zacclowes Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 (edited) Awesome amp. these have a passive preamp very much like a hiwatt and are nothing like the noisey mark 4 amps Has just been serviced and recapped by Aitken audio in sheffield. running vintage russian 6550s comes with a flight case I have more pictures. message me and i will email them over I have a matching cab that will be avalible seperately for £100 Trades and offers welcome. I'm in Stoke on Trent but will post nationwide and internationally. cheers Edited May 31, 2015 by zacclowes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handwired Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Were theses amps made by Hiwatt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zacclowes Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 Dave reeves who designed and started hiwatt was contracted to design amps for sound City. As far as I know he designed the mark 1 and 2 sound city's and left before or during Mark 3. Mark 1-3 are a similar circuit with revisions and are very close to a hiwatt. Then the mark 4 amps that came after are totally different. These have partridge transformers and a nice build quality (but not hiwatt neat). They often get criticised as being cheap builds but they're as good as most vintage builds I've seen like laney, Marshall, Carlsbro, Simms watts, matamp....:it's just hiwatt is next level neat and are perfect. Can find more info here http://soundcitysite.com There's a history section Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swe_cake Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Hi, You got PM... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zacclowes Posted March 28, 2015 Author Share Posted March 28, 2015 Few more pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zacclowes Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 Bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davedave Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I've done a good few deals with Zac. All were hassle free. Buy with confidence! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chriswareham Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 This deserves a bump ... I use the 100W Mk 4. Sounds brilliant, very loud and punchy. Only the 100W Mk 1 with EL34 valves was designed by Reeves though, the KT88 equipped 200W models weren't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3below Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 [quote name='zacclowes' timestamp='1427445423' post='2730371'] ..... Then the mark 4 amps that came after are totally different. These have partridge transformers and a nice build quality (but not hiwatt neat). They often get criticised as being cheap builds but they're as good as most vintage builds I've seen like laney, Marshall, Carlsbro, Simms watts, matamp....:it's just hiwatt is next level neat and are perfect. [/quote] [quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1428958054' post='2746489'] This deserves a bump ... I use the 100W Mk 4. Sounds brilliant, very loud and punchy....... [/quote] Agree with the above. Some Mk4 do not have Partridge xformers but have pretty substantial equivalents. Some (and I have one, by luck not judgement) are superbly wired (every bit as good as 70s Hiwatts owned at the time from memory), some are 'messy'. Mk4 can be noisy but with bass cabs that have limited high frequency range this can become a non issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chriswareham Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 The problem with the noisy pre-amp in the Mk 4 can be rectified with quite a simple modification, and a master volume added as well. More extreme modifications include turning them into Hiwatt DR103 clones, which is because they are quite similar already. Even with the active EQ, the Mk 4 is still an evolution of the same Reeves design that the Hiwatts evolved from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3below Posted April 13, 2015 Share Posted April 13, 2015 The big plus with the Mk4 is that they can still be found at sensible prices As chriswareham notes there are fixes for the noise and these are easily found. I keep thinking about DR103 conversion for mine but then think I have an unmolested 'bedroom use' condition one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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