MadAsAHatter
Well-known member
This one might make the bass guys a little jealous. I snagged a Trace Elliot V4 Mk1.
From my research and understanding not a whole lot of these were made. Between the V4 Mk1 (200 watts) and V6 (400 watts) not many were made total. These 2 amps share the same preamp, but different power sections. There's also hybrind & SS in this series which all share the same preamp. I can't find reliable enough info on production numbers. Best I could research is a couple hundred of the 4V & V6 and not sure about the hybrids. There's also a V4 Mk2 and a V8. They share the same preamp and similar but different power sections. Supposedly only 25 of the V4 Mk2 and maybe 100 of the V8 were made. Of that whole series less than 1500 total made; so not exactly one sitting on every street corner.
The difference between the V4 Mk1 & Mk2 are in the preamp. The Mk1 is single channel where the Mk2 is 2 channel; clean & overdrive.
Moving on... This amp comes with a quick but interesting chain of events. I've had a V-Type preamp (fairly rare as well) sitting in my Reverb watch list for like the last 6-8 months. Never did anything about it because it was listed as local pickup only. After the holidays I was going to message the seller to see if he'd be willing to ship. It ended up selling one day last week... oh well.
Since that one sold I poked around over the weekend to see if anything else was available. I came across a shop selling NOS Trace Elliot parts. They have a V4Mk2/V8 unpopulated preamp board, unpopulated V8 power amp board, and a couple V6 OT's & PT's. So I thought maybe I could build one myself from the NOS parts Spent some time over the weekend researching this and how I could work the power section and/or find suitable transformers. I thought of something to look up this morning and when I got on the computer to search.... low and behold a V4 Mk1 was listed overnight. Told my wife about it and she says it's your money, if it's not sitting on a credit card do what you want. Dammit all if she isn't an enabler LOL!. Anyway one irresponsible decision later and I clicked buy it now.
Specs on this guy are:
-Listed as never gigged and rarely used. It's an earlier production model that has the green rat fur which from pics looks to be in pristine condition.
-Preamp is based off a fender tone stack (I think) with Gain, BMT, Master Volume, along with deep & bright switches and a pull mid shift on the Mid knob.
-Active & Passive inputs and pre/post EQ DI out.
-FX loop
-2 12AX7 preamp tubes
-4 KT88 Power tubes for 220 watts
-4/8 ohm output.
Side note, Trace Elliot never made a Mk2 preamp only the full amp. So I'll likely get one of those Mk2 preamp boards and build a rack preamp out of it. Pair it with the Mk1 amp and be able to have both.
Borrowing one of the listing pics for now. I'll replace it with my own once the amp is delivered.
From my research and understanding not a whole lot of these were made. Between the V4 Mk1 (200 watts) and V6 (400 watts) not many were made total. These 2 amps share the same preamp, but different power sections. There's also hybrind & SS in this series which all share the same preamp. I can't find reliable enough info on production numbers. Best I could research is a couple hundred of the 4V & V6 and not sure about the hybrids. There's also a V4 Mk2 and a V8. They share the same preamp and similar but different power sections. Supposedly only 25 of the V4 Mk2 and maybe 100 of the V8 were made. Of that whole series less than 1500 total made; so not exactly one sitting on every street corner.
The difference between the V4 Mk1 & Mk2 are in the preamp. The Mk1 is single channel where the Mk2 is 2 channel; clean & overdrive.
Moving on... This amp comes with a quick but interesting chain of events. I've had a V-Type preamp (fairly rare as well) sitting in my Reverb watch list for like the last 6-8 months. Never did anything about it because it was listed as local pickup only. After the holidays I was going to message the seller to see if he'd be willing to ship. It ended up selling one day last week... oh well.
Since that one sold I poked around over the weekend to see if anything else was available. I came across a shop selling NOS Trace Elliot parts. They have a V4Mk2/V8 unpopulated preamp board, unpopulated V8 power amp board, and a couple V6 OT's & PT's. So I thought maybe I could build one myself from the NOS parts Spent some time over the weekend researching this and how I could work the power section and/or find suitable transformers. I thought of something to look up this morning and when I got on the computer to search.... low and behold a V4 Mk1 was listed overnight. Told my wife about it and she says it's your money, if it's not sitting on a credit card do what you want. Dammit all if she isn't an enabler LOL!. Anyway one irresponsible decision later and I clicked buy it now.
Specs on this guy are:
-Listed as never gigged and rarely used. It's an earlier production model that has the green rat fur which from pics looks to be in pristine condition.
-Preamp is based off a fender tone stack (I think) with Gain, BMT, Master Volume, along with deep & bright switches and a pull mid shift on the Mid knob.
-Active & Passive inputs and pre/post EQ DI out.
-FX loop
-2 12AX7 preamp tubes
-4 KT88 Power tubes for 220 watts
-4/8 ohm output.
Side note, Trace Elliot never made a Mk2 preamp only the full amp. So I'll likely get one of those Mk2 preamp boards and build a rack preamp out of it. Pair it with the Mk1 amp and be able to have both.
Borrowing one of the listing pics for now. I'll replace it with my own once the amp is delivered.
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I never realized how expensive bass stuff was until 
