The GRETSCH 6166 FURY - Valco's MOST POWERFUL Guitar Combo Amp Restoration 

What brand makes brand-new amps, that are worth a shit, not costing millions of dollars?

I love these videos ! Sweet Guitar too ! Where'd that thing come from? Now I see why you're so busy and that's a really nice amplifier ! I hope you're well and thank you.

Oh, and fuk your hair is getting long ! lol

Great presentation.. love the amp...but my 63 ampeg vt40 stays👍

Busta Speeker my parents owned two music shops and a touring rig shop with trucks. They purchased it for the shop, sold, 20 years later I buy it back👍🎼. 4x 10” and bulletproof. Since mid 80’s till now it has not missed a beat. An over engineered gem.

It is a nice feeling, yes. Never gets old.

@@TheGuitologist . Hello I can already see that you rarely respond to comments. But I have a quick question. I have this exact same amp, and the power section is wired (from the factory) worse than yours. I just want to know if you rewired it just like the schematic? The reason I ask is I'm going to rewire mine also. But don't you think it's weird how the schematic used both pin #8 and pin #2 on the 5U4 for B+ voltage into the circuit? That is just so weird and untraditional. So again my question is if you wired it just like the schematic? These amps are rare, with hardly information on them, so I would appreciate your response.

@@234dilligaf I’m afraid so far as I’ve seen, the channel has been relatively inactive lately, and so I don’t believe you’ll get a response,, perhaps Direct Message him on one of his social media accounts listed in the discription?

Sounds like a million bucks? Is that good?

You got this. When in doubt, cut the power.

@@TheGuitologist and use a current limiter!

You might want to check out the 18watt stout or Stout reverb, and Stout BMT, at EL34 World (Hoffman Amps) Great little Marshall/Vox circuit that cooks and there is a lot of help there on the forum. I built a couple and they both cooked (in a good way no smoke came out) LTj

I say make sure your amp is operating correctly and if it's a powerful amp like this one at 35W per side, consider biasing slightly cooler to go easy on the speakers and rock those suckers until the wheels fall off. They'll dry rot anyway if you don't rock them!

@@TheGuitologist and that's the way it should be! LOL

Meh... why have a vintage amp if you're not gonna play the vintage speakers? The originals can be reworked and not hurt the value.

@@Only1Shadow , My point was that very good ceramics are currently available which will crank quite well with a vintage amp, and yes, you can have speakers reconed, but they will never be quite the same, and it's an expensive process. I have a '59 Deluxe, and the original Jensen is in a box on the shelf, where it's safe. The Celestion which temporarily replaced it rocks like a muthaf%#$er...and I can still sell it for $4K+ whenever I choose...duh...

@@chokkan7 I design and build custom amps. There are indeed very good reproduction classic speakers but we obviously have different purposes in having a nice tube amp. My amps are expensive - you would expect that from a custom. They're also show pieces - again, you'd expect that. But they're meant to be played... built to last forever, but also serviced when needed, and everything is a service item eventually. Maybe for the great grandchildren, but that means tens of thousands of hours play time.

I agree the conservative movement of Globalism was the beginning of the end based on an untested hypothesis and a perversion of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. However, the US middle class consumerism drove the economy as much as the military industrial complex. If you send all your production off shore, no more factory workers to purchase US made goods then, to quote Dragnet, If you ain’t got-you can’t get. Plus, those Ivy League economists influencing Industrial think tanks started treating employees as costs instead of trained assets, and did everything to cut (health benefits), reducing employees, outsourcing to the lowest bidder rather than in house (quality control). The whole premise fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders, and then executive compensation is more important than quality at a reasonable price. What drove the economy, 2000s, credit card payments almost 110% of the gross income. The dollar had been unlinked from Gold since Gerald Ford losing 8% value annually, Minimum wage that adjusted throughout the 1960s, come 1981 nothing for almost a decade. Another adjustment in 5 years, 10 years 3 yearly adjustment and now 15 years later it’s still $ 7.25 an hour. How much did a Fender Strat cost in 1964? How much was minimum wage ‘64? How much is a comic book in 1964? In terms of hours worked paid in minimum wage compared minimum wage should be around $35 per hour. Take a 12 cent comic book try that in an inflation calculator. No way is it $4.99 adjusted. Or a $200 guitar, hand built by craftsmanship, with hand guided pickups, equal to the Fender Custom Shop (better) of today would cost adjusted for comparable value would as much as today’s Custom Shop price tags or slightly more. So I agree with your comment, but remember who votes against raising Federal minimum wage, and who gives out to Big businesses Corporate Welfare. It’s on both sides of the aisle, as the working poor don’t have PACs to bribe, legally, our elected officials who look out for their donors interests. I was told in mid 2000s the US was moving to a Service Based Economy…Turns out we are the ones who got “serviced”.

