H&H amps

[norm rifles]

Hi there

I'm not even sure if H&H amps are brittsh, sorry to offend anyone but here goes......

I've started this thread following a discussion about a WEM head.

I'm trying to find some information on a solid state H&H head that is/was played by Jason Pierce in Spaceman 3 and later on in Spiritualized.

I haven't been able to find out much about H&H amps on-line, I'm guessing its because they're not very desirable?

The only information that i've been able to find out is that the model he plays is an ealry solid state head and 'glows' green (or is this a feature of all H&H amps).

Any help greatly appreciated

Norm

[chrism]

Here is a picture of his amp (on the right).

http://www.pbase.com/jamieashley/image/3003966

I can not tell the model from there other than it is one of the glowing face panel ones. I have a Musician head and it is able to get a lot of the sounds that Jason gets. I have heard that there is a IC100 amp also that is supposedly the Daniel Ash amp.

Olivias Vintage on e-bay has a couple H&H combos that they have tried to sell. I got one cheap that just needed a good cleaning (though it only runs on 220V). These are out there and cheap. Even in the USA.

chris m

[zen.state]

I remember them in rehearsal rooms in North London...they were kind of luminated writing I think...

the sounds were ...well...IC ...know what I mean?......

We used an HH tape echo on the very first studio recording I ever did...

The HH bass baby was a compact bass combo that was very popular with bass players I knew at the time...maybe that was 1983 or something....

I think almost all of their gear was transistor....they had an HH shop in Holloway road, maybe it was a distributors or HQ or something and in the basement was the rankest unhealthyest rehearsal studio I've ever had the displeasure of setting foot in....we left within 10 minutes and didn't pay them, you couldn't breathe down there.......

I digress, sorry........

memories.......from the corner of my mind

[loverocker]

I used to have a VS ("Valve Sound") Musician head that looked like that. They were current in about 1980. Yes they glowed Had two channels, and a funky dedicated socket for FX on the front (I had the H&H Flanger for it).

I've got to say that I don't recall its tone being all that inspiring. The VS overdrive was pretty mild. <sigh> I just remembered that I swapped it for a terrific Marshall 50W that I later sold for peanuts

[loverocker]

I just remembered something that might be useful to you, norm.

These guys seem to have bought up all the H&H stuff, and they may be able to help you with info/buying/etc: http://www.majelectronic.co.uk/spares.htm - scroll down for the VS Musician section.

[AlexF]

HH 100 heads were and remain a great 'spare' for gigging. They will do any instrument including PA and sound OK but not great. They are fairly small and light and look fantastic with the green glow. I still leave one in the back of the car.
Al

[Gargantuan Sound]

Hi Folks,

HH amps are definitely British and IMHO are the best of SS amps.

Its quite well know that Marc Bolan used then extensively in the studio but also Pink Floyd used them, particulary for the tremolo effect on One of these days.

HH also made great tape echos just as good as the popular Space Echoes.

Not too long ago they were very much looked down upon and every rubbish practise room had a beaten amp in the corner, but in the last half a decade of so they have been rediscovered as the best SS amp at least in the UK. Also quite a few new wave bands used HH gear the likes of Joy Divison etc which has given them some credability back.

And the best thing is they are relatively cheap £100 or so for a IC100 head a bit more for a combo.

[squibble]

I'm with Karl on HH amps, probably the only reasonable sounding S/S amps made. very loud, ultra reliable and were the mainstay of British "pub" rock for years. they also produced a lot of high grade studio amps that were much favoured by the BBC to power monitors, these you can now pick up on Ebay for next to nothing, I currently have an IC 100 combo, and two PA heads, which in times of desperation we have even run the bass through.
And despite the trannies I would'nt want to part with any of them!!

[honeyisfunny]

I borrowed an H&H bass head (100 watt I think) solid state with the glow front and "valve sound" switches. It was running through an Orange 4x12 and it sounded AMAZING for guitar. Incredibly loud and full. Having said that i have played H&Hs in every practise room I've been in and they've been awful. I guess the moral is - good cab needed.

[Beanie]

I thought i would give you a bit of HH history, HH acoustics and HH electronics are an old english company who were very well respected for quality transistor designs, they started work on a music computer in the eighties which would have been like a pc with cubase before anyone else had thought of it, unfortunatly they went bankrupt because of it. Then they we're bought out by us (ie carlsbro) and moved up to Kirkby where they worked at what they did best good quality, nice sounding unashamedly honest transistor amplifiers and very nice speakers, after about 5 years HH was bought off us by a russian consortium for a nice amount of money and they did nothing with the name as far as we are aware, but you never know they may re-amerge one day as someone does own the name.

As for the green glow the control panel is electro luminesent, not lights, the entire back panel glows green when electricity is applied and the grey print just blocks off the rest of the light.

Finally a bit of trivia for you: Stuart Mercer who founded Carlsbro on his kitchen table sold his yacht to by HH, five years later when he sold HH he used the money to by an even bigger yacht, if anyone can remember Howards Way on a Saturday night, that was the yacht bought with the HH money.

'blow it up' Beanie
Electronics Development Engineer
Carlsbro Electronics

[welshman]

at one time H/H amps were the industry standards for club bands no stage was complete without that eerie green glow ,yet allthough an inexpensive amp they were incredibly reliable , my father recently bought a VS musician head for £20 ,well worth the money just to keep as a spare .
i allways remember Wilko johnson of DR feelgood (uk RnB band)strutting around with a tele and H/H amp tearing out great solos.
small point in 1988 i uprated my H/H PA to a full range BI amp set up and sold the H/H head to a mate who recently told me that he has just put it in for its first service and he gigs every weekend using it as his monitor amp, so for 20 years from when i first bought it S/H it has done thousands of gigs without so much as a blown fuse.

[Beanie]

Its not just you either,

The BBC have a thomas speaker cab powered by a HH amp in every radio studio still as nothing better has been developed.

[mjet260]

I have one of the Bass100 VS Combos which is a bloody huge piece to lug around but it's a nice unit. I picked it up on eBay (in Germany) for €100 (appx. $125 or £60). I then found a defective V-S Bass head unit with an unknown defect for €40, so I've got that as my next fixer-upper. The head unit is exactly the same pull-out unit as that in the combo - the chassis is the same, just the cabinets are different.

MAJ Electronics in the UK (see earlier posting) are THE people to work on these. They have basically everything that exists of HH old stock, and they know the units upside-down and inside-out. They're also apparently got the old schematics so that is good news as well.

[Mark G]

I'm a big fan of HH amps, especially for bass, and until I can afford a big Ampeg rig (ha ha, in my dreams) I'll continue to use them! Still, silly question, but does anyone out there know what HH actually stands for?