Bogan Boutique Amplifiers

05/12/2025

On the bench...

An early 1960s Jansen 6 Twenty. It's not had any attention since the early 2000s, and the owner wants to use this in their studio. I'm going to do a full recap and make sure it's all healthy and ready to play again, as it has been sitting nearly 20 years by the look of it.

28/11/2025

Okay folks, sorry to disappoint, but I am officially not taking in any more amps for the moment. My books are full right now and I need to concentrate on the amps I have. I'll probably take in more amps again in three or so weeks. Thanks for understanding.

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25/10/2025

It's a month for big amps.

Here's a Holden Wasp VBL 200 mark I.

The original 200w version of the VBL, in a Marshall/Hiwatt style cabinet. It's in a very sorry state, with blow out power filter caps and a pretty tired interior. No power cord and no working tubes either. It came with 4 x KT88s but they all tested bad, and I don't have any spares so I will be putting 6550s in this as I have some sitting around.

As usual, there's about 30 pics here so come back here in half an hour or so, set the order to list by newness, and read from the bottom up, and I'll show you what I had to do to get this amp back from the dead.

16/10/2025

Ok, stick with me. This is a rare treat. Not many of these around.

This is the Gunn 200, NZ's answer to the Marshall Major. Powered by 4 x KT88 power tubes, and with some pretty hefty transformers, it weighs a tonne, and sounds like it too.

Well, it does when it's going. Which this one isn't.

I'm going to do an electronic restoration on this amp, as it's one in my personal collection. I acquired it a couple of weeks ago, and turned it on to see if it went, whereupon it promptly blew one of the filter caps. Hardly surprising, as it's over 50 years old.

Serial number 200038, so I assume that means 200w, #38.

It's going to take a while to post all this (it's 38 photos) so pop back in a wee while, set your Facebook on your PC to "Filter by Newest" cause FB messes with the order for some reason now, and have a good old read as I show you what you need to do to get a 50+ year old amp working again.

Let's begin...

10/10/2025

I know, it's been three weeks since I last posted. I always said I'd only post interesting stuff on here, and most of the work I've been doing has been the same stuff that I've already posted on. And nobody wants to see that.

So here's something interesting. A JCM2000 DSL100. With a runaway bias problem. I got this amp in, and the owner reported it had lost signal and was sounding poorly. I put it on the workshop bench and plugged the bias probes in, and one of the tubes started running away. A few tests later and the conclusion was that the board had gone conductive and we needed to replace it.

So a new board was purchased from Brad's Guitar Garage in Australia:
https://www.bradsguitargarage.com.au/fym2000-2-channel-pcb-replacement-assembly-for-mar

and when it arrived it was time to swap it over.

23/09/2025

Heads up folks.

Because of a change in my full-time job (yes, this ain't my main gig) I am having to change my hours of work here, and in the new year the hours I can work on amps are going to have to reduce further as my main work insists on me spending more time in the office.

Sorry about that folks, it is what it is. I'll still be doing work on amps, it'll just take a bit longer. In the meantime I have some nice amps I am working on that I will have some stories up on real soon.

Hope everything is going well in your lives and your amps are happy too.

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16/08/2025

I know, it's been a while. I like to only post about things that I hope you will find interesting, and I have been doing a lot of amps that are the same as ones I've already done, and I'm sure you don't want to read the same old stuff.

So here's something interesting. A Concord Cloud 7. A what? I hear you say. Well, it's from the 1960s, a New Zealand (Auckland) made amp, featuring a pair of EL34s cathode biased for 25watts, going into a Phillips 12UEG alnico guitar speaker. The setup is similar to a Twin Reverb, except no reverb. And that's where the similarities end.

01/06/2025

Okay, buckle up, this is gonna be a long one. I have 39 pics in this set, so bear with me while I load them up and talk about it. It's a 1970 JMP 50w lead, aka the JMP Plexi, made sometime between July 1969 and Dec 1970.

It belongs to the son of a friend who sadly passed a couple of years back now. My friend gifted me my handwired Jansen Bassman 75, and it's lovely to be able to bring this one back for his son, who intends to use it for live performances.

So, I better do a good job on it. It looks pretty original from the front.

26/03/2025

It's been a week for capacitors. This Silver Jubilee 2553 turned up for a service. It's in near original condition, and that means it's using the original LCR caps, which are nearly 40 years old. In order to get it working in as-new condition it needs a recap and a bias in order to be working at its best again.

26/03/2025

This Friedman Runt 20 turned up on my bench lately. Friedmans are high quality amps, and don't tend to have many problems. This one does have an issue though - it's humming like it doesn't know the words, and it's a 100Hz hum, which generally means filter caps. Which is weird, because this amp is relatively new, and they use high quality ARS caps that don't tend to have problems with that. However, I spent some time with the capacitance meter, and two of them were reading way high in the impedance. So it looks like at least two of the capacitors in this amp have failed. Bad form ARS.

19/03/2025

So, this one crossed my bench lately for a repair they all need. The original potentiometers in these amps are hideous and they always crap out. The solution is to replace the original Russian potentiometers with decent pots which will return functionality.

Here's a brief description of the process in case you wondered what has to be done.

17/03/2025

So, this has to be the hardest gigging amp in New Zealand. Fresh off 52 shows in the last 52 weeks with the Bravo Uniform Mikes aka the BUMs, it came here sounding quiet, distorted and farty. I've worked extensively on the amp. I used to own it, and it's had the full treatment. Well, I tracked the problem down, with the help of solid state guru Glen Cowan, to a malfunction in one of the operational amplifier chips. The amp uses multiple FET based op amps in a similar way to valves, and one or more had given up the ghost. Hardly surprising since the amp is nearly 50 years old. With an all new set of U741CPs it's all good to go again. Those 6L6 tubes are lasting well too.