The OC Electronics Folded-Line says that on it.

Giannini crafted in Brazil mid 70s a guitar amplifier - Tera - with 8 x 6L6 tubes...

Ive built a few customs with type 80 rectifiers and 0A2 regulators for exactly that reason

I have not experienced that problem with any of the ones I get today.

@@TheGuitologist It's been since 2008 or so since I ran into it.

It's not a day away. It's at 2pm TODAY. The editor defaults to a day away and I forgot to change it. It'll air in 2.5 hours.

The reason creators are doing the premiers is because they won't send out notifications normally, and premiers seem to get better notifications...and the live chat feature.

I don’t like it either, at least you can talk to Brad though.

@@TheGuitologist Ooops, my bad..didn't realize it was only a couple hours away, that's doable! Love the amp videos Brad, thanks for the explanation brother!

Baitin!

Correct. That is the Zio Meteora.

Thanks for the support. I think you can skip the skippables. ;)

@@TheGuitologist No worries man. Take care.

A 5U4 rectifier with that cap value is fine. You’re right on the blue glow, but the odds of both tubes still working perfectly and both having the exact same blue glow and being leaky are low, I think. Worst case, one goes to air and craps out and he orders another pair.

@@TheGuitologist 5U4 with that cap won't die today. 2 5U4s with that cap won't die tomorrow either. 5Y3s I wouldn't worry about since they're directly heated, but GZ34/5AR4 are notorious for going open if over capped on node 1. My guess would be the lower internal resistance allows a bigger inrush surge. And I don't think that 6L6 is going gassy to the point of failure any time soon. I mostly see that with tubes that have pins in the glass and run very hot... EL34 comes to mind. I replace 4 or 5 of those for every 6L6. Various reasons mostly not air, but those, 12AT7, and 605 transmitter tubes are the only ones I ever see white getter. I think you just got one they didn't pull a hard vacuum on - some manufacturers maintain their pumps better than others... and everyone is entitled to a bad day once in a while.

Excellent point about the tube rectifier and the 1st node cap rating. The two 47uF caps he put in parallel (94uF) is WAY too high of a value. The specification for a 5U4GB is 40uF MAX. Those ratings should be followed for long tube life (plus the amp sounds / feels better with a lower value). And honorable mention about the idiotic "standby" switch. No tube based amplifier should have a "standby" switch because it actually DECREASES the life of the tubes, but ESPECIALLY not on an amp with a tube rectifier! The best way to kill a tube rectifier way before it's time is to install a "standby" switch. www.valvewizard.co.uk/standby.html

"Jesus Christ you sound good"

Hi Tom Julian! Yeah that grill looks like it's been used as a urinal! - Awful! I'd want to at least try to remove it & chuck it in the washing machine, or chuck it out! But of course Brad has to follow what the customer wants.

I have one of these amps as well. It's really hard to find anyone who owns them because of what they cost back in the day. It was one of Valcos most expensive amps. My question to you is if you've opened opened it up and looked at the circuitry? Replaced capacitors? Anything?

@@234dilligaf mine was non-operational for a long time until found a gentleman in the chicago area who could (and did) fix it.

@@timcouture2633 . . Oh ok. Thanks for responding. I'm just trying to figure out why my amp is different in the power amp section than what the schematic reflects. So I'm reaching out to see if others are wired this way as well. For some reason it was wired that way from the factory. It's hard to find much information about these on the internet. I wish I knew how many of these amps are out there. The cost of them (in the day) would be equivalent to almost $4000 by todays money. So I'm assuming they're very rare to find.

Yeah that's why you won't find many of these amps. Just imagine paying to $4000 dollars for ANY amp today? The ones that bought this amp had to VERY wealthy in the day.