Where's the best place to buy filters, caps, etc?

[1971SuperLead]

I've got five 71 to 84 Marshalls and and three 68 to 77 Fender Champ amps and they all need some maintenance. Mostly tubes and filter cans.

Where's and what's the best place and brand to buy this stuff?

Thank you so much!

Robert

[tedmich]

I've got five 71 to 84 Marshalls and and three 68 to 77 Fender Champ amps and they all need some maintenance. Mostly tubes and filter cans.

Where's and what's the best place and brand to buy this stuff?

Thank you so much!

Robert

Quite a museum collection! Is your repair budget markedly lower than your procurement budget? About equal? Answers will depend on what you are going to do with them:
1 keep them another 50 years and use them every couple months?
2 Sell them on ebay for $10k+ each as "100% stock original" collectors items?
3 just enjoy playing them daily?

you can get very similar performance from these amps by spending dollar amounts that differ by several orders of magnitude.

[TeeVeeFixer]

I've got five 71 to 84 Marshalls and and three 68 to 77 Fender Champ amps and they all need some maintenance. Mostly tubes and filter cans.

Where's and what's the best place and brand to buy this stuff?

Thank you so much!

Robert

We use New Sensor for our supplier. If you have a resale certificate the prices are half of what you'll see on the website.

NewSensor::Home Page

[1971SuperLead]

Quite a museum collection! Is your repair budget markedly lower than your procurement budget? About equal? Answers will depend on what you are going to do with them:
1 keep them another 50 years and use them every couple months?
2 Sell them on ebay for $10k+ each as "100% stock original" collectors items?
3 just enjoy playing them daily?

you can get very similar performance from these amps by spending dollar amounts that differ by several orders of magnitude.

Thank you, I'm 50 years old so I will be keeping them for another 20 years max. Some are original enough to sell on eBay as all originals (The '71 Super Lead, the '78 Mark II and the '84 2204) The '73 Super Lead and '79 Mark II both I've owned for over 20 years and had their share of "guru" mods. (Extra preamp tubes and knobs and buffered effects loops.)
All the amps are cosmetically very good.

So I don't want to go with $$$ audiophile stuff. I'm thinking in the line of Top Hat, Kendrick, Trainwreck, Dumble, etc quality. Sprague, Atom, Mercury Magnetics.etc.

I've read a few repair books and bought some tools (variac, bias probes, etc) and had years of soldering experience working in aerospace and I hope to repair my own amps and then work on others for a hobby and spare change.

I don't play them much. I play the Champs (68,73 and 76?) instead.Most all my amps suffer the same problem and that is the steady and unadjustable 60hz hum which I suspect is the power filters or filter cans.
The 79 Mark II is my biggest problem with low power. Low bias voltages will only go as high as 20mv. Someone said filter cans could be shot. They are original! The tubes are over 20 years old too. GE6550's. Everything was great but then one month of playing and the power slowly faded away. I have some new Svetlanas 6550's for it and will try that and read some voltages from the P/T and filter caps as someone suggested.

Thanks for all your tips.

Robert

[1971SuperLead]

We use New Sensor for our supplier. If you have a resale certificate the prices are half of what you'll see on the website.

NewSensor::Home Page

Thank you for the advice. May I ask you how to obtain a resale certificate. I did apply with the state and received my tax number for my own LLC business in repairing and building musical equipment. Is that enough? or where do I go to get a resale cert? Is it expensive? Will the IRS freak me out? I would like to buy tubes and such and resale them to customers I do work for.

Thanks for all your help!

Robert

[Enzo]

"Resale license" "Sales Tax License" Same thing.

All the IRS cares about is if you are making any money, then it has to be declared. And of course you get to offset some of that income with the expenses of doing business. SO if you buy something for $10 and sell it for $20, you had $20 in income and $10 in expenses. Neet profit $10.

Just get a copy of Schedule C from the IRS and look it over. Or use Turbotax, it pretty well covers things.

[Marc]

I'd get accounts with Mojo, new sensor, and CE (antique electronics). They all have pluses and minuses. I use mojo most often because I can get next day delivery if I call in the morning. NS and CE shipping gets pricey and they are slower on delivery. Mojo always has had top notch customer service for me.

[1971SuperLead]

Mojo

Thank you for the information. I bought some potentiometers last night from Mojo. It was real easy using PayPal.