The Dumbassbob 63 Bandmaster amp is Fixed!!!!!

[Tone Meister]

PSA:

I'm not gonna debate engineering philosophies here, but as a professional musician of more than 30 years I can tell you with absolute certainty that, in my world, Skip Simmons is to vintage amp restoration as Sam Walton is to retail and Bill Gates is to software. No doubt he'll have a few things to say that some folks can challenge from a technical standpoint, but my guess is that most of us here do the same on a daily basis.

In the professional musician community, Skip is one of the few "end all, be all" amp techs and he is THE go to guy to send a vintage amp for preservation and restoration, whether it's been hacked up previously, or not. He may come across to some of you here as a bit eccentric and omniscient, but I challenge you to find one single story where he has chosen the wrong course of action for just one of his thousands of customers, legions of which are professional musicians who depend on their tools to make a living.

If the MEF community is truly just discovering Skip Simmons, then I submit that you have now found a true gem.

[Chuck H]

Skips MO seems to be simply to keep the vintage amps in good operating condition as necessity dictates. Adhering to the much touted ideal that vintage is good and modern is bad. I can't fault that too much. It does boil down to the same result as any respectable tech would have offered in, say, 1965. So the amps end up sounding factory correct. I can't imagine what tonal advantage an ungrounded mains cord offers. And I think tonal preservation takes a back seat to safety. For example: a kid fixing an old car will fix the engine first so the car will go. Hopefully fast! A middle aged guy fixing an old car will fix the brakes first so the car can stop. Hopefully fast! Skip seems to be missing that sensibility by not advocating grounded cords. But...

In the end DAB got the amp out of GW's hands, took it to a respected tech and it was fixed the first time around for a reasonable price. The whole story tells a great deal about DAB and GW but very little about amps.

[km6xz]

I think he was referring clone amps not being better than old amps at being old amps. They will sound different, better or worse, just different so a clone is not going to reproduce that same traits, for better or worse, than a old amp it is emulating. A new clone has every possibility to be a better amp or a worse amp but what is will not be is a 64 Fender xxx or whatever.
One thing that changed besides electronic components is the intended sounds. Music that people want to play pretty much did not have the same requirements as in later generations when deep bass became essential parts of music where it never existed before, or the wide range of processed sounds that just were not part of the writer's musical vocabulary or the audience's taste. After Hendrix, Cream, Zeppelin etc, the range of tone character possibilities exploded in rock, country, blues etc. Just like how the popular song was sung forever differently after Lewis Armstrong invented the modern pop lyric structure, even non-rock players would never be doing the same things before as after Hendrix. So a 60s amp might not be so optimum for a working musician who is playing for audiences and a new design based on the tastes and skill sets of today would probably be a better amp.

A big difference is how amps are pushed very hard and tubes run far in excess of good engineering practice. The only compression that increased average power, was getting into clipping a bit. Now, every processor or high gain amp or peddle pushed average to peak power to within 2 db of each other.
Other differences include higher line voltage, tubes of rather different characteristics than what was available with that 60's amp was sitting on the sales floor. Amps were a lot more money than in relation to income so a Fender was a pretty exotic purchase that kids with rich parents could afford but not average kids from average neighborhoods. They used their Sears or Wards amp. It was not that a family could not afford it, but a higher end amp was not needed for the music which did not require gobs of power, high gain, master gain controls, channel switching or peddles.
The 3 prong comment had me scratching my head but it makes sense from the perspective of the collector.

But the rest was consistent with my observations over the last 50+ years of working with electronics.

[Tone Meister]

...Skip seems to be missing that sensibility by not advocating grounded cords...

Well, that isn't exactly what he said. Taken out of context, I guess we could shoot down every statement any of us ever makes. He said you don't always need a three-prong plug, and he provided a single example. Nothing broad sweeping about that statement from my point of view. The fact that his example described a MINT tweed Champ infers to me that his intent is to preserve the amp in museum condition, therefore retaining maximum value for the collector.

"You do not always need a three-prong plug. Putting one on your mint tweed Champ is just plain wrong."

