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Ever have an amp who's clothes didn't seem to fit right? Remember those cool Marshall Mini Stacks? That's a identity crisis amp- it's all dressed up in it's three piece (head, cab, cab!) but sounding like it does- like the teenage fry cook from the simpsons- it's not going out, hell, it can't even get a call back.
Which is why you can pick them up for about 125 bucks if you lean on the pawn guy.
I thought, first, that this amp should have refined tone, a sort of sheep in wolf's clothing. SO, I built a dumble pre, and rewired a champ as a SET power amp. The head housed the pre and the slant cab the power amp. It was cool enough, but didn't have sufficient mojo to make onlookers "dumbled." It was also the first amp I've even been turned down to loan out.
The next version, i put a vox/ early marshall pre in it, same power amp. Better, but didn't fit it's clothes, at all. That thing looks like a jcm800.
So, I hooked up one more stage and had me a SET 800. Still Lame! So, I put a ltp driver and a power amp with cathode biased el84s in the box. I pulled the "champ", re-converted it and sold it! The push pull really woke the amp up. It was finally getting somewhere. This was something that would raise eyebrows in the local bar. It has wayyy too large of a power xfrmr and a tiny Hammond 125 10w OT.
Around that time, I was building another amp for a guy and I started thinking about things like SLOs, x88s, Caswell 39s and such. Any guesses where this is heading? For those keeping score, I've now got 6 tubes, two transformers, etc in the 8"x12" thing... and here's the sticky part:
I never had any plan for any of this at all. It's stuff everywhere. It's like a computer there's so many cards and boards and wires and OY VEH! Not satisfied, I put on a variable line out, a fan, a load resistor, the cerrem mod (Melted the power tubes in 2 minutes) oh and, of course, fixed bias- to accommodate the solid state bias vary tremolo, because I didn't have enough shit in there and I like trem on high gain- odd but sounds ILLLLL. The grounding is mostly star, but, hey, there's a free ground here and there drilled into the chassis. Strangely enough, the build makes almost no noise whatsoever. AC filaments, not lifted, which they should be, by like 50v for the cathode follower to be healthy, but marshall didn't either. I don't like messy builds because they're hard to work on, frequently unreliable and oscillate. This one is lucky and slow to work on, i'll never do this again!
So?
IT RIPS. IT DRINKS YOUR MILKSHAKE.
Top View- Not proud of the way it looks.
Tube Side- back tubes are power, mid tubes are pre and EQ driver, front tube is middle stage (#39), vertical board is the driver, who's tube is hiding in the back there.
Front- Input, Gain (pull bright), Treble (pull v1b bias shift), mid, #39 switch, bass, vibrato switch, Master, footswitch jack (currently not connected), STBY, Mains Fuse, Main Power
Back, In box. Visible: Load Resistor, Fan, VIB RATE and INT, Line out LVL, Line out 1/4" + RCA, Cerrem switch (disconnected. Evil, evil switch.)
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha
The bottom cab already has an EV12L. The top is probably getting a greenback or an EVH reissue greenback? dunno. Why does the bottom cab have 200w worth of speaker? Because the last part of the project is a 180w MOSFET Power Amplifier. Yah: I want to power of a Major for my Mini! That should be done sometime next month.
I know there's another like this out there, a tubed up mini, but I've never seen pics. If anybody knows where to view that amp, that would be cool.
I'll post some clips monday when I can get some time to turn it up. Thanks for reading!
Which is why you can pick them up for about 125 bucks if you lean on the pawn guy.
I thought, first, that this amp should have refined tone, a sort of sheep in wolf's clothing. SO, I built a dumble pre, and rewired a champ as a SET power amp. The head housed the pre and the slant cab the power amp. It was cool enough, but didn't have sufficient mojo to make onlookers "dumbled." It was also the first amp I've even been turned down to loan out.
The next version, i put a vox/ early marshall pre in it, same power amp. Better, but didn't fit it's clothes, at all. That thing looks like a jcm800.
So, I hooked up one more stage and had me a SET 800. Still Lame! So, I put a ltp driver and a power amp with cathode biased el84s in the box. I pulled the "champ", re-converted it and sold it! The push pull really woke the amp up. It was finally getting somewhere. This was something that would raise eyebrows in the local bar. It has wayyy too large of a power xfrmr and a tiny Hammond 125 10w OT.
Around that time, I was building another amp for a guy and I started thinking about things like SLOs, x88s, Caswell 39s and such. Any guesses where this is heading? For those keeping score, I've now got 6 tubes, two transformers, etc in the 8"x12" thing... and here's the sticky part:
I never had any plan for any of this at all. It's stuff everywhere. It's like a computer there's so many cards and boards and wires and OY VEH! Not satisfied, I put on a variable line out, a fan, a load resistor, the cerrem mod (Melted the power tubes in 2 minutes) oh and, of course, fixed bias- to accommodate the solid state bias vary tremolo, because I didn't have enough shit in there and I like trem on high gain- odd but sounds ILLLLL. The grounding is mostly star, but, hey, there's a free ground here and there drilled into the chassis. Strangely enough, the build makes almost no noise whatsoever. AC filaments, not lifted, which they should be, by like 50v for the cathode follower to be healthy, but marshall didn't either. I don't like messy builds because they're hard to work on, frequently unreliable and oscillate. This one is lucky and slow to work on, i'll never do this again!
So?
IT RIPS. IT DRINKS YOUR MILKSHAKE.
Top View- Not proud of the way it looks.
Tube Side- back tubes are power, mid tubes are pre and EQ driver, front tube is middle stage (#39), vertical board is the driver, who's tube is hiding in the back there.
Front- Input, Gain (pull bright), Treble (pull v1b bias shift), mid, #39 switch, bass, vibrato switch, Master, footswitch jack (currently not connected), STBY, Mains Fuse, Main Power
Back, In box. Visible: Load Resistor, Fan, VIB RATE and INT, Line out LVL, Line out 1/4" + RCA, Cerrem switch (disconnected. Evil, evil switch.)
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha
The bottom cab already has an EV12L. The top is probably getting a greenback or an EVH reissue greenback? dunno. Why does the bottom cab have 200w worth of speaker? Because the last part of the project is a 180w MOSFET Power Amplifier. Yah: I want to power of a Major for my Mini! That should be done sometime next month.
I know there's another like this out there, a tubed up mini, but I've never seen pics. If anybody knows where to view that amp, that would be cool.
I'll post some clips monday when I can get some time to turn it up. Thanks for reading!
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