying to swap these

I highly doubt that the amplifier would be using 6 ECC83's for amplification and gain, more than likely there will be a few running reverb circuits and such (like i said, i have no idea of the topology of a VC50), so if you could supply a schematic, i would be more than happy to help

according to the manual it has 6 preamp tubes.

1 First gain stage-Clean channel
2 2nd gain stage-Clean channel
3 First gain stage Drive channel
4 2nd gain stage Drive channel
5 3rd gain stage Drive channel
6 Power driver stage

The manual: http://www.laney.co.uk/manuals/VC50-100-VH100R%20Manual%20-%201995%20-%20Issue%201.1.pdf

The above is what I was using as a reference, yeah. I may just stick the stock tubes in there.

I'm gonna go out to see the amp on Tuesday, in person. Give it a little try to see if everything else is in order, and if it's right fo' myself. Will wait til then to update this thread.

Congrats mate, happy I could help. Have you tested out the switch on the back?

Which one? Everything was shown to be in working order, I witnessed myself how badly the tubes were going, he kindly gave me advice on where to buy new tubes, and where from. He showed the power section was working fine. He showed me the back and how everything was doing there. The only thing he said wasn't working too well was the jack on the footswitch (heard of that problem often on Laney amps).