The Amp Garage

Why would you disconnect the Ultralinear taps? My D style is built on a Fender 75. I actually just adapted the existing boards. But my advice is to use the Ultralinear taps but not the global feedback, that way you get the advantages of negative feedback in the power tubes without having to wrap glo...

Nice amps! I like the Dual AB pots and PIO caps.

What's the story on that Stancor OT? It has a 10% tap for cathode feedback? Did you hook that up?

Kt66's are likely operating at a much more negative bias, so you need to increase the voltage swing of the oscillator to compensate. I would start at the two 220k resistors. The one from the plate to the coupling cap can be reduced and the plate load, the one from b+ to the plate, can be increased- ...

Mostly 716P (polypropylene) and polystyrene for me. I might throw in a single polyester for some thickness in the mids or parallel a ceramic for some texture on top, but I generally don't like polyester caps. Sozos are good in my marshall, though. I've got some oil caps coming to mess around with, t...

I like the greenbacks best, at least in a Marshall 4x12. I had a quad of 90s reissues, more high mid crunch, and currently some mid 70's blackbacks which sound fantastic with any amp. Vintage 30's sound better closed back, to me. They tend to make everything sound the same to me, so I don't use them...

Billyz, I agree 100%. The hifi parts, to me, sound the opposite of sterile in a guitar amp. They intensify the great qualities of a tube amp! Of course, hifi guys wouldn't consider a sterile, harsh, or bright sounding part to be "hifi." 8) Lots of misconceptions regurgitated on forums, so it's nice ...

That's a really beautiful build! Nice job. I imagine it probably sounds fantastic, too...

Lots of very interesting and impressive builds in this thread! In terms of the distance of the filter caps, look at Neumann tube mics. They might be 100 feet away from the power supplies connected by relatively low gauge wire. Not many complaints on the sound of those old mics. In fact I think a lot...

I think it's important to look at what Ken did in the context of trying to sell these amps at a reasonable price, build them in a reasonable time (meaning prioritizing time spent on tuning, building, evaluating), fit everything in an off-the-shelf chassis, and having personal preferences and a disti...

Is this doable with reverb as well.... both reverb and tremolo in the rocket or will it take one more ( 5 preamp tubes ) 12ax7 to do it. A If you can do the reverb with one tube (two triodes) you can do it all with 4 preamp tubes. You could use a 12DW7 for reverb using the lower mu side as the reve...

Here's my bias wiggle tremolo layout. [img:1075:1075]http://theinside.net/FLR/TremoloLayout.jpg[/img] It should fit in the big empty space between the preamp tubes and the back panel and hook up to the unused triode on V2. I stuck the speed and depth knobs on the back panel. The 220k's on the EL84 g...

Yes, I've got both channels. I did it standard vox/matchless by using the other side of the PI as the input so both channels are in phase when used together. There are some nice tones using both channels. So, each side of the PI has a 220k input resistor, the EF86 side has a 500pf bright cap across ...

I've got an EF86 channel on my rocket. I ended up with 1,680pf coupling on the EF86. It's still got plenty of bass, it could go lower. I also put 500 pf across the 220k resistor into the PI to add a little sparkle. What's the zodiac tone control?

One thing I want to add is that I never change the bias on my Express when I change tubes. I'll check it to see where the ID is, but if it's between 60% and 80% I just leave it, otherwise I'll stick some other tubes in it. The reason is that the bias voltage determines the point at which the amp ini...

One tip that comes from experience! Always be careful with a speaker cable wired for inverted polarity. On the speaker side IF the plug has a metal shell it will be HOT on the outside compared to common ground. So if you touch it while playing or have a mic cord XLR connector drap over it at a gig ...