The New Tone Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Telegram Sam
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Getting started again. Gotta flip the board up and out this morning. Got all the pots and input jacks removed, but still wired together. The board should just flip up, but the standby switch wires are in my way. Guess I gotta re-route them too.




 
Ack! That was nerve-racking. Unlike that fraud hack liar victim pete leveillee, I'm actually posting this as I go.....

So I disconnected half of the standby switch and got the board flipped up enough to get under it....propped up with an old filter cap....




Getting these bitches out was really distressing, but I got it done. I snipped one leg off and pulled the piece out while melting the solder underneath. Then I'd do the same with the other side but by pulling up on the cap while melting the solder.




The new ones went right in easy as pie. Solder in nice and clean like they were born there.....which means I probably created about ten million shorts that will blow up my amp.




Also, re-routed the negative feedback wire to get it away from a bunch of other wires crossing it's path.

So, now I guess it's on to the bright cap and checking out the input jacks....
 
just a note .... you could have just snipped the leads to those gold caps really close to the cap which would have left two leads sticking up to solder the new caps to and thus would not have needed to flip the board or heat up those traces
 
Lt. Bob said:
just a note .... you could have just snipped the leads to those gold caps really close to the cap which would have left two leads sticking up to solder the new caps to and thus would not have needed to flip the board or heat up those traces
Click to expand...

Yeah I know, but I wanted to do it "right". Also, I needed to get the board up for a few reasons anyway. One, I needed to check that I didn't yank anything loose when doing that one filter cap from the top. Two, there's a 10k resistor that spans the hot leads of that cap. It wasn't on the cap itself, so I needed to trace the wires and find it on the board. It's there. And thirdly, I thought it would be a good idea just to rewire the tangled stuff keeping the board down so I can get the board up easily in the future if need be.

So now, all that shit is done, and I rewired/re-grounded the input jacks to stock configuration and soldered in the bright cap.
Before:


After:


It aint pretty, but everything seems to be clean and tight and making a good connection. Hopefully I didn't fuck it up.

So now all that's left on the agenda is to button it all back up, make my light bulb short circuit detector thing, and bias the new tubes. Fingers crossed...
 
impressive mang!

I think it's way cool. This shit really isn't that hard but nowadays people are so fearful of it ....... "OMG you'll die when the 'lectricity hits you!"
:laughings:







And it looks like you've done a lovely job .... serious.
 
Haha thanks Boob!

To be honest, it's been terrifying. Not because of electricity - I drained the caps fully - but because I just don't really know what I'm doing and don't wanna blow up my amp.

But it's time......got it all buttoned back up, cleaned up, built my light bulb circuit limiter, put the old tubes back in for power up, and I'm about to hit the switch. Fingers and toes crossed........
 
It's alive!!!!!!

No fires, smoke, weird noises, or pops. Fired it up in the garage. Everything seems okay. Gonna put the new tubes in now and try to set the bias.
 
Well, that's that! So far so good.

The tubes at night, glow big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas!


Corny, I know.

New pre and power tubes in place. Settings bias.....404v on the plates, do some math, carry the one, about 40-42 ma should do it.



How does it sound....way, way better. It's like night and day, really. The amp is very quiet now. Not silent, but much, much quieter than it was. The hum and buzz is totally gone. Even cranked. It hisses a little, but it doesn't hum. The amp cleans up a lot better and stays very tight and punchy throughout it's range without mushing out like it used to. The improved midrange and tighter low end is very noticeable and welcomed. The low input is sparkly clean and crisp. It's hard to tell because it's tonally a lot different now, but I think it might have a smidge less gain than before, but it sounds so much better. The only drawback - I broke the presence knob. Dammit! No big deal. I'll order new ones. Maybe new pots too. I still have some work to do with it, but the most pressing issues are fixed, and the amp and me are still alive. Yay!
 
Greg_L said:
It's alive!!!!!!

No fires, smoke, weird noises, or pops. Fired it up in the garage. Everything seems okay. Gonna put the new tubes in now and try to set the bias.
Click to expand...


