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I have both the tsl and the orange cat

Sadly yes, the VC15 PCB is too fiddly to repair, double-sided, surface mount etc., and replacement PCBs are no longer available from Laney... I part-fixed one recently for a friend (FOC) but addressing all its issues or having any confidence in the further longevity of the amps was simply unrealistic. Frustrating, 'cos it's a really nice-sounding amp when running well, and small / light enough to be no problem taking along to small gigs & rehearsals.

not only can you fix amps you can also fucking play

I have a Admiral turntable that I want to turn into a guitar amp but i have very little electronics background. Where do you suggest that I start to turning my turntable into a amp?

It's so nice to see someone that knows electronics, and can also play! Well done.

I'm sure these fret dots are getting bigger every time I see. Great video Martyn!

I had one. My first Marshall. I'm on number nine at the moment.

Well done Martyn. Thought it looked a bit fiddly to get the board out, but fairly easy in the end. 👍👍👍

Another Marshall wings it's way back into a retail environment to lure some young innocent into sighing up for their destiny to deafness and their neighbours destiny to hypertension , ha-ha.. Great repair Martyn, but I'll buy you some nail varnish for Christmas. Let me know your preferred shade that your local alphabet people will approve of in case you decide not to use it on amp fixes. 😅

William is right. Star washers in that position won't do much good. Spring washers would work, but those would also space that switch module down so it wouldn't line up with the hole. Loctite 243 is what I'd choose. The bulgy cap is not necessarily gone. Cut the plastic cap out and look at the aluminium underneath. I had a Crate amp with those same caps and they all looked like that. All were OK, though. Just my 2p worth. Keep it up, I learn a lot from watching these videos! 😊

I think the bulge on the cap was the plastic rather than the metal can, but while you've got the board out, might as well fit a nice new one.

Need some lock tight or finger nail polish! 🙂 Do you like your Finsri scope/DMM? Been thinking about getting one.

My algorithm sent me here and I’m SO glad it did. I really like your playing 👍🏼

The second input jack socket might be useful for daisy-chaining this amp to another. Otherwise, yeah, it's not a lot of use.

Can I ask a question. I have a silvertone twin twelve, and it has the same silver capacitor, and on it it says, 20MFD/450, 10mfd/450, and 5mfd/450. Im just curious, do you know how it works in the sense of it's total MFD's? I've obv seen those double caps, like in Marshalls, and stuff, but is this supposed to be a triple cap, with three separate MFd's?

Yeah, always shunting jacks and grid leaks for Silvertones. For the rear-facing combos, I usually convert one of the inputs (sometimes there are three) to a speaker jack so you can run them through other cabinets. These are great sounding amps, especially when someone with your chops gets a hold of one!

I had one of these when I was 13.

Martin this amp looks identical to the silvertone you repaired 2 years ago and posted a video of, right down to the replacement eminence speaker , the replacement capacitors and the way the power cord was installed. I'm guessing that the person who owns this amp is name Billy Bodger or perhaps Billy is his best friend and next door neighbor? Perhaps you should look up the serial number of this unit to see if it is indeed the same amplifier from 2 years ago, if you keep track of serial numbers for previous repairs...

Amazing amp! I use it more than both my 1483 and the 1484 after I made a Head Cab for it + adding a speaker out jack Sounds amazing with the 15" speaker cab from the 1483 (with the choke bypassed)

The Silvertone amps were made variously by Danelectro, Valco, Harmony, Thomas, Kay and Teisco for Sears, Roebuck and Company in the USA. At the price point they were retailing at they were pretty good amps. (equivalent retailer in the UK would have been Gamages or Woolworths knocking out cheap guitars and amps). Sears however had some really top notch ( for the time) guitars which have become very collectable as well as a few models of the Silvertone guitar amps.

Wow! You're a really excellent guitar player. Thanks for the improv. It sounds great.

Howdy again Martyn! So there you have one of the better little combo amps that Sears sold to millions of kids back in the '60s. Clearly built to a price point but still sounded pretty amazing, and many folks prize them today for that warm all-tube sound.

