Imaginary you asked. Real us answered.

Why should I buy from Truth & Tone?

Good question, direct & to the point…

So you’re here because you want to buy a used or vintage amp, or at least you’re thinking of it.

Normally you have two choices, buy from a physical store or from an online marketplace (facebook, reverb, ebay etc).

Whilst both have their benefits they both have their flaws. At Truth & Tone we’re trying to bridge the gap between the two, providing a great service and strong support with affordable prices.

Buying from a physical store

If you’re unsure about what you want or nervous about buying a clanger, then buying from a physical store gives you a bit of comfort. You can take your time, try out a few different models, & hopefully there’s a friendly person to answer any questions.

However, you’ll be paying a premium for (some) piece of mind & as much as I support buying from your local guitar store, most aren’t amp specialists. They can tell you what it does, but probably not why. Also, what you buy is what you get, no options, no upgrades or special requests.

Most physical stores operate with a 7 day warrently for used goods & after that you’re on your own. A tube blows, hard luck. The PCB has a fault (looking at you Marshall) the you might as well take up the harmonica whilst you save up for a replacement.

Saying that, there are some amazing stores in Melbourne, so I encourage you to check out Echo Tone, Clingan Guitars, Found Sound, A & B guitars in Geelong, and my personal favourite, the Music Swop Shop.

Buying from an online marketplace

If you buy from an online marketplace like Facebook Marketplace, then you should be saving money compared to buying from a store. But, the compromise is that you won’t have any guarentees or warrenties. Saying that, most people aren’t complete d*cks & really aren’t trying to screw you over.

You should always give the amp a proper going over. Park any self-conciousness at the door and plug in a guitar. Play at all volumes/gain settings through all the channels. Twiddle every knob, switch, and setting, because once you hand over your cash, there’s no backsie’s or returns.

If the price is too good to be true, then there will be a reason. Hopefully it’s because they stopped playing years ago, and just want rid of it. But in our experience, amps which are in a great condition usually go for close to the price in a physical store, and ones which are a bargin have been literally pulled out of the basement.

So, whilst most times you’ll be fine, you can still end up with a lemon, rather than an Orange (ahahahahahaha).

Buying from Truth & Tone

At Truth & Tone we want to take the worry out of buying a used or vintage amp, and give you the same piece of mind from buying from an establish, physical store, but with the lower cost of buying from an online marketplace.

Buying your amp from T&T means that…

  • It’s has been checked & serviced, and checked again.

  • All critical components (thats the power handling and signal handling parts) will have been upgraded with over-speced components from top of the line manufacturers (see our manufacturers list below).

  • Any approved mods or upgrades, that increase reliability or the quality of the amp, will have been made to the circuit, e.g. adjustable bias controls, extra power filtering.

  • You have options…

    • Different speaker? Check!

    • Built-in attenutator? Check!

    • Funky alligator tolex? Double check!!

    • Switchable contact bias parallel preamp input? Hell yes, check-city!!!

And most importantly

So whats this ‘friendly’ returns and repairs policy?

All amps come with…

For more details dig into our T&C’s.

What if I don’t want a ‘modified’ amp?

We hear you, and we see you. We’d be suspicious of anyone claiming they’ve made some home made ‘improvements’ which Fender or Marshall somehow missed.

However, a quick search on the internet will show that there are huge amounts of modifications and ‘improvements’ to stock mainstream amps.

Sometimes these are fixes for common reliability issues, often caused through cost-controls (e.g. the crappy filter caps in every Fender Hot Rod or Blues series).

Other times they are more complex & add a new dimension to the stock amp. The BillM presence control mod for Fender Blues Junior amps is a classic example.

The trick is to know what each one does, how they work & which ones are actually worth doing.

Thats where Truth & Tone comes in.

At T&T our amps go through three stages - Rebuild, Revoice, Refurbish.

Rebuild - We go beyond a typical service & look at how we can improve the reliability & quality of the amp, without changing it’s core tone.

Revoice - This is more traditional amp ‘modding’ where we make fundamental changes to the amps design.

Refurbish - Purely cosmetic, we give the amp a bit of spit and polish, maybe add some extra bling, or a do a complete make-over.

So?

