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small single-ended amp with headroom

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  • #31
    Cough! I have been doing that forever, or to be more precise since the early 90's .
    Way back then Argentine Customs doors were fully opened by Gov't and US dollar was pegged 1:1 to the Argentine Peso ... for 12 years running (sheer madness).

    Imported stuff got artificially cheap because Dollar value became nil, so we were flooded with imported stuff.

    At all levels.

    Imagine grocers replacing our local produce with impossible stuff such as Spanish tomatoes (which have to be grown on heavily fertilized earth and under plastic to avoid snow), Israeli oranges and grapes, which have to be watered one by one and protected from the desert like sun, etc. ... because anything payed for in US dollars, including freight, was almost free.

    Now imagine poor Juan trying to sell his stuff competing with ultra cheap Taiwan and Korean stuff , even US and UK made stuff (China was that important yet).
    A Marshall JCM900, a Valvestate 80 or a GK amp was cheaper (or cost same) as my own equivalent product.

    So I had to look around very carefully to detect any Market holes left unfilled by Importers.

    Noticed many guitar players, believing what they read in Guitar Player (and later on Web pages and Forums) bought low power Tube amps, mostly 2 x EL84 "25W" jobs, a few "10W" single EL34 ADA Rocket, stuff like that.

    Cool at home, in bedroom or Living room, failed miserably when playing along a drummer.

    Since I was still considered "the guy to go to with problems" , I still wrote Tech articles in local Guitar magazines, etc. , they brought their small Tube amps "to improve headroom" .... ring a bell?

    Many wanted "a good single/dual 12" cabinet to raise volume" and bough one of mine.
    It improved things somewhat but nor fully.

    Bingo!!!! ... I started adding inside the cabinet my standard 100W SS module, a small heatsink and a power transformer .

    I didn't call it "an amplifier" although it really was so, but "a loud cabinet" which "just happened to need a wall socket to work", and added a free "adapter" : an aluminum L bracket with a resistive attenuator connected to the original speaker, a screwdriver adjustable pot which could be attached to the inside of the driving Tube amp and an output jack, to send such signal to the powered speaker, either 1x12"(65/70W RMS) or 2x12"(full 100W RMS).

    Setup instructions were:
    1) play small tube amp loud so it clips.
    2) rise preset volume step by step until green led in "loud cabinet" just lights ... leave it there.

    This way SS power amp just clips when tube amp does, adds a lot of useful volume without squashing the nice power tube clipping signal it's receiving.
    Sold a ton

    FWIW my last incarnation and seeing overthinking GAS powered Musicians are replacing speakers every month, depending on what they read, is the "multispeaker cabinet" .

    It's a 2x12" powered cabinet, of course, loaded with my standard workhorse 100W SS amp and 12" speakers + a 100W`8 ohms input resistor + an active EQ with 3 switch selectable curves, whatever's needed to turn the real, measured response of my speakers into the one by:
    a) old Jensen speaker
    b) Greenback
    c) V30

    Users just set their favorite head on top, connect speaker out to cabinet so labelled "speaker in", set the switch wherever they like and rip away.

    Lots of very happy customers
    Juan Manuel Fahey

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    • #32
      Success!!

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