Early 80's SVT vs 70's
Moderators: rickenbrother, ajish4
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soundmasterg
- RRF Consultant
- Posts: 1923
- Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2002 1:06 pm
I recapped two of my heads with cans, the originals are only rated at 450 V, the JJ teslas are rated at 500 V. They are in series to get a 900 V rating or 1000 with the Teslas. It's not an easy job though unless you do that sort of thing every day. fliptops.com has most of the stuff for them, in fact he shipped a whole bunch of SVT parts out to Lima, Perú for me a few years ago. You can find the stuff for to recap and fix SVT's easily.
With that head I'd be afraid to take it out of the house it's so nice looking and yes you don't know what you'd find inside, it probably does need a capjob as most of the 70's heads do by now. They are so heavy that you bang them up easily, that thing must have sat in a house someplace all it's life. I too would buy a cheaper one with a few rips. If I were going to buy one of those on eaby I'd just ask a lot of questions, does it hum and if so does it disappear with the hum balance control, has it been recapped, is it quiet when idling, any mods, all knobs work right, all switches work right, does it have the normal volume for an SVT, has it been played out recently and if so did it function correctly? stuff like that. I would usually expect to maybe have to do a cap job if one hasn't been done and would also maybe expect to replace some or all of the tubes and have it set up or set it up.
They are extremely reliable though, even if they aren't perfect they'll play for a long time. You just want to keep on top of the tubes. Good power tubes should last you a good 5 years and preamp tubes double that.
With that head I'd be afraid to take it out of the house it's so nice looking and yes you don't know what you'd find inside, it probably does need a capjob as most of the 70's heads do by now. They are so heavy that you bang them up easily, that thing must have sat in a house someplace all it's life. I too would buy a cheaper one with a few rips. If I were going to buy one of those on eaby I'd just ask a lot of questions, does it hum and if so does it disappear with the hum balance control, has it been recapped, is it quiet when idling, any mods, all knobs work right, all switches work right, does it have the normal volume for an SVT, has it been played out recently and if so did it function correctly? stuff like that. I would usually expect to maybe have to do a cap job if one hasn't been done and would also maybe expect to replace some or all of the tubes and have it set up or set it up.
They are extremely reliable though, even if they aren't perfect they'll play for a long time. You just want to keep on top of the tubes. Good power tubes should last you a good 5 years and preamp tubes double that.