Nearly 10 year old ENGL preamp

[mindwalker]

Hi guys, needing your sage advice

I'm considering jumping the gun on a nearly 10 year old ENGL e570 preamp. However I'm concerned that its age will give me more problems than it should. It looks clean on the outside... I haven't seen it in person but the description mentions no noisy pots. Should I be looking for something else ? Valves have been changed some years ago... but is there a natural wear and tear for capacitors and resistors that could lead me to a big service ahead ? And what about the EPROM use to store presets

The price is nice so it could accommodate for some "servicing" before buying it new would outweight the cost. But maybe there won't be the need for that at all ?

Thanks a lot for any tips guys!

 

[vansinn]

Don't think you'll need to worry that much; to my knowledge, those were build quite well, and electronics can be maintained.

Any electronics older than some 8-10 years should have all electrolytic capacitors replaced (often, mistakenly, only the power supply ones gets replaced).
This isn't expensive, nor difficult. Simply make a list of them all with values and voltages, order online, and start soldering (do note correct polarity).
Potentiometers sometimes can be scratchy, but at this age (10Y) usually works just fine.

I have several pieces of ADA, Lexicon and Digitech gear from early/mid 90's that merely required new caps.

 

[mindwalker]

hmmm well I'm really not the soldering kind of guy so I would definitely have to ask someone to replace all caps if need be..

but all things considered I think even though it's almost 10 years, it may be worth the shot! It's not like a computer that gets outdated fast... for a tube pre-amp, the features of 10 years ago are still more or less the features you would find in such a tube pre-amp today

 

[lemeker]

If it was maintained well, you should be fine. I have gear thats about the same age that work as is if it were new. If you can check it out in person and give it a look over, I would suggest that.

 

[bhakan]

It should be perfectly fine. I have two Mesa's which were made in the late 80's which work flawlessly. The one did have a bias issue when I got it, but that was relatively cheap to fix and I don't actually know what the previous owner did to cause it. It hasn't given me any problems since, and I've put it through a lot.

 

[4Eyes]

It should be perfectly fine. I have two Mesa's which were made in the late 80's which work flawlessly. The one did have a bias issue when I got it, but that was relatively cheap to fix and I don't actually know what the previous owner did to cause it. It hasn't given me any problems since, and I've put it through a lot.

with all respect to both brands, I don't think that Engl can compare to Mesa in terms of build quality. They look like tanks (Enlgs), but not in the inside - according to what I saw (I had e530, I saw Fireball, Blackmore and something else that I don't remember, from the inside)

I don't say they can't last for a long time period nor they don't sound good, but build quality looks different in my opinion.

just my 2 cents.

 

[Stijnson]

Well if you can get a 15 year old second hand amp without any problems, a 10 year old pre-amp should be fine too right?

 

[mindwalker]

Yep it should but as has been said, the electrolytic capacitors should be replaced at around 10 years old, plus the power supply can bust soon.. Or not
The thing is that I don't really know how much a professional tech would charge to do a maintenance job.

 

[ibanice]

If you want it. Buy it.

The caps are fine if they're of a decent quality which they should be because it's an ENGL. My uberschall is more than 10 years old and it runs just fine. There are Marshall from the 70's that still works with no problem. So you should be fine.

 

[vansinn]

A quick follow-up on electrolytic capacitors..
I meant what I wrote (in post #2) about possibly replacing those; however, this is a general viewpoint, and, as others have said, noone says any repairs per definition will be needed.

To explain: Caps may need replacement due to the electrolyte drying out, which wil cause the capacitor to loose it's capacitance (value). When the component is down enough in capacitance depends on the quality of the component, how long it has been left turned on, how much cooling or not it has had through it's lifetime.

You don't need to worry about buying older gear just because these components may be ripe for replacement; it's a simple matter of testing for hum plus simply opening the device and check if those (fairly larger) caps are starting to bulge-out on the top, which always indicates they're slowly (so, no alarm bells yet) about going too bad.

 

[sonofabias]

Hi guys, needing your sage advice

I'm considering jumping the gun on a nearly 10 year old ENGL e570 preamp. However I'm concerned that its age will give me more problems than it should. It looks clean on the outside... I haven't seen it in person but the description mentions no noisy pots. Should I be looking for something else ? Valves have been changed some years ago... but is there a natural wear and tear for capacitors and resistors that could lead me to a big service ahead ? And what about the EPROM use to store presets

The price is nice so it could accommodate for some "servicing" before buying it new would outweight the cost. But maybe there won't be the need for that at all ?

Thanks a lot for any tips guys!

just go for it ! The e570 is a monster and well worth repairing , I actually need one to pair with my e 920 power amp . If you don't like it , you can easily sell it to try something else . My power amp was purchased last year , it's over 20 years old , works flawlessly , I just replaced the three 12ax7 with jj's and it came with a set of siemans el34's as well , which cost about 500.00 for a quad !

 

[cwhitey2]

It should be perfectly fine. I have two Mesa's which were made in the late 80's which work flawlessly. The one did have a bias issue when I got it, but that was relatively cheap to fix and I don't actually know what the previous owner did to cause it. It hasn't given me any problems since, and I've put it through a lot.

I was gonna say don't want to know how old me dual rec is


10 years old is nothing...if you were talking from the 60s i might be concerned