VHT D-50 Mod Journey

[Reeltarded]

Hi Miles,

I looked at your pics. Something to tinker with is the v2 cathodes to ground. You have them connected at the PI ground.
Move them to the v1 cathode junction to ground.
Soundwise it is subtle, less weird overtones. Ymmv.

Erwin

Replaced the wiring V1-V2.

Sadly, the David Lindley left with the bad wire. I'm going to push the wires around a little and see if I can lose some of that smoothness it gained. I'm a little sad. It was rippin!!

[bwest]

Swapped the 10n cap input to OD section with 2.2n - like how it is less fuzzy / bassy now and if you want that fuzzier sound you can still find it by turning up the back panel OD (input to v2a) and down v2b.

[erwin_ve]

Hi Miles,

I looked at your pics. Something to tinker with is the v2 cathodes to ground. You have them connected at the PI ground.
Move them to the v1 cathode junction to ground.
Soundwise it is subtle, less weird overtones. Ymmv.

Erwin

Replaced the wiring V1-V2.

Sadly, the David Lindley left with the bad wire. I'm going to push the wires around a little and see if I can lose some of that smoothness it gained. I'm a little sad. It was rippin!!

Lol too much smoothness: lower the snubber caps as per original

[Reeltarded]

Snubbers plopped. It's very interesting. As a switching amp, pretty danged good. As a single channel amp.. uhh maybe stunning.. pretty good.

You were right. David Lindley restored.

[erwin_ve]

Snubbers plopped. It's very interesting. As a switching amp, pretty danged good. As a single channel amp.. uhh maybe stunning.. pretty good.

You were right. David Lindley restored.

great to hear David is back and 20yrs younger after removing the fillers

[Reeltarded]

It is not a loud as David Lindley. If I was gong to build one from scratch.. it would be a 100w amp. Needs the headroom to really go.

[Reeltarded]

Done, and somewhat amazing. Here is how it ended up.

Most of the pots are replaced. Resistors from Jelle. EH preamp tubes. All signal caps replaced. It's not compliant with any particular Dumble amp, but has values from known schematics or discussions.

Preamp is 183 except bass and mid caps swapped to .022u. Tone pots are Marshall values. I limited a 10k pot to 2.199k for pres. I killed the LNFB.

It's really good with humbuckers and there is not a more balanced amp for Strats. It's weirdly even across the pickups. Weirdly. Robin Trower would use his pickup selector weird. That's how weird. Lovely.

The biggest thing I got out of this experience is the use of the construction style. I like the board.

[gktamps]

Pictures, or it didn't happen.

[Reeltarded]

This finished the amp

Heyboer Marshall (Fender) style 50w OT. 3k9. Amp isn't a (bad) toy.

The clean hangs out after bouncing like a ball. The volume difference was going from injured Deluxe Reverb to 70w Park. The headroom went up 5 floors.

I clipped the LNFB and reality lives in the World. The choice of LNFB early in a circuit says "I just don't care about the texture or gain.". Yuck.

573BD9B1-5A7B-41CE-AC91-CEF7A491E623.png

Disclaimer: This image is not the finished version. This is before rerouting all the tube side wiring and cleaning off the non-lead solder that turns to metal curds when mixed on purpose to remove.

36BB1D6A-8369-49D8-8C83-2C0642202963.jpeg

Or, as Dave always says:

9B32540F-F995-4FEC-BB8F-80882CB98F78.jpeg

[ayan]

This finished the amp

Heyboer Marshall (Fender) style 50w OT. 3k9. Amp isn't a (bad) toy.

The clean hangs out after bouncing like a ball. The volume difference was going from injured Deluxe Reverb to 70w Park. The headroom went up 5 floors.

I clipped the LNFB and reality lives in the World. The choice of LNFB early in a circuit says "I just don't care about the texture or gain.". Yuck.

573BD9B1-5A7B-41CE-AC91-CEF7A491E623.png


Disclaimer: This image is not the finished version. This is before rerouting all the tube side wiring and cleaning off the non-lead solder that turns to metal curds when mixed on purpose to remove.
36BB1D6A-8369-49D8-8C83-2C0642202963.jpeg

Or, as Dave always says:

9B32540F-F995-4FEC-BB8F-80882CB98F78.jpeg

Did all orange drops just end up, by coincidence, with their written side facing in the same direction after their outside foils were connected to the low impedance side? If so, I'd never seen that happen for caps where the outer foil was not marked at the factory. If you didn't pay attention to orientation of the caps, there is a chance that you may prefer the sound of your amp if you do.

[pompeiisneaks]

Older orange drop models used to be marked correctly in the factories, but someone, somewhere decided to give up that process. Newer orange drops don't have this luxury. I've tested many and found them to be very inconsistent/random.

Personally I've built several amps paying attention to outer foil, and stopped because I couldn't tell a massive difference from those I hadn't. My guess is it probably makes a lot more sense on a HiFi amp than a guitar one... unless you only play the amp at very low volumes and ONLY play clean tones... maybe MAYBE you'll notice the difference then. Or maybe I'm just deaf.
Edit: first sentence seemed confusing.
~Phil

[Reeltarded]

Every cap tested and marked!

I didn't get to choose series. Bought from AES. Not all values stocked per series.

Final pics when I swap treb/mid pots tomorrow.

[bepone]

it is easy also to remove residual MOX resistors from the grids and cathodes

[samtech60]

So did VHT actually base this on a 102 or a 183? I was considering buying for a mod ?

[neskor]

almost identical to 183