The Amp Garage

Do you have silver mica caps in there? Before you pull out the Sozo's I'd be looking at these as they are notorious for leaking DC. One SM cap, in the tone stack. I've used silver mica caps for years and never experienced this type of phenomenon, though. Not saying it's not the problem, but it does...

Was Germino able to recreate the problem when he had it? It sounds like a bad Bass or Mid pot. Do you have a cathode bypass cap on the triode driving the cathode follower/tone stack? That being wonky could cause that kind of problem too. Dave He was unable to re-create the problem. Figures...just l...

That's a strange one! I'm sure you have ruled out all the usual suspects. Only time I ever experienced anything close to that it was a bad preamp tube. Perhaps something in the tone stack is dodgy? It's possible. It does the same thing regardless of what channel I'm using, so that rules out the fir...

Rich M wrote:Bad solder joint?

The whole amp was checked by Greg Germino himself, so I'd say probably not. I figure between him and myself we probably would have caught a bad joint.....but technically, it is possible....just dubious.

Several months back I had a set of Sozo Vintage Mustard capacitors installed in my Germino Classic 45 (JTM-45 clone). They sound GREAT. However, I noticed that ever since they were installed, the amp periodically thins way out....major loss of low end and some overall volume....and this is only reme...

Yeah, I tried all known good tubes in all positions, and still it cropped up. Sent the amp to Germino and he re-soldered the caps after testing them, and I've had only one minor issue since (been three months). He said the same thing happened to him once or twice when he used Vintage Mustards, but t...

Another vote for McMaster....the best....

6 hours? Be patient man, things like this take at least 100 hours to break in (that's not a solid number btw, just a guestimate). EXACTLY. Don't everyone else be so quick to dismiss Sozo Vintage caps as being an improvement/noticeably different than Mallory M150s, Sprague 6PS, etc... I for one am s...

Beautiful. Are you going to bring it next week to practice??? Me wanna hear it....

Sorry...already sold the pickups locally. On a side note, I rewired this guitar to what is essentially the following: Pickups -> selector switch -> single volume/tone setup exactly like a '50s wired LP -> output jack. The middle position is sweeeet wired up this way. Not sure about the Seth Lovers I...

And the further down each volume nob went the worse it would get, right? Yes indeed. Nice. Problem solved, and the book is now closed on my stupid hum problem! Great! Now, the question remains as to what tone stack I should utilize. Attached are some options. I'm curious as to what the different sc...

Agreed. Nice component choices. Love the build. Wish I could hear it in person.

Ah. Let me see if I understand you correctly. You're saying that when I had the master volume wired incorrectly, I had a potential ground loop created between the MV and pickup volume? If so, that makes sense, and would explain what I heard.

Well, now that I've fixed the hum issue, I'm also wondering if what I'm hearing (and not liking, tonally) is the dual 500k pots in parallel...acting like a de facto 250k pot. I'm wondering if I'd like it better wired up like a 335 (standard Gibson, dual-humbucker wiring). I've attached original Gibs...

Dude....passfan....wow....okay, I'm going to have to re-read that a few times.

Thanks!