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1bassleft
Lowdown Cack-hander
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 3951
Location: "Hit The North"
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 Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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Well Marantz, you just ruined my week  . My £13 (+£11 p+p - I was quite hard-faced about not paying the £18 requested) for a 515 is beaten out by your £15 for a 519 with tremelo. Does the trem work and is it any good? Out of the two issues, I'd rather have your replacement Celestion (especially as the original flobbles noticeably when pushed) over my icky black paint that would take a lot of nail varnish remover to clean up.
Incidentally, you say yours is a 70s Dallas-Arbiter but these Scalas were made before the Arbiter deal and will be be pre-1965. Nobody bought an amp in green cloth in the 70s and, if you take a look at this music paper ad for our 515/519, the price is in guineas. We both paid less than the original price of 15gns and 19gns respectively, never mind taking inflation (multiply by six) into account 
http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/restof/dall9.html
Looking at your pics, the EL84 is a post-1970 Blackburn Mullard in very good shape and this is, overall, my favourite EL84 for the amp but others can dramatically alter it. Your ECC83 looks to be the pill-getter Luzshiou Chinese and they're OK but there is fun to be had trying others. I can't make out the EF86 in the tremelo section but I've tried various types even in the preamp of a Bird Talisman and didn't get a lot of difference.
I could bore you with a link to a thread on another forum on "How different valves sound in a Scala by a poncey, cork-sniffing valveknob" that I wrote if you wanted me to, but I'll lay off for now in case you can hear my anorak rustling and feel like running away.
One small note of caution, though. Your Celestion is connected to exactly the same, middle, terminals as on my Scala BUT your Celestion is 8ohm and my original is, I'm fairly sure (a friend's son has it at the mo) 3ohm. This will be putting a slight strain on your EL84 and, more expensively, the output transformer. It's not as bad as some doom-mongerers make out but, if you have a sparky who can check for you, it might be that the speaker would be better connected into different screwholes to match the impedance of the speaker. |
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marantz1300
Joined: 24 Apr 2009
Posts: 5
Location: London UK
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| Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:48 am Post subject: |
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 Dear oracle, thanks for the info. 60s amp hooray.I just guessed 70s because of the stage pass sticker. I dont play it as often as the other amps, but its a lot easier to carry about when I'm not playing at home. Most of the time its in my sons bedroom,where he uses it with an Ibanez s540 and a Digi Tech Grunge pedal. (It dose take a pedal nicely)Its my practice amp. I use to use it at work when I was on nights with a 1x18 Vox bass cab hung off it. Glorious. The trem I've never tried. Is it built in? How do I operate it? As for the cork sniffing link,bring it on. I will be most grateful to learn. I still have the original speaker.I might get it fixed. Thanks.  |
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1bassleft
Lowdown Cack-hander
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 3951
Location: "Hit The North"
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| Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, they're great with a pedal. I've played guitar through a DHA VT1 pedal into the Scala and the valve overdrive feeding into the valve combo is excellent. OK, here's the link to the cork-sniffing on trying various EL84s in the Scala:
http://vintageamps.com/plexiboard/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=53867&p=506271&hilit=el84+shootout#p506271
I haven't been on Plexi Palace for a while and its new front-end is quite impressive. I also did a comparison of ECC83s, the preamp valve that is currently Chinese in yours, and you may want a read:
http://vintageamps.com/plexiboard/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=54164&p=508924&hilit=ecc83+shootout#p508924
I do apol in advance for my wordiness but, if you can stomach the drivel, it does show that you can some really different characters out of the Scala. It's so simple as a circuit that changing the glass can have a big effect.
I wouldn't bother repairing the speaker because I have seen 8", 3ohm Elacs on eBay and they don't sell for much. Providing the impedance of 8ohm is OK (and it probably is, but it'd be better to adjust the output if poss) then the Celestion is a better speaker. Through a big cab better still, I bet, although I've never tried. The Scala's littleness is what makes it so handy for me.
Edit: the trem is internal and is the bit of circuitry closest to the control panel, with the EF86 valve in it. You need a footswitch to turn it off/on and, IIRC, this is a normal jack so any on/off f/switch will do. HST, many valve amps have non-working tremeloes these days but it's all fixable. |
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