WATKINS SCOUT

British-made Watkins Scout valve (tube) amp, for sale in excellent cosmetic condition and perfect working order.

It sounds fantastic, was serviced last year and is in excellent working order – a real sweet vintage amplifier that has big studio presence and is a joy to play through.

This is a rare vintage amplifier, and one of very few made between 1963-5. It is a similar circuit to the famous mk1 V-front Dominator and sounds bigger than it should. Theoretically (or optimistically) rated at around 14 watts, it sounds a little less, but this makes it a perfect amp for recording and home use – it delivers sweet creamy valve tones with great break-up at living room levels with just enough grunt for smaller gigs. It has been compared to a Vox AC15 and some say that this circuit was an inspiration to Jennings when designing the AC15 – it certainly can hold its own up against our AC10 for a fraction of the cost.

It sports no less than four inputs – one input with microphone type rotary pot (which sounds like another tone control) that doesn’t go through the tremolo circuit – gain and master volume controls, and tone control.

The mic circuit is the one to use for extra crunch and snarl: it breaks up beautifully and pretty quickly.

The tremolo sounds great, with controls for speed and depth – the footswitch socket has an RCA phono socket.

It’s in exceptional condition (see photos) – one of the best we’ve seen, with the only blemish being a small hole in the rear grille where somebody probably had an extra speaker socket. All the original yellow print Mullard valves are present, except for a new replacement in the tremolo circuit (which doesn’t affect the sound). It’s a lovely amp to record and play through – and an uncommon one at that, especially in this condition.

It is a UK 240v model and will require a step-up transformer for use in Canada and USA. The UK plug will be removed before shipping to the EU/Australia unless otherwise requested.