[Chuck H]

Agreed. I'm not immune to the cool factor of museum pieces and a cloth braid, ungrounded mains cord is part of that picture. I still contend that a grounded mains cord should be installed on any "mint tweed Champ" that will be in regular use.

[dumbassbob]

Yes, but it's mystifying that Bob didn't take advantage of any of the several offers from MEF members to fix his amp.

I did I called Bruce 5 times and emailed him 2,but I forgot there was a big flood in Colorado at the time..... Skip Simmons only charged me $100.00 including shipping and matched up 3 pairs of my RCA 6L6GC The amp sounds great,and that seems pretty fair to me.....And he said I was Not crazy

[dumbassbob]

Personally, life has taught me to be be wary of anyone who is that sure of himself to advertise that he knows better than the rest. Statements such as "maybe you've read the book, but the book is wrong" just don't inspire me much.

Gerald Weber writes alot of books on how to fix amps,but even when I gave him $1200 and he had my amp over 2,1/2 years he could not fix a few cold solder joints and switch 2 wires around...by the way I found that just looking at the schematic/layout....

[dumbassbob]

Yes, but it's mystifying that Bob didn't take advantage of any of the several offers from MEF members to fix his amp.

I did call Bruce 5 times and emailed 2..He may of been in that flood in Colorado....

[Chuck H]

... And he said I was Not crazy

AAaaah! The old "soft sell"!

[Chuck H]

Gerald Weber writes alot of books on how to fix amps,but even when I gave him $1200 and he had my amp over 2,1/2 years he could not fix a few cold solder joints and switch 2 wires around...

From the sound of things GW's shop is the one that mixed up the plate wires. Who else worked on it between when it left your care and got to Skip!?!

[dumbassbob]

From the sound of things GW's shop is the one that mixed up the plate wires. Who else worked on it between when it left your care and got to Skip!?!

This guy Futara Amp Repair in Orange County also worked on it,All I asked was for him to see if he could find the problem,Not to do anything else...I get a call at 4:00pm on Christmas eve telling me to come and pick up my amp that it was All Fixed!!! So I drive the 25 miles in rush hour traffic..He plugs it into a Reverb drench unit and used Humbuckers...Even in all that wash I knew it was shit..$235.00 for 2 grid (R) and he pulled out the dommino caps,And told me I needed a new OPT....So I sent it back to Weber for another year...Finally a came here for some help....

[dumbassbob]

I have a little problem in the Normal channel...After it has been on for a 1/2 hr I hear crackling...It also for a while made scratchy noise on the Volume pot...I bought a VTVM to see if it was a cap leaking,and I have a DVM...But Not sure what to do or look for or how to test for drift... Will someone give me a few tips PLease..Could the plate resistors be drifting?The amp has been sounding great since I got it back from Skip...But with 50 yr old resistors and caps..and I play it every day for 2 hrs,Also I pulled out those 2 extra 220 resistors...Thanks DAB

[52 Bill]

I have a little problem in the Normal channel...After it has been on for a 1/2 hr I hear crackling...It also for a while made scratchy noise on the Volume pot...I bought a VTVM to see if it was a cap leaking,and I have a DVM...But Not sure what to do or look for or how to test for drift... Will someone give me a few tips PLease..Could the plate resistors be drifting?The amp has been sounding great since I got it back from Skip...But with 50 yr old resistors and caps..and I play it every day for 2 hrs,Also I pulled out those 2 extra 220 resistors...Thanks DAB

Welcome back Bob. Why not start a new thread for this problem, so we can help you to figure it out.

[audiopete]

Just watch his video where he burns wire insulation with his huge iron, clips wrong resistors and electrocutes himself on a charged cap....and leaves it in the how to vid...that was enough of GW for me.

There are people who can follow a set of instructions and people who understand and write those instructions....

[audiopete]

Perhaps the crackling is your old plate resistor in that section. Replace it with a modern Allen Bradley carbon comp if the crackling bothers you or it gets worse. You can use metal film for best results but a CC would look better.

EDIT - never mind, I see you are well taken care of on your new thread. Good luck.