A100 |
 |
|
& |
 |
Page. |
| A friend of mine, a professional Hammond player of some status, told me the only Hammonds worth playing have tone wheels. Never buy a transistor model he said, there are Hammond and there are Hammonds. He's right! |
| Well, the big ones are expensive, but once that Hammond bug bites, sooner or later you've just got to have one! |
 |
|
My opinion. First things first. I'm no Hammond expert, I bow to the knowledge and experience of those who are, like the friend whose advice I mention above. However, I am a Hammond enthusiast and for all out there who want to know what the A100 is like from the point of view of someone who's gone from a B200 transistor portable to an A100 tonewheel/valve model - read on..
Looks: I had seen lots of A100's on the internet before I saw mine in the flesh, so there were no first impressions or surprises as such. The A100 is a naturally beautiful thing. The full set of keys and 25 pedals bring a feeling of excitement in a way that you don't get when looking at a spinet of the same era. A Bentley to the spinet's Rover - I'm talking '60's cars here! Everything, save for the brown bakelite ends of the first two of the four sets and two pedal drawbars, is either black or white. No tacky colours, no gaps that look to be filled, no row upon row of buttons and rocker switches. You can keep your bells and whistles. Give me keys, give me drawbars, then frame them in a rich, lustrous red, mahogany case. An unfair comparison I know, a Bentley's walnut and leather to the B200's Austin Allegro with vinyl seats.
Price: I appreciate that it is pointless if not a little snotty of me to compare the B200 and A100 on looks or anything else for that matter. But comparison is the tool I've chosen to form this little opinion page and so I will stick with it.
The B200 cost me £100 and a Riha spinet, and came with a couple of bits and pieces, that I sold for £20, and a 760 Leslie. The A100 cost me £1,100 to buy and a further £250, in petrol and van hire, to collect. It didn't come with a Leslie cabinet and it's probably going to cost me between £50 and £100 to get it connected to my 760. So ten times the price. My wife and I run a small business and don't have money sitting around ready to indulge our expensive hobbies - I borrowed the £100 for the B200 we were so skint at the time!. So it was with alot of soul searching that I raided our reserves to by the A100, of course, nothing was going to stop me once I'd got that bee in my bonnet, but the excitement was greatly dulled by a feeling of guilt.
So, is the A100 worth that much more than the B200? Yes. Is the short answer. To me there is no comparison. I think the A100 at nearly £1,500 was far better value for money than the B200 was at £100. From my brief dips in the market tonewheel valve Hammonds seem to be going up in price. Just before I stumbled across the advert for mine I had a brief email exchange with a chap who was selling a very nice M100 with a 145 leslie. The reverb didn't work, which I understand is an expensive fault, and he wanted £800. Nice Leslie, nice spinet, lovely half moon switch, but £800? There was another in the same paper for £995 no offers. OK so these are expensive, you can still see adverts for tonewheel spinets for around £300, less popular console models for £600, and loads of X5's, T500's and the odd B200 for £150 or less. But the message is clear; Hammonds with tonewheels and valves are getting more sought after, get one while they're just this side of expensive - you'll be glad you did.
Near to where I live is a superstore that has a Roland digital piano and organ section. I walked through it a week or so after I got the A100. The price tag on a new Roland spinet was nearly £3,000! In five years time it will be in the local free papers with "cost £3,000 new will accept £250" written underneath it.
The A100 is a piece of history, a work of art, it's a real Hammond, no, it's better than that; it's the real Hammond (along with the B3 and C3 of course with which it is identical save for having internal speakers), when I die and they auction off my goods and chattels the A100 will be featured on the front of the catalogue with a reserve sufficient to buy a converted monastry overlooking the Italian lakes.
A100 for £1,500 - I'll take as many as you've got.
| Sound: When I put my
B200 page together I kept using the phrase 'it's not a B3 so it's not going
to sound like one' well, the A100 is a B3 and it sounds just like one. Or
rather it will when I get it connected to my Leslie. It has been said to me, and I totally agree, that a valve Hammond should be connected to a valve Leslie. And believe me, as soon as I get a valve Leslie, which might be some way off having used up all my Christmas and birthdays for the next few years, I'll be very happy to connect it to the Hammond. Until then it's going to have to swallow its pride and speak through the 760 I got with the B200. The A100 has a socket for a Hammond PR40 tone cabinet, but not for a nine pin Leslie cable. Connecting the leslie to the Hammond is not that complicated, but is best left to the professionals. I've found a local organ engineer who's going to do mine for me - hopefully soon. The process involves fitting a chorale/tremolo switch, another to turn off the internal speakers and wiring up a nine pin Leslie socket from the one for the tone cabinet . You can buy a kit with all this in for around $200 if you're confident about your wiring skills.Reverb apparently is lost in the process, but can be added with an effects pedal/preamp thingy at a later date. |
|
|
|
| Thanks for the visit. Email me I'd love to hear from you. | |
 |
