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Ac30cc

Author	Comment
Andy ZZ	Ac30cc	Lead	[-]
Posts: 2607 (10/27/09 08:00) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None Well, I've had a few of them on the bench, and I cant stand it any longer, I'm gonna get one. I had a 60's real AC30 restoration job a few years ago, and when she was finished, I heard what everyone was talking about regarding these amps. (yum) Later, I had a few reissues come in for minor repairs, and while it didn't 100% nail the tone of the real deal, it came close enough for me. I cant afford the hand-wired machine, it'll be the cheep chinese model for me. Any of you guys hear of anyone ripping the guts out and rewiring it vintage style? May not even be possible, just curious. I've heard anout the reliability issues, but I know a few amp techs..... -andy- It aint the years, it's the mileage...
DB Electronics		#1	[-]
Posts: 346 (10/27/09 09:28) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I've been responsible for the T L C of a vintage ac30 for a few years now. I can verify that it is one of the sweetest amps I've heard. The amp had been butchered up with a random output transformer hung through a hole cut into the divider board. Mercury had the op transformer. The owner had the cabinet recovered and we patched the hole in the original board. This is one meticulous customer that made the patch disappear. Now the amp looks like new and sounds better than new. I can understand your yearning. I'm not sure I believe any mystique about wiring styles beyond ease of repair. Buying a reissue just to gut and redo might not net you what you are looking for. You will always know it's not real. I say if you want it bad enough, start saving hundred dollar bills and hope for a miracle. Wishing you a miracle, Dave. P.S. The customer that owns the AC30 also owns two 59 bassman amps, two blackface super reverbs, and various other unbelievable amps. He almost always uses two amps on stage. The AC30 almost never gets played.
StoSoStu		#2	[-]
Posts: 675 (10/27/09 18:09) South of the Border..way South! Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I have worked on a number of Chinese ACV30CCs and I think they're a nice sounding amp. I've never had the opportunity to A/B one with an original so I don't know how close they are, tone wise. Issues I've had with them have been mainly faulty soldering on PCBs. I'm not keen on all the multi-pin headers that link the boards together, but I can't say I've actually come across a fault. I would think it would be really hard to justify the price difference between an original and a CC, unless you are Hank Marvin or Brian May and I can guarantee that when playing live the punters will not know unless you tell them. One thing I noticed was a sensitivity to low AC voltage. I use the inline light globe trick when I first plug in any amp I have in for service, just to be sure that there isn't a dead short on the mains circuit. With this in place I found that some of the solid state stuff in the AC30CC wouldn't work, the amp played but the switching and LEDs were dodgy. When I plugged the amp in direct everything worked. I can only assume that the slight voltage drop across the light globe caused the problem. Good luck with the GAS Andy. Bob The road goes on forever and the party never ends

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