Martyn, you really need some sort of a stand to hold amps on whilst you work on them. 😉

Apparently some of the Fenton Weil amplifiers used the 6BW6 output tube and not EL84's. The 6BW6 specs and performance are more similar to a 6V6, but in an EL84-style 9-pin bottle.

Geordie walker of killing joke used burman and had an unmistakable guitar sound

There are two models of that amplifier. A first model with black pedals (first model) and the one with a more elegant and better finished chrome pedals (second model) From the pedalboard it is possible to activate crunch, lead, clean more spring reverb and an effect (internal to the amplifier) ​​that activates a more midrange for better soloing. The second model I own is a wonderful sounding amplifier, crystal clear on the cleans, crunchy in the crunch channel and very strong on the distorted ones in the lead (here you can reach extreme metal without any additional pedal). They were very expensive even in Italy when it was in production but in my case it was worth all that money because it is the most versatile tube amplifier I have ever had... a bit like having a Marshall and a Fender in one. Perhaps many of the negative reviews referred to the first version which had some reliability problems... totally resolved with the second. The manufacturer "Marco Brunetti" is an exquisite person, very kind and immensely prepared, try contacting him...years ago I contacted him by email for advice on replacing the valves and he was very kind, also giving me many suggestions for any internal modifications to interface the changing of channels with a built MIDI command. Too bad you couldn't fix it, it has an almost three-dimensional sound. Mine is almost 20 years old (10 years live ) and still works perfectly.

Very interesting. Cool amp, cool guitar, great playing, cool dude!!! Thanks!

A man after me own tube powered heart 6SJ7! I love a pentode V1, I have used 6Sj7's EF86's, 5879's and even 6U8's which are a pentode/triode 9 pinner. I feel you will love the 6SJ7. Nice harmonics.

I was unfamiliar with the Russian 6J8 tube so I had to look it up. This is confusing right from the start, because normally an Octal 8-pin tube would never end with an 8 unless it had a top cap as well, because *the last digit of most tubes with an American style numbering actually refers to the number of elements inside the device* ! Because the heater requires two pins, the last digit of the tube is invariably *one less* than the total number of pins ---- UNLESS the tube has a top-cap connection, which constitutes a 9th available connection, allowing up to 8 active elements inside that 8 pin tube. (This is also why you never see miniature 9-pin preamp tubes that end with a number higher than an 8 , such as 6BQ8, 6DJ8 etc). Anyway, the Russian "6J8" is indeed a pentode (purportedly interchangeable with a 6SJ7), and doesnt have a top-cap, and so that last digit is a bit of a misnomer when you compare it to the number of active internal elements. Anyway, to make things more confusing, there is indeed a completely different American 6J8 tube, with a top cap: it's a "heptagrid convertor", not something that we would ever use for an audio or guitar amp! PS, Apparently there's also a Chinese version of this metal Russian 6J8 tube as well, because I saw mention of some Chinese-made audio amplifiers being sold on ebay that use it.

I never thought I'd see another Fenton-Weil bass amp.. What an amazing resto you've done on it Martyn. I'm sure they never sounded that good, helped as always by your excellent playing skills. Look forward to hearing it again through it's own speaker cab.

This is a Fenton Weil Porta 15 Bass amp. It's one of those ones that tuck into a speaker cab. Always an education watching you work Martyn!.

Hi, very interesting video. In your opinion, were the output valves running too hot? E.g. over biased? Did you manage to re-bias the replacement valves on this Laney, & could you advise on how this is achieved on this model. Given that you mentioned the amp has smt resistors. Thanks for the video.

