LA Amp Show: The 70s Bludo & The Return of Electroplex

[ayan]

I had a chance to go to the LA Amp Show yesterday, it was great to see Brandon and Alf, too bad I was in an out fairly quickly and didn't have time for too much else. Had a chance to try a couple of different things which I want to share with all of you. Electroplex has made a comeback. I had tried one of their amps many years ago and had liked it quite a bit, finding it to be Voxy and Dumbley. The new line of amps offers basically the same thing with different speaker complements and power sections. The amps sound very good, the lead channel can do a lot.. from sparkling clean to a nice compressed sound along the lines of vintage Larry Carlton. Very musical, very rich in the highs -- some amps sounded too bright for my taste, though -- and good reverb too.

The revelation to me was checking out Brandon's 70s amp. The amp has been discussed here before, to an extent. The front panel is similar looking to a traditional Dumble from the 70s, the voicing is along 70s lines, the amp has a mid switch, and the unique feature is that the FET preamp is footswitchable and with a gain/level knob on the back. What can I say? The amp sounds absolutely terrific. As happy as I have been with my 100K Skyliner amps, they are smooth sounding whereas this 70s thing is entirely differnet. It is crunchy but in a very musical way, sweet and crunchy in a way my amps cannot do, period -- I am sure the converse is true, but remember I am a recovering amp builder, and if I find anything I relly like that I do not have, I am likely to relapse and acquire or build a new amp. Well, that is exactly what I am thinking at the moment, this is very good sound. Close things to it that I have heard in the past have been some of Gregor's clips from YouTube with the actual Dumble he had for a while, and even Larry Carlton's video at the Blue Note in Japan, where he played a Strat and a Valley Arts with P-90s. There is a sizzling quality common to all these amps, the Bludo included, that is a thing of beauty. For reference, I played the amp with a WCR Les Paul clone, which was a nice guitar, by the way.

From a practical standpoint, having the FET footwitchable is very cool. Some folks implement a footswitchable Mid boost and find it valuable, the idea never seemed too attractive to me. But the FET is useful in this amp, and you get yet another full bandwidth boost that way, which can take the amp from clean to classic rock on steroids. As for what's inside the amp, the thing was in the cabinet, so I am not exactly sure. Pictures have been posted, so it's easy to see a few of the basic things, that I think Max has summarized for us. On a sonic level, I was able to compare the 70s with a Bludotone Classic 80s amp, which had been my favorite circuit for a long time. The 70s is more 3D sounding, seems to be a little bigger sounding too, and what can I say, it may be my next amp as it was my favorite amp of the show.

That's pretty much it, shoot any questions you may have!

Cheers,

Gil

[Structo]

Thanks for the review Gil.
Two Rock has also been putting the FET on a switch or relay on there last few models, along with FET gain on the front panel.

That does sound like an attractive option rather than the two jack system.

I'm tempted to build a 70's type myself as I keep hearing these killer clips.

But I will most likely build the later ODS but if it becomes difficult when tuning it or I don't care for it, it will be changed to the early generation.

[talbany]

Gil
I Agree... Although my 70's and Brandon's is slightly different he using a different cocktail of caps and resistors and the PS power supply and mine being more traditional...still same basic topology and 100w...both have that same 70's period sonic qualities you mentioned BIG open .. The first reaction for me was WOW!!.. This is different and yet the more I played it the more I liked/Loved it.. Did you get that as well?..

BTW.. The Big sound of these amps has to be experienced in the same room not in clips..IMHO

Tony

[M Fowler]

There is an older version of the Electroplex Rocket I think it is called at my local music store, haven't tried it though.

Thanks for the report on the Amp show, one of these years I'll make it to them.

[jborders5]

The 70s hybrid is my next build. Kudos to Brandon for combining pieces of the various generations and marketing what appears to be a very successful model. I'd like to know how he implements the separate masters in the 70s circuit. Did the original circuit have a level control that is now fixed?

[crbowman]

I love my 70's style build.
My experience with the later circuits is somewhat limited, and I'm sure Brandon's amp is probably in a different league than mine, but I would certainly agree with everything Gil had to say about the 70's style. RAWK CITY!!!

[talbany]

The 70s hybrid is my next build. Kudos to Brandon for combining pieces of the various generations and marketing what appears to be a very successful model. I'd like to know how he implements the separate masters in the 70s circuit. Did the original circuit have a level control that is now fixed?

