MadAsAHatter
Roadie
- Messages
- 247
Short background on this series of amps...
From my research and understanding not a whole lot of these were made. Between the V4 Mk1 (200 watts) and V6 (400 watts) not many were made total. These 2 amps share the same preamp, but different power sections. There's also hybrind & SS in this series which all share the same preamp. I can't find reliable enough info on production numbers. Best I could research is a couple hundred of the 4V & V6 were made and not sure about the hybrids. There's also a V4 Mk2 and a V8. They share the same preamp and similar, but different power sections. Supposedly only 25 of the V4 Mk2 and maybe 100 of the V8 were made. Of that whole series less than 1500 total made; so not exactly one sitting on every street corner.
The difference between the V4 Mk1 & Mk2 are in the preamp. The Mk1 is single channel where the Mk2 is 2 channel; clean & overdrive.
Me acquiring this amp comes with a quick but interesting chain of events. I've had a V-Type preamp (fairly rare as well) sitting in my Reverb watch list for like the last 6-8 months. Never did anything about it because it was listed as local pickup only. After the holidays I was going to message the seller to see if he'd be willing to ship. It ended up selling... oh well.
Since that one sold I poked around to see if anything else was available. I came across a shop selling NOS Trace Elliot parts. They have a V4Mk2/V8 unpopulated preamp board, unpopulated V8 power amp board, and a couple V6 OT's & PT's. So I thought maybe I could build one myself from the NOS parts. I Spent some time researching this and how I could work the power section and/or find suitable transformers. Spoiler, I couldn't find matching transformers and things were going over my skill level.
I thought of something to look up the next morning and when I got on the computer to search.... low and behold a V4 Mk1 was listed overnight on Reverb. Told my wife about it and she says it's your money, if it's not sitting on a credit card do what you want. Dammit all if she isn't an enabler LOL!. Anyway one irresponsible decision later and I clicked buy it now.
The V4 was delivered about a week and a half or so ago, but the power tubes it came with were effed. When I first turned it on there was a horrid buzzing sound and 2 of the power tubes were putting on a nice light show. Had to order a new quad and wait about a week for them to come in. Swapped the new tubes in, got it biased, and all was good to go.
Finally got to play it longer than just testing to make sure it worked to have a proper NBAD.
Its a pretty straight forward amp.
Specs on this guy are:
-Listed as never gigged and rarely used. It's the model that has the green rat fur which is in pristine condition.
-Preamp is based off a Fender tone stack with Gain, BMT, Master Volume, along with deep & bright switches and a pull mid shift on the Mid knob.
-Active & Passive inputs and pre/post EQ DI out.
-FX loop
-2 12AX7 preamp tubes
-4 KT88 Power tubes for 220 watts
-4/8 ohm output.
As far as tone goes it's not what I was expecting, but I'm not disappointed either. It's a little more scooped sounding and more clean headroom on the preamp than I was expecting. That doesn't mean I don't like it.
There's a good bit of low end and a lot of tube warmth which sounds great; very vintage sounding. Being a Fender style tone stack it's rather easy to dial in. With the gain cranked there's a bit of saturation. Not anywhere into what could be considered distortion, really just a hint of overdrive. That hint of overdrive combined with the tube warmth sounds really pleasing to my ears. Otherwise it's a pretty clean amp which sounds really good too.
All in all I'm quite pleased with it on initial impression.
From my research and understanding not a whole lot of these were made. Between the V4 Mk1 (200 watts) and V6 (400 watts) not many were made total. These 2 amps share the same preamp, but different power sections. There's also hybrind & SS in this series which all share the same preamp. I can't find reliable enough info on production numbers. Best I could research is a couple hundred of the 4V & V6 were made and not sure about the hybrids. There's also a V4 Mk2 and a V8. They share the same preamp and similar, but different power sections. Supposedly only 25 of the V4 Mk2 and maybe 100 of the V8 were made. Of that whole series less than 1500 total made; so not exactly one sitting on every street corner.
The difference between the V4 Mk1 & Mk2 are in the preamp. The Mk1 is single channel where the Mk2 is 2 channel; clean & overdrive.
Me acquiring this amp comes with a quick but interesting chain of events. I've had a V-Type preamp (fairly rare as well) sitting in my Reverb watch list for like the last 6-8 months. Never did anything about it because it was listed as local pickup only. After the holidays I was going to message the seller to see if he'd be willing to ship. It ended up selling... oh well.
Since that one sold I poked around to see if anything else was available. I came across a shop selling NOS Trace Elliot parts. They have a V4Mk2/V8 unpopulated preamp board, unpopulated V8 power amp board, and a couple V6 OT's & PT's. So I thought maybe I could build one myself from the NOS parts. I Spent some time researching this and how I could work the power section and/or find suitable transformers. Spoiler, I couldn't find matching transformers and things were going over my skill level.
I thought of something to look up the next morning and when I got on the computer to search.... low and behold a V4 Mk1 was listed overnight on Reverb. Told my wife about it and she says it's your money, if it's not sitting on a credit card do what you want. Dammit all if she isn't an enabler LOL!. Anyway one irresponsible decision later and I clicked buy it now.
The V4 was delivered about a week and a half or so ago, but the power tubes it came with were effed. When I first turned it on there was a horrid buzzing sound and 2 of the power tubes were putting on a nice light show. Had to order a new quad and wait about a week for them to come in. Swapped the new tubes in, got it biased, and all was good to go.
Finally got to play it longer than just testing to make sure it worked to have a proper NBAD.
Its a pretty straight forward amp.
Specs on this guy are:
-Listed as never gigged and rarely used. It's the model that has the green rat fur which is in pristine condition.
-Preamp is based off a Fender tone stack with Gain, BMT, Master Volume, along with deep & bright switches and a pull mid shift on the Mid knob.
-Active & Passive inputs and pre/post EQ DI out.
-FX loop
-2 12AX7 preamp tubes
-4 KT88 Power tubes for 220 watts
-4/8 ohm output.
As far as tone goes it's not what I was expecting, but I'm not disappointed either. It's a little more scooped sounding and more clean headroom on the preamp than I was expecting. That doesn't mean I don't like it.
There's a good bit of low end and a lot of tube warmth which sounds great; very vintage sounding. Being a Fender style tone stack it's rather easy to dial in. With the gain cranked there's a bit of saturation. Not anywhere into what could be considered distortion, really just a hint of overdrive. That hint of overdrive combined with the tube warmth sounds really pleasing to my ears. Otherwise it's a pretty clean amp which sounds really good too.
All in all I'm quite pleased with it on initial impression.
