Books/resources on layout/lead dress?

[cooldude666]

I know for a fact that my amp is a rats nest (maybe I'm being a little hard on myself...). I feel like I twisted some wires together that maybe should not have been twisted, ran some wires to near to others that I shouldn't have, but I don't know where to start on cleaning this up/debugging the hum. Anyone have a good resource on this? When I'm done I want someone to say "wow look at that amp", but how to I get there!? Thank you!

[loudthud]

The amp doesn't look that bad. The photo is a little dark around the preamp terminal strips. Is that an old Traynor Vocal Master chassis?

[cooldude666]

Question stands though, are there any resources for the tenets of lead dress and layout? My amp has a pretty loud hum when the guitar is plugged in and its cranked and gets a really high frequency squeal at some settings. Im blaming layout but i guess it could be elsewhere. I twisted some ground and signal wires. Is this a no-no?

[eschertron]

The one resource that I can point to is the chapter in Merlin's preamp book. There may a online version of this at the Valve Wizard site. Here's link into his grounding and noise page at The Valve Wizard. Otherwise, just try keyword searches. I'm sure much has been discussed on this forum!

[cooldude666]

Thanks, i own merlins book. Ill go back over it. I used it heavily while designing this amp.

[soundmasterg]

Another book that has some layout info in it is Kevin O' Connor's TUT3 (The Ultimate Tone 3).

Greg

[stormbringer]

Merlin's grounding strategy is basically the same as Kevin O'Connor's 'galactic ground', which is similar to what Aiken has on his website (tech tips), which is similar to what Larry on metro amp (think 'LAR/mar') does. Given that they all seem to agree on the grounding strategy, it's worth considering. TUT3 is great, in my opinion.

Merlin also advises that it is OK to twist the three wires (to plate, cathode, and grid) to each preamp gain stage, but not many other people think this is a good idea.