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burman amps


Guest lime

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"Burman 50 Watt amplifier head. All valve, hand made British amplifer. Very rare, built about 1980.Single channel with reverb and three stage gain controls. The output section uses two KT88 valves which give about 70 watts clean!! This amp has just been completely re-valved and serviced by Matamp and is in excellent condition. A usable collectors item."

(seeing as the matamp was sold and the guy hasnt taken the ad down....)

whats peoples honest oppinion of this burman? looks pretty sweet to me, only concern is he says "collectors", sounds a bit dodgy, as if its past it.

reckon id be cheaky to ask 300 for it?

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the Burman amps are fantastic

Burman were a British firm who went bust in the 80s cos there amps were just too well made but badly advertised ....

They are old - but not fragile and so simply designed that most amp technicians who can work with a Marshall will have no problem with a Burman.....very similar design ...but in my opinion the Burman sounds better.....the cleanish sound is awesome and the dirty sound is like Killing Jokes first 3 albums....thats because thats what they used. The three stage distortion is clever and does lots of good noisy things.

I had one but stupidly sold it to Sandy from Electric Tibet in an hour of need.

...and our Bass player still has the Bass version which also doubles as a guitar amp if needed and that also blows away most amps

reliability .....well the construction is military spec....the valves need changing like on all valve amps and the transformer may need replacing if its not already been replaced ....no big deal as its the same type as in Marshall amps of the same age.

It does say ''usable collectors item'' and i reckon it tougher than most new amps.

Burman - As Endorsed by Electric Tibet and Real Shocks (but maybe thats not a good thing)

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*has flashback experience*

i think what actually happened was, sandy picked it up from RnB after I stupidly gave it to them as deposit for a shite guitar if i remember correctly...ages ago now

i would think they sold it to sandy for 250 to 300 as they gave me 200 against the shite guitar i think

its worth 300 imo, about what you'd pay for a decent JCM800 of the same type of age

i think it packed up on sandy a few times in the first few months he had it, and that me feel quite guilty about the years of high volume abuse i gave it....but i think once RnB had got it fixed it was ok...probably just valves/transformer stuff

but i wouldnt get too paranoid about valve amp reliability...they are all useless bastards sometimes, even new ones *scowls at Vox AC30* - 18 months old - broken down at 3 gigs already (which is why Ive got 4 guitar amps, 2 very unhip solid state ones and two trendy valve bastards)

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Originally posted by lime:

he wants 350, reckon i should try get him down a bit?

its just been re-valved and serviced by matamp tho.,,,

in that case Id politely offer 300 and see what he says

i predict it will be ''no, but for 330 you can have it''

or something like that

but make sure you want this particular type of amp ....its a dirty sounding thing (early Nirvana/Killing Joke) that will be good for alternative nasty stuff but for modern sounds or metal its not really the thang at all

and try to use a guitar with loud humbuckers for the best results....it makes the pre-amps on the Burman do lovely feedbacky sustainy things

even 350 is not bad....theres not many decent valve heads going for much less and if you look after it (ie get someone who knows what they are doing if/when the valves need changing etc) it should last for ever....we still use the bass version of the same amp and its indestructable

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i dont play metal, or even rock, huh!

i was in hookers green when they did the loud guitar thing, if that means anything.

i plan to have it on cleanish and use it in conjunction with a rat/digital-reverb-delay pedal/big muff.

id also use it on dirty fr that killing joke/bleach nirvana sound, for a kinda drive like jehu feel/at the drive in feel, maybe.

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  • 8 years later...

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