Martin I hope you don't mind but I had to give you a shout out on my last video I made on the Ampeg V4. Love your content and playing style, keep up the good work. Cheers

Is that not a Fender Bassman amp but rather an off brand look alike? If it’s a genuine Fender, what year was it made? I really enjoyed watching you work and subscribed to your channel. About those star nuts, are those the aluminum nuts with the pointy edges around them that go between the hex nut and then dig into the thing they are being tightened against? I’ve seen those taking things apart but didn’t know what they are called. Nice job. 👍☮️🌞🎸🎵

16 ohm thats to high i bet it would do better at 4 ohm

I think this is a Fenton Weil Porta 15 bass amp, the head tucked into the speaker cab for transit.

Looks like someone tried to build an amp from a mix of memory and bad AI. That is more than a botch, I'd say it's a death trap.

I have one of these Marshall 2078 Lead 100 SS amps and the Big M 4x12 cabinet. Mint condish. Any idea of the value on these in 2024 $$$…?

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cool licks

Enjoying your wonderful playing.

Has a very clean tone tone. Would love to hear a bass through it. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

great video nice little amp well done!

Nice little amp! Great work as usual Martin an super playing as usual!

Thanks for doing a video of this. Brad Whitford from Aerosmith had the head versions in his rig at some point. I remember seeing them come up for sale on eBay about 10-15 years ago. I have a Red Knob Twin built around 1988. I had it serviced around 2017 and it has been stellar ever since. It did have the caps changed out. It weighs a tonne but has an enoumarous clean tone with a cavernous reverb if you want it. I have never really got a great sound out of the overdrive side. There is something Kazoo-like about it. The overdrive sounds best with the gain low and midrange cranked a bit if you choose to use it. If you do that you can get an okay boosted lead sound from it but I wouldn't consider it good for any chord work. The clean channel with or without overdrive pedals is incredible.

Great video’s on this amp, thank you! I only wish you would have shown the actual removal and soldering in of the new caps, and the removal of the boards. I have a 1990 first year re-issue and I just open it new in 2009 out of the original box, with all the store tags on it, (how I got a this amp in the box never opened is a long story, and pretty emotional to me, so I will skip it). The amp sounds great and is very quiet, no hum or nothing. I don’t even have the speaker’s broke in yet, might have about 20 hours of light playing on it. But I have heard the caps can still go bad from sitting and that I should have brought the power up slowly with a variac when I first powered it up, but I didn’t. I know my caps have very few hours on them, but it has the same caps that you just took out of this RI, the grey and black Illinois. I am not sure if I should replace the all the caps like you did on this amp, or I should just leave them until I start having problems. The thing is, is that I am very handy at this sort of thing and I can solder very well. But it’s still kind of intimidating because l am no electrical wizard by know means. Problem is where I am located there is know one that does amp service, that I would trust anyway. And it would not be cost effective to ship it to someone who knows what they are doing. So knowing all that do you think #1 do they need to be replace with better caps even though they are working fine? And #2 do you think it’s something I could do myself? Sorry for the long post, and thank you very much for any response. Cheers!

Really nice when an amp gets another life. Am actually looking for a nice cabinet for my DSL-1. A 1x10 would do but wouldn't mind a 1x12. Any suggestions?

It looks pretty well built but whoever soldered the chassis grounds needs a hotter soldering iron, or a pair of them.

Just FYI, you probably know this, but theres 2 versions of the Lead 12. One version has just one jack by the power switch, and the other has 2, and the components/layout is slightly different in each. It's super close, so don't think it matters, but I'm curious myself if theres 2 different schematics. I need to check, because I'm going to be recapping mine soon. Also, may I ask about the resistor thing again you mentioned in the video, when you were saying they are 1/4w resistors, and 1/2w going through them, was it just the specific resistors that you changed there? Anyway, I love these little amps. It's silly though what people are asking for the Head/full stacks lol. I got my White full stack for $50, but that was obv a steal hah. Actually your idea to build a tube amp in one is pretty cool. If you did do it for one of these, would you gut the whole thing, and build a whole different amp, or try to keep in the ballpark of the Lead 12 layout, but with tubes? I wonder if you could convert a lead 12 to just a single ECC83, and a single EL84 like a Gibson LP Junior?

Pop a green colored OD in front of that thing and it will come to life. Good video!