Jboarders

AFAIK.. The 1'st and 2n'd generations up to the later transitions built around 79 time frame did not have the OD level control.. Dumble used a fixed value to simulate the same load as a 1m pot dimed (Sub in a 1m Pot and put say 100k on the board for loading).. The earlier 1'st generation Like the Lindly amp had a totally different OD entrance trigger and OD level load resistor before feeding the relay..On the first sight Brandon's looks to be a 2n'd generation taken from #13 like I did (although not sure of the type stack he used).. Maybe he can tell you..Other than the PS..Preamp looks to be similar with the exception of his cocktail of different caps and OD Level

Hope This Helps!!

Tony

[marcos]

Thanks for your report Gil,
sounds really interesting to me.Personally,
I suspect that both Tony´s and Brandon´s 70s amps could be improvements on the original design.I know they took some liberties, but that makes sense to me.
For instance, adding a Presence control was the first mod I had done on my 79 ODS (with the aid of HAD).Big improvement in real life situations like gigging and recording.
One big reason for the more "open" sound is the absence of snubbers IMO.
Looking forward to hearing more about this, Marcos

[jborders5]

The revelation to me was checking out Brandon's 70s amp. The amp has been discussed here before, to an extent. The front panel is similar looking to a traditional Dumble from the 70s, the voicing is along 70s lines, the amp has a mid switch, and the unique feature is that the FET preamp is footswitchable and with a gain/level knob on the back. What can I say? The amp sounds absolutely terrific.

Did you play around with the mid switch when you demoed the amp? Was it a fairly big bump like the .002uF/300pf combo? I'm working on a full Visio layout of a "hybrid 70s" inspired by the 70s Bludo using Tony's 2nd gen info as a starting point.

[img593]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/8750/bludo70s1.jpg[/img]

Looking at the Bludo gut shot, I assume he is using a larger mica treble cap on the main board and switching a smaller cap in & out (standard mid switch)? I would think I should start with a combination that yields around 510pf to stay with the 2nd gen value, but I'm looking for suggestions on where to start. Do any of the builders with 1st or 2nd generation amp experience have any thoughts? Thanks.

[ayan]

I did not flip any of the switches, the amp sounded so good in lead mode (I tried the PAB too) that I didn't even bother with any of the options.

Gil

The revelation to me was checking out Brandon's 70s amp. The amp has been discussed here before, to an extent. The front panel is similar looking to a traditional Dumble from the 70s, the voicing is along 70s lines, the amp has a mid switch, and the unique feature is that the FET preamp is footswitchable and with a gain/level knob on the back. What can I say? The amp sounds absolutely terrific.

Did you play around with the mid switch when you demoed the amp? Was it a fairy big bump like the .002uF/300pf combo? I'm working on a full Visio layout of a "hybrid 70s" inspired by the 70s Bludo using Tony's 2nd gen info as a starting point.

[img593]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/8750/bludo70s1.jpg[/img]

Looking at the Bludo gut shot, I assume he is using a larger mica treble cap on the main board and switching a smaller cap in & out (standard mid switch)? I would think I should start with a combination that yields around 510pf to stay with the 2nd gen value, but I'm looking for suggestions on where to start. Do any of the builders with 1st or 2nd generation amp experience have any thoughts? Thanks.

[BobOne]

I had a chance to go to the LA Amp Show yesterday, it was great to see Brandon and Alf, too bad I was in an out fairly quickly and didn't have time for too much else. Had a chance to try a couple of different things which I want to share with all of you. Electroplex has made a comeback. I had tried one of their amps many years ago and had liked it quite a bit, finding it to be Voxy and Dumbley. The new line of amps offers basically the same thing with different speaker complements and power sections. The amps sound very good, the lead channel can do a lot.. from sparkling clean to a nice compressed sound along the lines of vintage Larry Carlton. Very musical, very rich in the highs -- some amps sounded too bright for my taste, though -- and good reverb too.

Gil

Hi, Gil, long time no see!


We shared a booth with the Electroplexes at (1999?) NAMM, if you'll recall. That and my user name will clue you in.

As you may remember, I was quite taken with the smaller Electroplex, a 2x10". I wonder if you have an impression of which current Electroplex might sound most like that did.

I'm amused that you reached the crunch conundrum with the amps you've gotten into -- you may recall that was my issue with the IIB, which I otherwise have always rather liked at volume.

I'm just getting oriented here with the kit amps and don't want to bug you with questions, partly because I don't have time and partly because I'm not up to speed enough. I'm looking forward to putting several amps into a switching rig after a while and got caught up in the idea of using tweaked Ceriatones as a base to benefit from low-labor-cost areas. Also had an Electroplex in the back of my mind

Are you aware of the guy in Germany building the Mini Major for commercial sale? I wonder if that might appeal to you with your recent interest in 70's sounds, crunch, and, as I recall, great respect for Ritchie Blackmore, one of my childhood heroes. http://www.rblackmoreforum.proboards.co ... thread=136 and http://www.audioampco.com/



Best wishes!