Very well understood Sabbath. When I bought this Head this was not disclosed to me, as it came across country. The guy who owned this head previously broke the stock tube retainers off (on purpose) and drilled new holes (not straight), when none needed to be drilled, for the Marshall Tube retainers. He could have simply spent about 10 minutes and remove the stock ones and installed the Marshall ones there. He may have done it as the tube sockets felt loose, and I have no Idea what tubes he had in there. It probably took more time to drill the holes anyway. If he was willing to drill holes through the chassis on a $4000 head what else did he do to it? This is the unknown, as I have never owned a VH4 let alone played one pryor to having this head to know what one sounds like. That's why I am thinking new also.
After a couple of Preamp tube swaps and swapping the EL34 BHT's for the Standard STR's it sounded awesome. My concern is that if something was compromised in the amp when the last person owned it I would have no idea. I certainly don't want to spend $3000 on an amp that may have to go to the shop. That is unacceptable to me for the cost of the amp. This is not a Diezel issue at all, just a prior owner issue.