The Amp Garage

Glen plays mostly humbuckers on that setting. I think single coils are way too bright with the bright switch on the 500pf setting..

I built one after Ken sent me a proto air gap single ended OT that he had made by a company. Several versions. He sent me one he didnt like with EL34's. He sent me a schematic, too, saying never to copy it for anyone. The finished amp sounded good, after I finally determined it liked 6550 tubes. It ...

Great Job. Sounds excellente!

These power trannies run hot.. AC 30, Matchless DC30, Trainwreck Rocket etc. A decent transformer can stand 190 degrees F fine.. Old AC 30's had the wax melt from the power trannies often..Still ran fine..

I remember seeing this on one of the 9 Trainwrecks I owned. Most didnt have the diode mod. The Express bias settings and even brand of El34's would affect crossover distortion..

Older European tubes had pins 1 and 2 internally connected. But soviet and JJ tubes did not. So a Euro tube wouldnt work in an amp that wired the socket with pin 1 attached to a resistor. If pin 1 left bare then all EL84 tubes should work..

Ken liked his 4-12 with Celestion alnico blues, originals. He also like an open back vox 2-12 with blues. My two favorites have been a 4-12 with pre Rola 30H's, and an open back vox-Matchless style cab with 2 celestion blues..

When Ken had Mullard 5AR4, he used them. he had quite a bunch of them. Premp tubes differed. Tungsram, some Bugle Boy, Mullard and some Telefunken. They were chosen specifically for the amp. National box tubes were often Amperex BB, etc. For EL84's he went with the Groove Tube labeled old Russian co...

While I can believe some of the voodoo aspects of Ken's techniques, I can stretch my imagination to accomodate this, in that certain people have different magnetic properties in their blood from iron levels, anion and cation levels etc, maybe these types could sense an interaction with their magneti...

I remember Ken telling me that his transformers had a rating of 300ma..

yes, all but 2.. And I've heard two other Trainwrecks played by the owner over the phone, dimed and stable..Not the sound I would choose, but yes they were stable. The player played fast shred riffs etc that were still intelligible...

Lots of original Trainwreck Expresses and Liverpools were stable at full volume. I had several. However I would never run them like that because they were too dense and "muddied". And most did not have the grid stoppers..

cloning vintage power transformers that were designed for 115 V or less, can cause high voltage and overheating in some botique amps. Especially with Vox AC 30 types, as Matchless found in the early stages of production, necessitating fans, and higher cathode resistors etc...And some problems with c...

Certainly a mystery case.. When I used to talk with Ken, mostly weekly, and take notes on stuff he said, trying to learn everything about amps, I had written down in 2 different places in my notes that the Liverpool (and I assume Express too) OT was 5.6k.. So when the word came out about 6.6k I thou...

I have a 100 watt Burman that came with KT77's, but the power transformer went out, and I wondered if anyone knew if a Partridge PT is available anywhere or it has to be rewound?