Congleton, Cheshire · UK

Valve Amp
Servicing & Repair

Valve replacement, bias setting, fault diagnosis, and full restoration: for amplifiers of any make or age. Honest work, quoted before we start. Drop-off and collection by appointment at the Congleton workshop.

How it works ↓

How it works

Oscilloscope, multimeter and ESR meter connected to an open amp chassis during diagnosis

1

Health Check — £40

A bounded 45–60 minute pass: visual inspection, safety checks, power-up and listen. You get a clear written verdict — fine as-is, service recommended, or fault found — before anything else happens. Introductory rate, £60 standard, and it's deducted from any follow-on work.

2

Diagnosis — £40/hr

If the health check turns up a fault, time is charged at £40/hr (minimum one hour) to trace the actual cause. No guessing, no shotgunning parts at the problem — just finding what's actually wrong and what it'll take to fix it.

3

Fix — quoted before we start

The repair itself, carried out to a plan you've agreed to — from a valve swap to a full service. Labour continues at £40/hr, parts charged at cost, everything documented so you know exactly what changed and why.

Pricing guide

Amp Health Check	£40
Full Valve Amp Service	£120
Fault diagnosis & repair	£40/hr + parts
Power tube swap (pair)	£15 + tubes
Full tube set replacement	£35 + tubes
Full cap refresh	£40 + parts
Modification / custom wiring	£40/hr
Collection & return (Congleton area)	POA

Health Check and Full Service prices shown are introductory rates (£60 and £180 standard) while DriftTone builds its client base — existing customers always get advance notice before rates change. Parts charged at cost throughout; a written quote is always given before parts are ordered.

What a fix can look like

Groove Tubes GT-12AX7 preamp valve

01 · Valve Replacement & Biasing

New valves, set right.

A fresh set of valves can transform an amp, but only if they're properly matched and biased. We source quality valves, match them for your amplifier's circuit, and set bias accurately. Your amp sounds the way it was meant to.

Full valve inspection and condition assessment
Matched valve selection for your amp type
Power valve bias measurement and adjustment
Electrolytic and filter cap health check
Full signal path test before return

Fender amp interior showing PCB and wiring

02 · Fault Diagnosis & Repair

Find it. Fix it.
No surprises.

Noise, hum, low output, cutting out, no signal at all: we trace the fault in any valve or tube amplifier, explain what we've found in plain language, and quote before any repair work begins. If we can't fix it, you don't pay.

Full electrical inspection and signal path trace
Fault isolation and identification
Written diagnosis in plain language
Repair quote agreed before work starts
Repair carried out to your approval

Amp interior showing filter capacitors, potentiometers and output valves during a full service

03 · Full Valve Amp Service

Back to how it
was built to sound.

Aged electrolytics, out-of-spec components, tired filter caps: over time they all degrade your amplifier's performance. A full service is a systematic, documented pass through everything that matters — electrical, mechanical and cosmetic — and brings the amp back to how it should sound.

See everything a full service includes ↓

Real Work

Full recap on a Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue: all electrolytic and filter caps replaced, bias set, soak tested.

See a sample Health Check report (PDF) →

Full Service

What's included.

A full service isn't just a clean and a look-over. It's a systematic inspection of everything (electrical, mechanical and cosmetic) with every check documented and every finding recorded.

Parts are charged at cost on top. You'll always know what's being replaced and why before we proceed.

Every full service includes

Full pre-work visual inspection inside and out
Electrical safety checks: earth continuity, insulation resistance, fuse ratings
ESR testing of all HT filter capacitors
Replacement of any capacitors found out of tolerance with quality-branded components
Key voltage measurements at all test points referenced against the service manual
Bias check and adjustment on output valves
Mechanical check: transformers, hardware, tube retainers, speaker connection
Full reassembly and torque check
Thirty-minute soak test
Written service report with all findings, measurements and any deferred items

Why it's worth doing

Valve amplifiers age. The capacitors that smooth and filter your HT voltage drift out of tolerance over time, often long before anything obviously breaks. The result is gradual: a little more hum than there used to be, slightly less headroom, a top end that doesn't quite sit right. You might put it down to your ears, or the room, or the guitar. It's usually the caps. A full service catches that before it becomes a fault. It also catches the loose transformer bolts, the cracked RCA socket, the tube that's on its way out. The things that don't show up until they do.

Full Valve Amp Service: labour

£120

Introductory rate — £180 standard. Parts at cost. No fix, no fee on fault diagnosis.

No fix, no fee

If we can't fix it,
you don't pay.

Every repair job is covered by our no fix, no fee guarantee. If we can't identify or resolve the fault, you won't be charged for the repair work. Always.

Not sure who to trust with it? Read our guide on finding an amp repairer →