NEW HRM BUILD & PICS

[glassaddict]

After a 1.5 years I finally sealed this amp in the head and photographed it(also gut photos). I bought the chassis from Brandon two septembers ago and spent about a year gathering parts and finally assembling this amp. Wanted to say thanks to Funk for all your help and suggestions and thanks to everyone on this forum. I could not have built this amp without the contributions of everyone on Amp Garage! Thanks muchxs for the cab!

My initial impression of the amp was stellar. The overdrive was very smoothe and articulate. Great for recording and jamming in the house but a little dark sounding for me for live use. I changed some parts but ended up just putting some different PWR tubes and preamp tubes to brighten the amp. It is now a bit more harsh but I think it is right for live use.

I was surprized by how versitile this amp is. It can be set up to have pick dynamics from clean to harmonicly rich overdrive that varies from pick attack. Also it can be set up to sustain and sing ala Carlos Santana. The amount of overdrive coaxable was surprizing. I pulled most of the overdrive out of the OD entrance because I prefered having this amp set up as a pick dynamic amp (blues/jazz/rock). I have other amps that do the high gain thing. more pics to follow.

[glassaddict]

More photos guts in here too!

[heisthl]

Wow a thing of beauty, bet it sounds good too.

IMHO you should relace the silver mica in the PI with a ceramic for longevity.

[glassaddict]

Thanks for the suggestion I will change that out.

Just wondering how others have been setting their HRM trimmers. My 1M bass pot is nearly full on or off. Hasn't been a concern I keep the bass almost trimmed off, and their is still plenty off low end.

[tubedogsmith]

How do you like it with the relatively low filtering on the 1st stage? does the bottom stay tight?

[glassaddict]

I tried both 100uf's and 220uF's. To my ears it is more of a feel thing. the lower filtering feels slinky and bluesy while the the higher filtering was more hard and tight somewhat sterile with less bloom. Whatever works in a particular amp I just ended up 100uF's in this build. The bottom is plenty tight with the 100uF's.