This week we took in a Vibrolux Reverb. Late 60's with the boost feature. It took great self control to not drop what I was doing and get into this amp!
Very nice condition. The owner said it had been in storage and when he took it out and powered it up it made a hissing sound. He wanted it checked out for possible sale.
I suppose if I locked my cat away for a long time he'd make a hissing sound when I let him out.
Back to the amp... I gave it a basic safety inspection. The power cord looked sound and, with it unplugged I read 4 or 5 ohms resistance across the AC plug prongs when I turn the power switch on. No change when I flipped the standby switch. Good. Not likely to go up in smoke if I plug it in. I exercised all the pots and switches to clear any major crud out. The reverb foot switch seemed locked up mechanically so I disconnected it then plugged it into the mains. Standby it drew 0.49A and in operate it drew 0.98A So far so good.
I plugged in the "shop guitar" and turned up channel 1 on the normal side. Nasty scratchy pot, but I found a quiet spot and started to noodle. Tone city!! I plugged into the vibrato channel. Bright wet reverb (Fender) and the vibrato took a minute to start up. Once the vibrato started it was real smooth with no ticking sound. Almost like a phase oscillator type. The boost switch worked and gave the perfect amount of boost. Well at least it seemed that way in the quiet shop. I flipped the hum buckers in and turned up a bit. The 12AX7s let out that warm OD.
Now comes the fun. Pull the chassis. Daa..am! Time capsule. Absolutely all original. Truly a thing of beauty.
Even the filter caps under the hood are original Mallory with no signs of leakage.
Well... I'll give it a bench test with the loads and then do an "uber clean" job on it. I'll replace that reverb footswitch also.
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