2005 Hiwatt DR103 Reissue

Overview

I acquired this amp after reading about HIWATT amps online for a while. Vintage DR103’s and the like are a bit out of my budget, so I was excited to see this very nice, hand wired unit available for a fair price. I’ve since sold this, but there are times I wish I still had it available. My biggest struggle - as is no surprise to any Hiwatt enthusiast - is that it was incredibly loud. Even with the master volume control, I struggled to get a tone I liked at a reasonable volume, and perhaps an outboard attenuator would’ve made it more manageable.

The tone was of course, squeaky clean and bright with a full bass. I really wanted to hear the drive tones more, but I never really got it loud enough to get the power tubes cooking enough for that.

This particular unit was made by Music Ground in the UK, which has some surrounding “drama.” I’m not really involved in any of that and I’m more interested in the sound the amps can make, but if you want to get into that stuff, I’d start by reading this thread on The Gear Page or this news article. Back to the amp, it was clearly made to a very high quality standard and the fit and finish was excellent. I wouldn’t be the authority to judge if the transformers compare to the original Partridge spec, but they were absolutely massive and this is one of the heaviest amps I’ve ever owned. It’s also pretty wild looking to me inside, I’m so used to modern amps that seeing those massive transformers but only two tiny PtP boards inside is quite odd (though normal for PtP amps, I know). It’s an amp I wish I’d spent more time with, but I got an offer I couldn’t refuse and sold it off.