A guy talks about his recent contact with HAD

[Mark]

That is a pretty ordinary outcome, from HAD. It's a pity people lose a sense of perspective.

[FUCHSAUDIO]

Yeah, I went from "pure evil incarnate" to "a true gentleman" when I was set up over the website thing. Andy Brauer and a few others told me to simply give it to him as a "show of good faith" and to "take the high road". I planned to do so.

I offered it no charge. Just take it over, pay the fee and we move on. During the last month of my contract, he was all about it. "My people will take care of it". He refused to provide any info, nor pay for any fees to take it over. In the meantime he derailed a relationship with Santana by forcing him to sell a Fuchs amp he just bought, before he would permit him to receive the amp he'd waited seven years to get.

When I called him out on it, he feigned ignorance "I know nothing about this". I told him to pound sand and paid for a renewal. He'll never own it. It's shelved and will remain so for all eternity.

There still assholes online who bring up the website like I'm the bad guy while they know no details. Maybe sometime I'll share the story of Howard and Paul Reed Smith, and me...lol. Another gem of a guy.

[dorrisant]

Ok Andy, it is the next day... Does that count? Do tell.

[Mark]

It does sound like a corker of a story, still I think we've had our suspicions about PRS for a while, I met him once at an in store appearance, I wanted to discuss a problem I was having with the five position switch on my PRS, he had no intention of talking about it and fobbed me off to his assistance who was wonderful woman and assisted me.

I recall Scott Henderson was giving you a hard time at HAD's bequest, fortunately people did send emails to S.H. stating the inaccuracies in his comments. Great guitarist but not infallible.

[martin manning]

Then one of his clients heard it and told him "I'm buying the first of those quad 6V6 Major Crunch amps
when they come out. I just tried it out, it's awesome!"
I got an email two days later saying I was trying to steal his clients.

I see, speaker guy with designs on moving into the amp space! Don't know if he was aware of that, but he was probably kicking himself for giving away his secrets.

[FUCHSAUDIO]

It does sound like a corker of a story, still I think we've had our suspicions about PRS for a while, I met him once at an in store appearance, I wanted to discuss a problem I was having with the five position switch on my PRS, he had no intention of talking about it and fobbed me off to his assistance who was wonderful woman and assisted me.

I recall Scott Henderson was giving you a hard time at HAD's bequest, fortunately people did send emails to S.H. stating the inaccuracies in his comments. Great guitarist but not infallible.

I have to chuckle that most of the loudmouths on TGP that roasted me to no end (Voodoosound, Keltner (ironic), PurpleJesus, Henderson, Adam Stark, and others) mostly moved on.
Henderson was wanked around for an amp while he was being used as a pawn by HAD to post all kinds of bad stuff online to appease his then friend. Adam Stark came up to me at NAMM and made peace. I saw Henderson in NYC at a show and he was pleasant and friendly. Most have realized there was little point in being a pawn on HAD's chessboard.

[dorrisant]

Thank you Andy. I work with people who think he invented the moon and subsequently hung it too. I have read some of these stories... It looks like a case of greed. Using your up-and-coming status to attract the hard work of others then shafting those people in various ways is just plain Karma. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that when it starts to crumble, no matter how long it takes to happen. It amazes me that some treat Paul as if he were a god. If they only knew some of the shady things he has done... Oh wait, nevermind. They will stick with him to the bitter end because of the money. Greedy people suck!

[Mark]

Thanks for sharing your experience Andy.

[Mark]

Because I met Dumble through an amp tech friendly with Dumble. Howard was there one day when
he couldn't answer a question I had about my Southbay Capt Crunch amp. Dumble looked at the
chassis, checked the caps and their spacing, checked the ground wire layout. He recommended a
couple of changes, we did them, and it went from a good to great sounding amp.

You have made me curious about the changes HAD made, would they have been something obvious that we all would have suggested or something quite unique. I'm curious about earthing too, it seems like a dark art. I suspect guys who build really high gain amps would be all over earthing.

[Scumback Speakers]

You have made me curious about the changes HAD made, would they have been something obvious that we all would have suggested or something quite unique. I'm curious about earthing too, it seems like a dark art. I suspect guys who build really high gain amps would be all over earthing.

This gets into some tech jargon, but I'll relate it as best I can.

1) The star grounding scheme was employed, but the actual physical location of the ground point was moved, from one side of the power tranny to the other side, roughly 3 inches away from it's original point (by Gibson). It moved to the farthest point away from the tubes on the end of the chassis. Then another star ground was put on the other end of the chassis closest to the preamp tube.

2) The caps that were in there were ok, but Howard wanted a different cap composition than the regular Sprague caps. Turned out an Illinois capacitor had the construction he wanted.

3) Then there was the spacing of the caps from each other. He insisted that EMSR or ESR (???) was restricting the tone because they were too close together. A new board spaced them the distance he wanted to see.

Those were the changes as I remember them. Keep in mind since this is a single ended Class A dual 6V6 design with one 12AX7, and one GZ34 rectifier tube (not 5Y3 like the original) the bass improved, got tighter and bigger.

Preamp tube changes were important to get the tone you wanted as well, but you all know that already. I used JJ 6V6 tubes in the amp because unless you had NOS 6V6's, the current production tubes died quickly. And I mean within minutes, even though the amp had around 360v on the plates. Couldn't handle the Class A circuit for some reason, but the JJ 6V6's hold up just fine.

Due to how simple this amp is, I would imagine anything more than 1 vol/1 tone and more preamp/power tubes would introduce other challenges and mods.

Hope that helps you out, that's about as much as I have on the mods for you.

[martin manning]

The caps in 2) above were power supply filters or coupling caps? Do you recall what he was specifically looking for that was in the IC parts?

[erwin_ve]

In 3. EMFR: Electromagnetic Field Radiation ?

[FUCHSAUDIO]

Not sure about the grounding, but the capacitor composition and placement have been issues for me in the past. I had an early mod that sounded amazing, but oscillated at high gain settings. I added some copper foil to a coupling cap (which was near another) and grounded it, and it fixed the issue. I'm pretty OCD about my board layouts and grounding because parts talk to parts and there are subtle aspects of the tone that will suffer ! Take a guitar pickup on a cable (not on a guitar), plug it into another amp, play guitar (or pass a signal through the amp you want to test) and hold it over wires and components, and you will see what I mean....

[talbany]

Then there was the spacing of the caps from each other. He insisted that EMSR or ESR (???) was restricting the tone because they were too close together. A new board spaced them the distance he wanted to see.

See I told you guy's a thousand times to watch your cap spacing. Does anyone listen to me NOOOOO!

Tony

[Scumback Speakers]

The caps in 2) above were power supply filters or coupling caps? Do you recall what he was specifically looking for that was in the IC parts?

Something about the construction of the IC caps, can't tell you what/which caps specifically. Sorry Martin.