Delivered the amp today. Installed the Celestion Classic lead 80 into the front ported cab and fired it all up. Sounded fantastic, the cab with at speaker is roaring with that amp. As it's closed back it has a great low end punch too. It seems a 1x12 guitar speaker is a very simple and forgiving thing to experiment with. I made the cab just around the old peavey combo dimensions but straight up and down not sloped. I order some round ports but realised they'd sit proud of the baffle so i couldn't directly put cloth on the baffle so decided to cut a rectangular 'port' by eye. I'd no idea what it would sound like until today......sounds greatGroove1 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2019 3:40 pmMarcus,norburybrook wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2019 2:56 pm
It's a great sounding amp this one, better than the first one i built, it has a chime/bite that i don't remember the first one having and it cleans up better too on the gtr volume. I'm tempted to make one for myself now, really enjoyed playing this today. With my dumble 1x12 classic lead 80 cab and this amp it's a powerful little rig that does a really nice SRV chime/grit thing in a very small package.
M
maybe the Orange Drops used now make the better sound. I remember your first express where you installed the Sozos. Maybe the right iron also.
I built an express with 150s Mallorys. Later I changed it to 6PS Orange Drops. Much better sound.
Anyway, great work.
Did you test the amp with EV12L? If so, which is better? The Celestion Classic lead 80 or the EV12L?
Groove
even out of the box the speaker is great.@Groove, yes the orange drops might have affected the tone, the iron still isn't 'correct' for a true Express I used the same Marshall 3.4k JCM transformer as before. I used the new EHX EL34's and after what I've read they're the closes thing to original EL34's and they've done a great job with them, so that's another thing that may have changed things.
Anyway I left my friend a happy bunny and he's finalising everything now this evening as it's all going to EC's lockup tomorrow to be shipped to Dallas.
the rig will be 50w #102 into 1x12 Fane cab, permanently in OD -the 'Dry' amp.
amp 2 is one of the express amps and takes the time based FX, not wet dry though regular way in front of the amp as the two amps are on together all the time mostly without any FX
the signal is split using a Lehle P split.
Main guitar is a '64 Single pickup Gibson Firebird .
if anyone is going to crossroads keep an eye out for Alan Darby, guitarist in Eric Clapton's band