HH amps

[guitarnbass]

Anyone here have one? I'm always keeping an eye for one of those old heads. We used to have one at a studio in college, great sounds..

[dr.funk]

I used to rehearse with our guitarists 212 combo where we would use it for vocals, bass and guitar. It was 120 watts but plenty loud enough and it weighed a ton. I played outside at a party with it recently used exclusivley for bass - fantastic sound! Bear in mind this is a guitar combo, really nice vintage tone with my jazz in passive mode and using the 'valve sound' selector I was able to dial in two different flavours of distortion which really fitted some of the RATM songs we did..

If it weren't so big and heavy I would use it more often

[nick]

[quote name='guitarnbass' post='38594' date='Jul 29 2007, 07:59 PM']....I'm always keeping an eye for one of those old heads.[/quote]

That makes two of us. I used to have a V-S Bassamp head, the one with 'valve sound' switch. Brilliant amp, underated IMHO. Why did I get rid of it(?!)

I'm also always on the lookout for one.

I was told that the bass player of Fratellis uses a H/H(?)

[bw_user_name]

I used H||H heads for a good few years, they sounded great.

This combo on ebay looks a winner

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HH-Electronics-Bass-Amp-Combo-100-Watt-Ltd-Edition_W0QQitemZ300134951289QQihZ020QQcategoryZ58719QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HH-Electronics-Bass-...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url]

[guitarnbass]

seen that, don't really have space for a combo.

[bw_user_name]

Yeah, looks a bit bulky.

I think my old head is in my parents garage, it's a guitar one with reverb on it. It stopped working about 10 years ago. If it's still there you can have it. Might be worth fixing ?

[Paul_C]

[url="http://www.majelectronic.co.uk/"]http://www.majelectronic.co.uk/[/url]

is the place for any info/repairs on HH amps

[Bassassin]

[quote name='nick' post='38607' date='Jul 29 2007, 08:25 PM']That makes two of us. I used to have a V-S Bassamp head, the one with 'valve sound' switch. Brilliant amp, underated IMHO. Why did I get rid of it(?!) [/quote]
Same here, my first "real" amp in the early 80s was a VS Bassamp 1x15 combo. Got rid of mine because it developed a fault in the VS module which made it distort horribly all the time - which was apparently a common problem. There was even a mod (published in [i]International Musician & Recording World[/i] mag - who else remembers that? ) to bypass the VS unit - didn't work for me.

I somehow managed to trade my dodgy H/H VS in for a Session 4x10 combo - the poor man's Trace Elliot - in the mid/late 80s!

Jon.

[guitarnbass]

[quote name='bw_user_name' post='38657' date='Jul 29 2007, 10:14 PM']Yeah, looks a bit bulky.

I think my old head is in my parents garage, it's a guitar one with reverb on it. It stopped working about 10 years ago. If it's still there you can have it. Might be worth fixing ?[/quote]

Thanks for the offer, might take you up on it alright.

[bw_user_name]

ok, I'll have a look next weekend and get back to you.

[gafbass02]

my first amp was also a VS-100 head with a farty valve sound setting, ex of the meteors, great amp, loved it

[Chopthebass]

My first amp was an HH Bass Machine 250w head. It was pretty well spec'd for its time, with a graphic eq, two channel & phaser. Pretty bulky though.

[stewblack]

My first head was an HH 100 watt. Put my bass thru it when I switched from g****r and years later it found use as an amp for our foldback.
They were the only amps you could buy locally. Every PA seemed to be HH back in the old days. Never had a particularly great reputation but I suppose being retro makes a lot of stuff more desirable.

[ShergoldSnickers]

[quote name='bw_user_name' post='38632' date='Jul 29 2007, 09:21 PM']I used H||H heads for a good few years, they sounded great.

This combo on ebay looks a winner

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HH-Electronics-Bass-Amp-Combo-100-Watt-Ltd-Edition_W0QQitemZ300134951289QQihZ020QQcategoryZ58719QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HH-Electronics-Bass-...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url][/quote]


I used to have one of those, but found I couldn't get any real fundamental bass from it. It was quite 'middy' in character. Check the lifting handles for cracks where they are screwed to the carcass of the cabinet. They can crack badly, and it's not funny if a handle suddenly gives way when you are carrying it. Pretty bulky compared with recent combos, and you won't lift it on your own.

[rmorris]

I used to have a VS Bassamp Head and also a small sealed BASS BABY 15" Speaker Cab.
The amp always sounded to me like it didn't have enough oomph.
Not the power rateing but more like the power supply voltage sagged and it had trouble supporting real low frequencies ?
The VS 'Valvesound' switch was useful at low volume but at higher volume sounded too obviously distoreted to be of much use most of the time.
But I loved the green illuminated backing to the controls and the style of the thing with the moulded side pieces / handles and the big knurled srews on the side.
Well put together too for access servicing. I think they used '741' opamps - barely adequate for audio so shouldn't expect real hi-fi performance ? EQ could be a bit noisy too.

