EH 185 question

spike

Hi - longtime lurker here. I know several of you guys own this amp. I have a chance too buy one of these (early style) with no case for $500. It looks quite clean. I have a bunch of archtops (49 ES 300, 49 ES 350, 53 Country Club, Harmony H62, Guild CE 100), and a bunch of tweed (Pro, Tremolux) and blackface (Pro Reverb, Vibrolux, blonde bassman) amps. I play in a Charlie Christian/Roy Lanham style when playing electrically.

Given these guitars, and the amps I already have, deal or no deal?

Thanks - any advice is appreciated!!

Spike

Campusfive

You mean the head w/o the cab or speaker?
I don't know what you'd do with it, because the amp is designed to drive a field coil speaker. It's not like you could just take any speaker and hook it up w/o some major changes. And if you're going to make major changes, why buy it?

I love mine, but I think you'd be just as well off with a EH150 or an intact EH185. There are lots of mid 40's gibsons as well. BR-'s etc.

spike

Should have been more specific - it does come with the field coil speaker, just no cabinet. From my little bit of research, it seems like an intact 185 or 150 is going to be 1k plus, hence the attraction.

badjazz

hmmm . . . $500 is right in the gray area. As long as the amp and speaker are both in tip-top shape, I'd consider it. A lot of the old cabinets are falling apart anyway (my favorite eh-150 is held together by parts of a gas can screwed to the inside of the cab), so as long as you can put it in a new cab, it might even be better than an intact one from a practical standpoint.

That being said, I'd just sell one of those blackface fenders and get a completely functional eh-150 or eh-185. Like campusfive said, if you look you can find a beat up eh or br with 6L6's for not much more. I bought my favorite eh-150 of ebay for like $200 a few years ago. It needed another $100 worth of work and is cosmetically beat to hell, but those deals are still out there if you are patient.