Holy New Amp Day, Batman! (Sovtek!!!)

[trevorus]

Guess who just picked up a sovtek mig 50 head! Plus an Ampeg 212 for 200 bones! Barely beat out the competition on that one. Someone offered 300 bucks right after I emailed him. But we had a deal. I'll have to hook him up some other way. It looks like it could use a cleaning but it works great. I'm so stoked to use it at practice tonight.



My little mini-stack!

[txstrat]

Congrats.
I'd say one or the other alone is worth the price.

[Chuck H]

Those Sovtek heads are pretty cool. When I bought my first Marshall (a 76 MKII Master Lead) there was a Mig50 right next to it that I also played through. I had to go back and forth a couple of times before choosing the Marshall. Congrats.

What speakers in th Ampeg cab???

[trevorus]

They are Celestion G12m-70's. It's a stereo cab, and the guy was running it half on the 8 ohm tap, half on the 4, which was odd. So, I wired it in series to 16 ohm, and next up is replacing the control pots on the Sovvy, and maybe a proper amp jewel.

[riz]

I would go for changing the switches and jacks before the pots. Unless you're having trouble with the pots. I have a Bluesboy bass head, and in my experience the pots are pretty good, switches and jacks BAD. Nice score!

[Chuck H]

+ on that.
Also, those g12m70's have a love 'em or hate 'em reputation. IMHE the 8ohm version sounds dry and flat through the mids with a hard rolloff on the bottom and top. BUT... I have a quad of 16ohm g12m70's that I won't part with until they're blown up. That said I suppose you can judge for yourself if you like them or not. They'd be pretty easy to unload since some people like them and they aren't made anymore. Not sure what may have come stock in that cabinet but a pair of G12H anni's would probably be great with that amp.

[trevorus]

I would go for changing the switches and jacks before the pots. Unless you're having trouble with the pots. I have a Bluesboy bass head, and in my experience the pots are pretty good, switches and jacks BAD. Nice score!

The jacks have been changed already, which is awesome, and the input resistors are dropped a bit to give a little more oomph on the front end. The pots are a bit scratchy, and the channel 2 volume has the resistor track coming off of the back. Otherwise, I would leave them be.

+ on that.
Also, those g12m70's have a love 'em or hate 'em reputation. IMHE the 8ohm version sounds dry and flat through the mids with a hard rolloff on the bottom and top. BUT... I have a quad of 16ohm g12m70's that I won't part with until they're blown up. That said I suppose you can judge for yourself if you like them or not. They'd be pretty easy to unload since some people like them and they aren't made anymore. Not sure what may have come stock in that cabinet but a pair of G12H anni's would probably be great with that amp.

I haven't yet played these with a band, so I'll reserve judgment until then on the speakers. They sound well broken in, so they definitely have a bigger low end then one might think, and the sealed individual halves of the cabinet change things a bit too. It's good to know I might be able to trade them up if I don't like them.

[Gtr_tech]

The input grid stoppers don't attenuate much signal....I wouldn't change them. They're only there to isolate the grid from the capacitance of the input cable. If you want more "grunt" out of a channel, you'd need to change the cathode circuits on the gain stages. Seen's how its a superlead style amp, you won't get a whole lotta grind out of it unless you change the configuration of the front end to use 3 stages instead of 2 before the cathode follower.