Has Anyone Built a Tone King Imperial?

[CraigGa]

I finished my first build last year based on the Benson Monarch and was very happy with it until I bought myself a Tone King Imperial MKII.
Now I'm finding my build to sound very sterile in comparison to the Imperial.

That got me thinking about trying to build my own, I have some schematics for the 20th anniversary edition and I was thinking about using the same type of chassis so I could slot it into the combo case we built.

Has anyone got any wisdom to impart?

Thanks
Craig

[maxkracht]

You can make something similar, but tone king uses proprietary output transformers that are, well, proprietary... So that kind of power scaling stuff is not really possible to DIY. No reason why you couldn't recreate the rest of it. Also no reason why you couldn't use those TK schematics for ideas in modifying your existing amp until it sounds exactly the way you want it to.

[CraigGa]

Thanks maxkracht, they're good points and you're right that the OT on the anniversary model is complicated with multi tap outputs but I believe that the MKII moved to an Ironman based attenuator which I already implemented in my previous build so hopefully it's a single tap transformer.

With regards to modifying, the output stage is cathode biased 6V6 and pretty much the same as mine but everything before that is different.

Craig

[pullshocks]

Not a complete build but I have the rhythm channel component values in a single ended 6V6 amp and it sounds great. I plan to add the lead channel soon.

Over on the Hoffman forum, there was someone who built an amp from the schematic that is available on the internet. He ended up making a lot of changes.

[CraigGa]

Thanks pullshocks,

Did you use the values from the 20th anniversary schematics for your build?

I'll have a look over on Hoffmans to see if I can find that thread.

Craig

[pullshocks]

Yes the 20th Anniversary schematic. So V1A is warm biased and no cathode bypass capacitor, and the tone stack components are a little different from the standard Fender values.

Have you measured voltages in the real amp you have?

[CraigGa]

No, I"ve only opened it up to clip the bright cap.
I will have a good poke around in there at some point though.

[pullshocks]

... to clip the bright cap.....

I did not include the bright cap. Plenty bright without it.

[Mark]

The circuits so everyone is on the same page.

20th_Imperial_SC200HB_pg2.pdf

20th_Imperial_SC200HB_pg1-1.pdf

[CraigGa]

Thanks Mark
Those are the ones I've been referring to.

Craig