Chris Antram

Here are a few pictures, though heaven knows why they have been rotated, and I have no idea how to correct this! Anyway, one showing the full rig with both heads, one with just the Hexavalve and one attempting to show the glow from within!

Hi Richard, Following your recommendation I took the Hexa and my AH600 to Mike Still for servicing and he was absolutely great. Very quick turnaround and very reasonable. Fortunately the Hexa turns out to be in excellent condition and the valves are lovely (I was expecting some may have needed changing). So, I'm a very happy bunny! He also sorted out the hiss on my hi-fi amp too. Thanks again, Chris

Hi Richard, we’re practically neighbours! Thanks for the tech recommendation. I’ll give him a call once I’ve had a go with the Hexa. Best wishes, Chris

Hi Mike, Many thanks for your kind offer. I'm just the other side of Lewes, so not very far at all. I'll check everything out, but yes at some point I'd love to bring it round to test the valves. Any other info you have on this head would be fantastic - I'm trying to track down a user manual for it, but not very successful so far. I also need to find a good local (Sussex) tech as well - it could probably do with a service and my AH600SMX certainly needs a service. Thanks everyone for your help so far.

Hi Deedee, Thank you so much for this information. As soon as it arrives I'll post some photos of it. Thanks again, Chris

Hi, I'm the very lucky new owner of a Hexavalve (or will be in a few days time), and I have a few questions which I'm hoping may get answered. I do apologise though if these questions have already been answered elsewhere - I'm new to this site and don't fully know my way around yet. 1 - my model is one of the earlier ones without fan cooling. Is this likely to be a problem and should I consider retrofitting a fan? I guess though if I did I would somehow need to get a new upper front panel with vent slots. 2 - I'm starting to understand a bit more about valve amps compared with solid state and the importance of impedance. With my existing AH600SMX I know that it's ok to run one of my 8 ohm cabs or both of them despite amp stating minimum impedance of the speakers must be 4 ohms. However, am I right in saying when a valve amp states 4 ohms it is not a minimum and must be directly matched? In other words I could only run one cab if it were 4 ohms, but as both of mine are 8 ohms I would have to run them together (they're wired in parallel hence 8 ohm + 8 ohm = 4 ohms)? 3 - When most cabs seem to be 8 ohms, does anyone know why the Hexavalve is only switchable between 2 or 4 ohms? Was this because if it was 8 ohms you could only ever use a single cab? 4 - I looks like the amp has no feet - was this standard on Hexavalves, and should I look at getting some heavy duty rubber feet (self adhesive so I don't need to drill through the chassis) to minimise vibration etc from the transformers? 5 - How will I know if the valves are working or not? They are the original TE 6550's. It says to replace them in pairs - how will I know which ones are paired together. If I did have to replace them I presume TE's are no longer available, so are there some good recommendations? 6 - If it did need servicing, can anyone recommend a good TE specialist in Sussex please? 7 - Finally, does anyone have a copy of the user and service manuals (for the Hexavalve and the GP12XV pre-amp)? 8 - Yet another finally - if anybody has some general info about this amp I would be very grateful e.g. history of them, what people thought of them, pros and cons etc. Many thanks, Chris

Hello, another new member here. I've been looking on this site for some info and thought it would be worth joining. I'm a very big fan of Trace Elliot, having owned their gear since the mid 90's. I also love Warwick's and have recently (to save my back) invested in some lovely PJB amplification. I'm also very keen to hopefully find some time soon and learn how to play my Chapman Stick, which has been gathering dust under the bed for some time now. I'm not currently in a band, but have recently moved to a very musical village where many of my neighbours are musicians and opportunities for playing bass guitar are coming in think and fast. I've been playing bass since I was at school, suffice to say when I was at school the likes of Hector's House and The Clangers were very popular!!! I'm also a classically trained double bass player, so I find most of my spare time is spent playing double bass in symphony orchestras. Music tastes - apart from classical (a huge fan of Vaughan Williams!) I love prog rock, and a dream would be to play in a prog rock band. Looking forward to meeting/talking to some of you in the future, Chris