At any point, if you see an amp on our site that wets your whistle, you can step in, throw a spanner in the works, and chat with us about taking it off our hands.

If you have any specific requirements or mods you want e.g. specific brands or components you want fitted, diffent speaker or tolex covering, then we can do that work for you.

Alternatively, if you just want the stock amp, but with extra reliability & quality, you can take the amp as it is & the price will be determined on the amount of work we’ve done.

What does the amp ‘status’ mean?

Because of the way we work (slowly & carefully, with many, many tea breaks), and our Rebuild, Revoice, Refurbish process, we want to make it obvious which step of the process an amp is in, by displaying it’s ‘status’.

As we’ve mentioned before, you can jump in at any stage/status to either buy the amp as it is, add your own requirements, or come and give it a test run.

The different statuses are:

Rolling in - We’ve bought the amp, but it hasn’t hit our store yet.

  • Typically, if it’s coming from the UK, it takes around 3-4 months to arrive.

  • We’re happy to put you on a first-come-first-serve list (no deposit needed), and give you an estimate of the arrival date and intial price.

  • Once it’s landed, we’ll give it a check & service, & then it’s up to you whether you want to buy it as it is, get us to do any more work on it, or walk away empty handed.

In Recovery - The amp is in stock, but it hasn’t been serviced/rebuilt.

  • If you see an amp you like and want to grab it at this stage then let us know.

  • We can then push it to the top of the queue & give it our full service/rebuild before passing it over to you

Rebuild - This is where we feel we start to add ‘value’.

  • When we rebuild an amp we go beyond a typical service & look at how we can improve the reliability & quality of the amp, without changing it’s core tone.

  • This includes work such as:

    • Upgrading the power filter capacitors.

    • Upgrading the tube cathode resistors & bypass caps.

    • Replacing the tone stack & coupling capacitors with high quality film capacitors, & replacing bright caps with Silver Mica.

    • Adding adjustable bias controls to non-adjustable fixed-bias amps.

    • Lead dress & re-routing to minimise noise.

    • Other model specific modifications to improve reliability and quality.

    These changes alone can make an amp sound absolutely fantastic.

Revoice - Now this is where it gets a bit more ‘personal’. When we ‘revoice’ an amp we do one of two things.

  • Taking the core sound of the amp & improving on it

    • This could be through a whole heap of modifications to the original amp e.g. changing the speaker, tightening the bass, swaping the tone stack values, modifying the power filtering.

      However, we aren’t trying to make the amp into a different beast, just a better one.

    • An example of this is with our JCM2000 ‘Green & Gold’. Stock, the JCM2000 is ok, but definitely not awe inspiring. It has the Marshall sound, but it’s just not quite there.

      Not what you want from a 100 watt Marshall head.

      After upgrading some parts & modifying some of the circuit, it now sounds amazing on all channels. It’s full on Marshall covering Rock, Metal, Blues from all the era’s.

  • Taking the core sound of the amp & throwing it out of the window

    • Ok, to be honest, we don’t usually go too far off track.

      However, this is when we make more permanent changes to the amps internals.

      We try to make these changes switchable between the stock & modified circuits, but essentially we’re trying to get a different sound rather than the ‘fresh-from-the-shop’ version.

    • If you’re interested in what this might entail, check out our Fender Blues Junior Series.

      These range from being a hybrid III/IV edition with selectable fixed bias or cathode bias operation, to our ‘bayou boy’, a dirty back-roads blues edition with a re-designed preamp to bring on the grit.

Refurbish - Lets make it yours

  • Again the amount of work we do is on a scale & can depend on what we feel represents the amp & how much time & budget we have.

  • Minimal - With some amps we just clean up the tolex, repair any scuffs, scratches or damage, & make it look as close to new as we can.

  • A bit’O bling - Other times we might replace the hardware with shiny new fittings, grilles & handles (check out our bling Vox & Marshall vent meshes).

  • The full monty - If we feels it fits, every now and again, we’ll go for a full makeover with a re-tolex, new grille cloth and hardware.

What are your Terms & Condition’s?

Feel free to peruse our terms and conditions.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us. We’re always happy to chat through any queries.

Anything we’ve missed? Drop us a line and we’ll get back to you asap.