Ampeg SVT-CL or SVT 2-Pro

[FIREpunkMEDIC]

Hey all!
Looking to pick up one of these two heads, a little wary of the 2-pro (Blue Letter era) as it's a hike to get to but seller says he'd take 500 bucks for it. Gotta be a trap right? Anyway, of the two which would you do? For context play punk rock/power pop with a custom PJ.

Let's see them votes...

 

[paskisti]

Note that replacing power tubes pretty much doubles the price, that's why second hand amps are getting cheaper and cheaper.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

I had good luck with my SVT-cl, did lots of gigs and rehearsed about 3x a week for years. SVTs are cool amps if you can carry it. It’s a lot heavier than you V4-B, esp at 2am. I feel lucky I was quite strong back then.

I sold mine to get my V-4B because I used an efficient 215 and wanted more drive than I could get from the SVT at the volume we ran at club shows (loud enough to match a heavy hitting drummer). The swap worked for me but your experience could be completely different going the other direction.

 

[Sulaco]

The SVT2 Pro is a terrible piece of design. Two circuit boards sandwiched together with two large iron core transformers mounted directly above? No thanks. See here- http://www.chambonino.com/work/ampeg/amp4.html

Also, the enclosure is way too small for the amount of heat that those tubes generate. I used to have one in a rack and sleeve flightcase (foamed on all sides) and the outside of the flightcase was too hot to touch when the amp was running. That thing was just a fire hazard.

 

[Wasnex]

Most likely $500 for a 2-Pro is exactly what it seems...too good to be true.

Anytime you buy a used tube amp I suggest factoring in a bench fee and the cost of a matched set of output tubes. A sextet of 6550s is about $400 and a bench fee is probably around $100. So as @paskisti said, good chance the actual cost will be at least $1,000...and it could be more.

I have a bunch of tube amps that I bought previously loved. 40-60% of them needed attention either when they arrived are within a few months. Fortunately, I have a background in electronics repair and do most of the work myself, so it's a bit less expensive for me.

The worst case was probably my 69 SVT. I purchased it off Ebay for $1350 shipped. Total sunk cost at this time is $2039, so I have put at least $689 worth of parts in the amp. This includes new tubes, new capacitors, and a new power transformer.