The Amp Garage

I recently built a Matchless Lightning clone (which is in that same family and around 15W) and also an 18W Liverpool. The Lightning used alleged Matchless transformers (from amppartsdirect) and the OT is 3k7 ohms at 4/8/16 ohm secondary which is around what a 4xEL84 amp would be. It’s pretty bass he...

You make me do bad things to great circuits that are naturally a little problematic. :) I often wish my Liverpool was a Rocket. Here’s my Rocket I built way back during the big RJ Rocket build. I had the cab built to match an old Carvin 1x12 I had. It has evolved into a Matchless DC30. https://i.po...

So what impedence of an ot did you go with. And does it still clean up when you back of the volume. Thanks Bill The OT is 5k9 at 2/4/8 ohms but I’m running it at 4/8/16. Yes it cleans up but I deviated from the Liverpool enough for it to not be apple-to-apples. For me, originally it was just a brig...

10nF was too much. That spot is really sensitive to coupling cap changes. I put in a 4n7 and turned the grid leak up to 54k. That vocal-mid-focus is gone but geez it has a ton of gain. Then it occurred to me that I never turn the Presence up to 3:00, which is where it really starts to ramp up. Most ...

This thing screams but it's a bit too focused in the midrange. I originally used 1M Treble/Bass/Volume pots but reduced the Treble to 500k. I'm going to try 47n output couplers and then play with that coupler preceding stage 3. I have that Stage 3 grid leak adjustable with a 39k resistor in series w...

Nice! I didn't know you could get a 3-position switch that's not "off" in the centre. What kind is it? What sort of volume control are you using? VVR or a PPIMV? Did you change the 25W resister from a 1K to 1.7K for a pair of EL84s like Mark Abbot's schematic suggests? I ask because I just realized...

I stopped watching about 15 minutes in, maybe there's more interesting parts in the end of the video…

I stopped reading as soon as you wrote this. At least watch the whole thing before you shoot holes in it. It sort of invalidates your whole post.

I thought this was interesting. I think it hints at reasons why certain grounding schemes don't work as well as others.

https://youtu.be/2AXv49dDQJw?si=Obj27QA5Ov_AhBeU

bepone wrote: ↑Sat Dec 09, 2023 6:14 pm 3800 is not correct for 2 EL84s, it is kinda low even for one..
so speaker 8 ohm must be inserted to 4 ohm tap from the amp, then the load line will be ok (7600 ohms aa)

It sounds better that way too imo.

I wonder where the knee falls in that load line. Hopefully the plate voltage is lowish. It’s just under 350v, I don’t consider that low for EL84s. But it runs the screens differently, from an extra lower voltage node instead of straight off the other side of the choke. I've often wondered about thi...

Ha, thats great Max. I have from time to time imagined electron flow in strange analogous ways to give some visual to the actions. "But, to truly know the electron, you must "Be" the electron" - Bruce B+ Semi-sincerely yours, Phil D. That works better for me too sometimes. I can’t really get a grip...

Not the prettiest control panel but works for now. That’s the Lightning faceplate reversed. I hope to get a nice pro looking faceplate for this and the Lightning (with added Cut control).

I decided to add a post-PI Master Volume.

Oh yeah, forgot to post this: https://www.aikenamps.com/index.php/gri ... -they-used

Thanks so much! I'd love to hear some clips of that '69 build. What iron did you end up using? I think you're right about the "all access" build piece. I almost always run my amps to sound pretty similar, but you're exactly right that I wanted to hear what the different iterations of the circuit so...