caps in a 5E3

[tele-tubby]

I've heard people changing the pair of .1 coupling caps in a 5e3, has anyone tried changing all four of them to .047 or .022?

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

I've heard people changing the pair of .1 coupling caps in a 5e3, has anyone tried changing all four of them to .047 or .022?

Of course.
My choice for experimentation would be two .047uF caps in the phase inverter, .022uF to .033uF in the bright channel and .047uF in the normal channel.

[tele-tubby]

thanks! I'm wating for may caps order to arrive

[Shea]

When I built a 5E3-based circuit into an old, 2x6V6 PA amp, I changed all the coupling caps to .022 or .047, except the one going to the phase inverter, which I changed to .001; and changed the cathode bypass cap in the preamp to 1 uf. That allows me to run a 12AX7 in V1 without the bass getting all flubby, 'cuz I like it dirty, but it probably cuts out a little too much bass for cleaner tones.

Shea

[tele-tubby]

on a side note, has anyone tried chaging the tone cap (.047) to .022? I do this one guitars and it works well clearing up the mud. I wonder if this can help clear the amp as well...

[tubeswell]

on a side note, has anyone tried chaging the tone cap (.047) to .022? I do this one guitars and it works well clearing up the mud. I wonder if this can help clear the amp as well...

Hmmm... if you look at the way the tone control works, when the pot is wound to bleed the signal (that is coming from the vol pot) through the .047uF cap to ground, you are bleeding alot of high and mid freqs to ground (hence you end up with the bass when eth tone control is turned in that direction). If you chuck a .022uF in there, the threshold of your freq bleed to ground will be higher (when the pot is in that position), therefore there will be more mids staying in the circuit/signal path. So I don't think it will be less 'muddy'. (It will sound a tad fuller).

If you want less muddyness, one way is to reduce size of the coupling caps. Going from 0.1uF to 0.022uF is a good way to start.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

OK let's backup.... there is no .047uF cap in the tone control.
There is a .005uF cap (modern equiv is .0047uF) which is grounded and in some later single tone control Fender models that was changed to a .01uF.
When the tone pot is turned to the bassy side, the .01uF has a mildly more pronounced effect on the upper midrange and all the treble response (less, so the amp sounds muddier) and the preamp looses some available signal/gain so the amp sounds like it has lost a bit of drive too.
I fear .047uF would just about kill most of all signal freqs and sound terrible.

[tubeswell]

Whoops My Bad - I should've said .0047uF. Sorry

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Whoops My Bad - I should've said .0047uF. Sorry

I figured as much..

[tele-tubby]

oops! my mistake too read the schematic wrong.

[tele-tubby]

Of course.
My choice for experimentation would be two .047uF caps in the phase inverter, .022uF to .033uF in the bright channel and .047uF in the normal channel.

hey Bruce... I did this but there's still quite an excess of unusable bass. Will changing the phase inverter to .022s safe for the amp? That will make the coupling caps and the phase inverter caps to all .022s

[tele-tubby]

I better make my question clearer... I just need just a little less bass shedding (I'm almost where I want it)... so should I:

options
1 - go all .022 in the phase inverter and the coupling

2 - stay .05 in the phase inverter and go .015 in the normal and .010 in the bright

Of course.
My choice for experimentation would be two .047uF caps in the phase inverter, .022uF to .033uF in the bright channel and .047uF in the normal channel.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

"First"
Drop the 25uF or 22uF E-cap across the 820 ohm biasing resistor (12AY7) down to 2.2uF to 4.7uF.
Try a smaller one, like 10uF to 4.7uF across the 1500 ohm biasing resistor on lug #3 of the 12AX7 too.
Not knowing what you really like to hear, vs keeping the amp sounding like a tweed Deluxe (or similar anyhow) ... makes it difficult to suggest too many mods, so take small steps.

[cminor9]

Tele Tubby, I think this is a case where you just need to tweak your amp to your liking. To (mis)quote someone else on this forum, telling you which values to use is a bit like telling you what kind of toppings you want on your pizza. In my experience the 5E3 circuit is very much "season to taste".

On my 5E3 I lowered the coupling caps throughout, and I still tend to keep the tone knob almost full up with most guitars. At one point, I changed ALL coupling caps to .02, to the point I could have the tone knob in the middle where my mind thought it should be. With this drastic of a mod, though, the amp really seemed to be lacking some oomph. So I raised some values back up. The result? Well, I love the tone now and I just turn the stinking tone all the way up. So what if I don't find the whole range of the tone control usable? I am not looking for the ideal user interface, I am looking for the tone.

So why did I type this load of text? My point is this: make small tweaks till you get the amp how you like it. You might end up having to undo some mode. Just let your ears decide.

It's not hard to tweak a 5E3, it's just a bit time consuming swapping parts in and out. But you are after good tone, and it's not a race, right?

[tele-tubby]

I'd like to get near this tone. Right now I'm almost there except that his is brighter. I think he's using two original tweed deluxes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA_Q19HFQig

"First"
Drop the 25uF or 22uF E-cap across the 820 ohm biasing resistor (12AY7) down to 2.2uF to 4.7uF.
Try a smaller one, like 10uF to 4.7uF across the 1500 ohm biasing resistor on lug #3 of the 12AX7 too.
Not knowing what you really like to hear, vs keeping the amp sounding like a tweed Deluxe (or similar anyhow) ... makes it difficult to suggest too many mods, so take small steps.