This mid-80s HiWatt Lead 100R came to me as a basket case project and was a repair many months in the making. Sadly, HiWatt went through some dark days starting around this time. The founder and designer had died. They were basically bankrupt, and the company went through multiple owners that could legally slap the HiWatt name on whatever amp they decided to build. Gone were the beautiful, hardwired layouts and top-notch components of the 60s and 70s. Instead we got weak, poorly soldered PCBs and a cheap sounding overdrive channel with diode clipping that was supposed to suit the current hair metal trend. Not great.

This particular amp spend a few years in a closet and was then passed on to a friend that “knew electrical stuff.” Everything had been rewired. Parts were removed. Parts were added. The rectifier was hooked directly to the AC mains, skipping the power transformer entirely. The preamp had several jumper wires that skipped over malfunctioning sections. To further complicate matters the only schematic available from this time period is a partial scan of some hand drawn notes with no component values.

The fact that this amp makes sound at all is a miracle. In many ways it would have been easier to build an amp from scratch. The overdrive channel sounds sort of like a Boss DS-1. If that’s the sound you’re after you’re all set. Shockingly the clean channel still retains the power and chime that HiWatt was known for. Crank the preamp and it breaks up in a pleasing, natural way that makes my ears happy. The build quality isn’t up to classic HiWatt standards, but it’s certainly not any worse than the stuff coming out of Chinese sweatshops today. So quit your whining already! Or at least turn up loud enough so that we can’t hear you. It says HiWatt on the front after all. How bad can it be?