The Amp Garage

Thanks for the recommendations guys! I have been to Italy and Greece before. Italy was amazing other than the tourist trap that is Pisa (at least when you get off the train). Florence was by far my favorite part of Italy but we did not get to visit all over last time I visited. Greece was OK but we ...

I'm headed to Europe with a friend in a few days for about a month. I'm super excited! We're going to travel around as much as possible, I already have a decently big list of countries where I want to go and drink local beers/liquors. And some tours of motorcycle/car factories in GB, Germany and Ita...

wasn't there also about DC being non-optimal for tubes with controlled heater starts too? For some reason, I think this came up in a discussion of less-common variants of otherwise once-common octals, maybe for a PI? The idea is that when the heaters are cold, they have a high inrush current and ca...

Something else to consider is that it is usually harder on the heater elements to run them on DC if they are not specifically designed to do so. Not sure where you've picked this idea up from, but it's not true. DC is not worse for the heater than AC. I guess for most any tube we deal with in guita...

A museum piece would be the only reasonable explanation for that purchase. All looks and no play make that one sad amp. I doubt it'll be on display anywhere with its guts showing lol. Buyer deserves whatever happens, but I feel for the amp. Isn't there some kind of ASPCA for amplifiers? Acronym doe...

Heh I should have known better. Was thinking about my tweed Twin while posting - I shoved two rectifiers in that bastard!!

I mostly stick with JJ's for new tubes, they sound OK and haven't failed me yet (other than a few isolated cases where tubes arrived bad).

Interesting. I am curious myself if rust can get so bad as to start cracking the varnish and causing small shorts in the laminations. Also this is why it's a good idea to cook your unknown vintage transformers before you drop them in if there are any doubts. The transformer shown above was probably ...

I would drop in a set of Amperex Bugle Boys throughout the preamp (Telefunken's for the reverb driving position) and a pair of clear top RCA 6L6GC's, and of course a European 5AR4 (Amperex, Mullard and/or Telefunken).

Eh, I like 'em rusty just fine. Some transformers use varnish to insulate, others (typically older) use an oxide layer (but not necessarily iron oxide as this tends to "run"). As long as the laminates aren't shorting, I will knock off the loose rust and use it as is.

A museum piece would be the only reasonable explanation for that purchase. All looks and no play make that one sad amp. I doubt it'll be on display anywhere with its guts showing lol. Buyer deserves whatever happens, but I feel for the amp. Isn't there some kind of ASPCA for amplifiers? Acronym doe...

Sometimes the speakers inside the earpiece accumulate enough ferrous material (if you're drilling steel around it for example) to effectively push the diaphragm all the way down into the basket. My old Motorola phone did this eventually and worked perfectly after I pulled the little bits of metal/cr...

Surprised nobody else mentioned the old trick Rene Martinez used to use on SRV's cabs. Using two strips of duct tape, put an X across the center of the speaker grille (directly over the dust cover) that extends at least to the edge of the speakers. Worked great in the dive bars I used to play at. Ma...

randalp3000 wrote:

matt h wrote:Leo, it makes me sad your dialup will kill this for you, but it's so damn appropriate...
(Bubbles sings "Liquor and Whores")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mKPCJUW2I4

love me some TPB, new season on netflix now...........

You shouldn't have told me this.. I just lost a day.

The gist of my programming knowledge is with embedded systems/microcontrollers. The Arduino setup is probably the simplest I've used. Most real compiler suites have a decently steep learning curve though. Code composer and IAR workbench (which TI uses for MSP430) have idiosyncrasies that you have to...

So far I've been using this one on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAE85DE8440AA6B83 Each video is 6-8 minutes and he covers every topic pretty quickly with some form of humor. I probably wouldn't recommend these vids for someone first learning a language but if you want a refresher ...