Should you buy a vintage amp?
This is a question I get asked a lot because vintage amps are obviously very cool, but also… unreliable? Is buying an old amp a surefire ticket to classic tone, or is owning a vintage amp just an endless cycle of repairs and smoke? Let’s demystify vintage amps, and hopefully this will help the next time a real ‘65 Deluxe shows up on Craigslist.
Vintage amps can be extremely cool and sound absolutely amazing, but you need to know what you’re buying. Owning a vintage amp is a lot like owning a vintage car: the more you know about it, the better the experience will be.
One of the big advantages of old amps is their simplicity. Before printed circuit boards became ubiquitous, amps were built on eyelet boards, turret boards, or terminal strips. All the components were laid out with clear contact points, and if you needed to replace a component, it was a simple matter of unsoldering it and replacing it. They were rugged and sturdy and easy to repair. This is why so many vintage Fenders are still out on the road while you don’t see any 10 year old Bugera amps at all. Those things are landfill padding.
But it’s also important to keep in mind that all amps need service, and an amp that has gone 60 years without service likely has some issues. Just like a car that’s been sitting in your back yard for 60 years isn’t going to just start right up. But with some work, you could probably get both of them going.
So, when you approach a vintage amp, you need to look at it differently than a new amp because it has likely been built completely differently. But what are the things you need to pay attention to:
— How original is it?: You might be thinking that an “all original,” untouched vintage amp is the holy grail, but it’s not as simple as that. As you likely know, amps have parts that wear out just like the tires on a car. In order to safely and enjoyably operate that amplifier, you need to make sure it’s been properly serviced. What does this mean? Let’s say you end up with a 100% original Fender amp from the ‘60s, but it’s been sitting in someone’s garage since the early ‘80s. If you don’t know how to work on that amp, your first step should be calling someone like me who does know how to work on that amp. Because in order to service that amp, you will have to go through and test all the components to see which ones still work and which one’s don’t. Filter capacitors and tubes are typically the parts that need to be changed, but not always. There are plenty of tubes from the ‘60s that are still perfectly fine. That’s why you have to test each component carefully, and sometimes that means taking the component out of the amp in order to test it out of the circuit. So, when it comes to how original the amp should be, this is what you need to know: The absolute best case scenario is that nothing except the tubes and filter caps has been changed and everything works perfectly. At bare minimum, you should make sure the transformers (both of them), the speaker (if it’s a combo), and some of the old capacitors and resistors are there. If it doesn’t have those things, don’t buy it.
— How “updated” is it?: I’ve seen “vintage” tube amps that were just a really old chassis with all new parts. I don’t know what I would call that, exactly, but it feels dishonest to call it a vintage amp. And this is why it’s so important to know what you are buying when you buy something old. Because of poor storage or poor quality repair, vintage amps can become something of a Ship of Theseus after a certain point. Once everything except the chassis, and maybe the cabinet, have been replaced, you have something much closer to a new amp than a vintage amp. It might sound ok, but it’s not worth any real money.
— Why are vintage amps cool?: A lot of factors, but the main reason old amps sound cool is because they were made when the manufacturers used parts that sounded better than the parts you typically find in modern mass-produced amps. It’s true. Those old capacitors and resistors just sounded better. There are companies that make components that will get very close to the sound of old parts, but these are not the parts you typically find in modern mass-produced amps because they’re expensive. At Dexter Amps we use the best parts available to accurately reproduce the sound of vintage amps.
The other reason vintage amps are cool is they were simpler. Take a minute right now and Google the control panel of a current production Vox AC-30. Then Google the control panel of a Vox AC-30 from 1962. In addition to being built on fairly inexpensive PC board, the modern Vox also has a lot more options onboard. All those options mean more circuitry, and all that circuitry moves you further away from that pure Vox tone. On the other hand, owning a 1962 Vox AC-30 can become a bit of a full-time job. They’re quirky, they run hot, and they’re full of old parts.
So, in conclusion, I suppose, owning a vintage amp is a different experience from owning a new amp. Just like owning an old car is different from owning a new car. If you like the extra effort that goes into learning about how your amp works, and you don’t mind taking care of it, old amps are so much fun to play. They really do have a mojo and a sound. But an old amp isn’t a piece of consumer electronics. It’s an instrument that needs to be treated as such. Have fun!