The cab was well put together and sounded pretty good except not really able to get the low frequencies - expected that from the small size and sealed box - ut on the other hand response was smooth.
I used the amp with a bigger cabs also so caould tell that the low frequency response wasn't just due to the amp.

Eventually traded in the head against a used Trace Elliot 7-band head which I still have though atm it's tempremental again.

[ahpook]

i've got an old HH 100w 1x15" cab in my front room.

girlfren keeps asking me how long it's going to be part of the furniture...

Edited June 2, 2008 by ahpook

[Vasquez Rich]

I thought they looked dead cool when I saw Hawkwind in the late 70s with a whole bank of them glowing green in the dark. Bought my first bassamp head, an HH VS 100W Bassamp shortly afterwards. Still got it, it lives in my rehearsal room now and I haven't used it for a gig in years, not since I bought my first Hartke head. The HH has always been a great amp though and I still love it.

Richard

[martthebass]

Must be loads of us 60's & 70's kids who started off on the VS amp. Loved and used mine for over 10 years with a range of cabs. Hated the way the spring reverb 'clanged' tho when you knocked the amp mid gig....

[pete.young]

[quote name='rmorris' post='210845' date='Jun 1 2008, 11:23 PM']I used to have a VS Bassamp Head and also a small sealed BASS BABY 15" Speaker Cab.[/quote]

I've still got one of the Bass Baby 15" extension cabs. 100W 4Ohm. I think it was supposed to be an extension cab for the 60W 15" bass baby combo. Used mine with a Yamaha guitar amp for years and it was OK for low-volume barn-dance type stuff.

Still got it if anyone is feeling nostalgic and wants to make me an offer!

[lonestar]

Yep me too. I was 14 and a sucker for the green glow of "Electroluminescence".

I bought my s/h VS Bass head from Macaris in Charing cross road for £100 ca 1977.
I sold it back to them in 1983 for not much less I recall.
I played it through a huge 2x12 reflex bass cab that some friend of my dads had made for a disco PA.
I loved it; it was about 4ft tall by 3ft square and used to have to go on the roof rack of the family VW beetle but when it started to dent the car roof I had to switch to smaller speakers, which had a very detrimental on my heavy rock wall of sound bass style.
It sounded quite smooth up close but the people at the back of the gig at Green St Green village hall were probably having their digestive system rearranged and wondered why they needed to visit the loo.

It's amazing what you can do with 100watts of tranny power, a Kay P' bass, teenage angst and Paranoid, or Highway Star played in all reality probably quite badly but with 110% enthusiasm and conviction.
I've subsequently heard that HH had reliability issues but mine never blew up, although I did my best to cause it to.

Edited June 2, 2008 by lonestar

[The_D]

I used a HH B100 amp for a few years. Got it on ebay for a decent price after getting fed up running through the PA.

I tried to sell it on here months ago but got no bites. It sits under my stairs incase I need a back up one day.

[badmonkey666]

I have the H&H BassMachine 250 watt head. It has a fantastic sound to it, but it has been modified by my bass tech. He's uprated all the capacitors, bypassed the phaser and made a custom soundswitch pedal to switch between channels 1 & 2 or run them both together! Gives a real nice "ampeg" growl. I run it through an H&H BL215 cab which has 2 x 500w Eminence drivers. Very very loud. Easily wipes out the lead guitarists Marshall stack Ho Ho! It will be on ebay very shortly as the Laney Nexus valve head is on its way.

[escholl]

ahhh i've been looking for HH stuff for a while now....

anyone got something to sell?

[Fraktal]

I had 3 HH bass amps and I badly regret selling them.

The first one I bought was a 100w head + 15" matching cabinet, not retroiluminated, black color, my technicians progressively destroyed the cabinet while loading/unloading it from the truck until it can barely keep itself in one piece and I could feel the air coming out of the wood joints while playing.

The second one was a 100w head with back green glow, I used it with the biamp output paired with the former head and a home made cabinet 2x15" + 2x6", It was the first amp I had that could match the volume of a loud drummer and a guitarist marshall halfstack.

The last one I had was a 250w combo with 1x15", the speaker blew up shortly after and I replaced it with a 250w Beyma speaker that gave the combo an incredibly powerful and rich sound. It was huge and heavy, and all my fellow band members were terrified whenever we had to move it.

All of them were previously used, and I sold them all to buy my first new amp, a 350w+350w hartke head with a 4x10" XL cab and 2x15" celestion home made cab. I almost cried when I realized after a few days I couldnt get a tone as good as with my HHs and I hate Hartke since then, haha!

[bigbassman]

hi all first time on here after reading this thread i just wanted put on here what i had in the early 80s it was a hh 250 bass machine head into a hh 2x15 cab and a marshall 4x12 cab.the main bass i used was a 1976 gibson thunderbird omg the sound that came out of that rig. well the really sad thing is between one thing and another in the 1990s i had too sell everthing .but after not playing for about fifteen years ive got back into playing again and got myself a yam rbx375 bass and on old trace elliot 715 combo nothing like what i had way back when but its a start