Loved 4 separate wake ups this morning from stuff arriving today, stayed up late waiting for a cab to come back after a gig, so wanted the sleeping. does mean I have new stuff to play with though.
First and most awkward to move around with just woken up co-ordination: A Proamplifiers VSQ150. Pretty google unfriendly name keeps these under the radar so info on them was scarce. Grabbed it anyway, figure can’t go too far wrong with British handmade valve amps, that is my area. Lots of knobs though. Took it apart too fast to remember to take a photo. This beasty amp was packing a quad of 6550, guess the 150 is 150w then.
Inside is a bit complicated though, might have overextended myself there:
Really fiddly PCB with loads of transistors, some ICs and weird through hole valve bases, attached to chassis but soldered to far side of the board so can’t get the board out without detaching all of the legs. Hope that’s all fine and its just a valve/pot issue making the pre not work then. Should have expected complication from an amp with this many knobs:
Will give that a cleaning and some new valves and a bit of tightening, and see what it does.
Also incoming is another Wishbass:
Issue with this one is woodworm:
Only in one piece of the wood, and it is fairly recently made, so guessing it was already in the wood before the bass was made. Not it has compromised the strength of the headstock, but since it was overkill anyway, hoping that woodwork treatment followed by wood hardener will be enough, otherwise it is splice on a new headstock. Also planning to plane the board flat (its near flat radius anyway, and has some imperfections) and glue on a slotted board then fret it, as I can’t play fretless, and can’t sell a bass this close to crumbling into dust.
ampstack 