Did you bring up the supply voltage slowly with a Variac to form the capacitors?
 
Been jamming this thing for the past few hours. So much better. Tighter, crisper, quieter. Less harsh. Less mushy. No more hum. It's got some nice tight bite to it now. Now I'm wishing I'd fired it up between changes to see which one's made the most difference. To recap (no pun intended) I fixed/replaced.....
All new filter caps
New bias feed caps
Rewired input jacks
Rerouted negative feedback wire
Rewired some grounds
Rewired standby switch and power transformer wires
Reinstalled bright cap
Cleaned pots and jacks
All new tubes
Dial in correct bias

Whew, that's a lot of shit for a guy that knows nothing. I got a lot of help from some nice folks at other forums. Learned a lot. Most importantly, I got some confidence. I feel like I can go into any amp and do some work. I might start fine tuning this thing now. I still can't diagnose, but I can replace some shit. Lol.
 
Cool Greg, I knew you'd do pretty good with that shit, you'd already set you mind to it....Thanks for the pics man, dunno if I'll be doing anything like that anytime soon, but you never know when someone might need something like that...

Of course, we need clips dude!!! I know you've got some "before" clips, now we need some "after"....I know I'm one to be telling you to post some clips, honestly, I haven't even fired up either of my amps in almost a week now....Not sure if they even work now...LOL...I am getting a lot done on those fake drums though, & I've got 5 of the songs really close to being ready to track/record the guitars/bass to, it's just a long, slow process...I can hear in my head what I want the drums to do/sound like, but getting my software to do that is another story altogether...

Again, pretty nice dude, you seem to be pretty handy with an iron over there.....

Like always, time for a shower, some supper, & sit on my ass for a while, long fuckin' night at work...
 
Lt. Bob said:
awesome job mang!
Congrats ..... and now that particular amp will always be a special one to ya'.
Click to expand...
Thanks dude. Yeah I'm pretty proud of myself. Honestly, of my three amps, this is the one I always wanted to be "my sound" but it just never totally got there. I really like how it came out so far. It's definitely a big step in the right direction.
minerman said:
Cool Greg, I knew you'd do pretty good with that shit, you'd already set you mind to it....Thanks for the pics man, dunno if I'll be doing anything like that anytime soon, but you never know when someone might need something like that...

Of course, we need clips dude!!! I know you've got some "before" clips, now we need some "after"....I know I'm one to be telling you to post some clips, honestly, I haven't even fired up either of my amps in almost a week now....Not sure if they even work now...LOL...I am getting a lot done on those fake drums though, & I've got 5 of the songs really close to being ready to track/record the guitars/bass to, it's just a long, slow process...I can hear in my head what I want the drums to do/sound like, but getting my software to do that is another story altogether...

Again, pretty nice dude, you seem to be pretty handy with an iron over there.....

Like always, time for a shower, some supper, & sit on my ass for a while, long fuckin' night at work...
Click to expand...
Thanks man. Yeah I'll do some clips soon. Probably today. I do have to relearn this thing now. It's that different.
 
An excellent excursion in a similar way to Muttley' Makings.
I gave up soldering 15 years ago - couldn't even get a cable done but I really enjoy seeing things get done.
You did well & I look forward to some justified and ancient tone ressurection.
 
rayc said:
An excellent excursion in a similar way to Muttley' Makings.
I gave up soldering 15 years ago - couldn't even get a cable done but I really enjoy seeing things get done.
You did well & I look forward to some justified and ancient tone ressurection.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ray. Soldering is one thing I can usually do pretty well. I've still got some fine tuning to do, but I think I got the biggest issues resolved with the amp.

I am pretty pissed at the techs though. Two guys looked at this amp, one of which builds really bad ass amps from scratch, and they both totally whiffed on this thing. I specifically told them "make it factory fresh. I want no funny business in there. No mods, no tweaks, no gimmicks. Factory stock". So what did they do? The exact opposite. The input jacks alone were nowhere near how they're supposed to be. Ugh. The old saying is still true: If you want something done right, do it yourself.
 
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