Removing a Gain Stage

[greengriff]

I've got an amp built by an American custom builder. It is based on a model they offer for general sale but has an extra gain stage added at the factory as per the original owner's request. There's far too much gain for me now and also some looseness to the tone (I suspect they didn't add extra filtering along with the extra stage). I know nothing about amp design so would appreciate some assistance. I have attached a schematic. I suspect the half of V3 is responsible for the extra stage, as there is one less ECC83 on the standard amp this is based on. Any thoughts or insights would be much appreciated.

[Jazz P Bass]

What a piece of crap schematic!
There are not any notations for tube type.
The tube pins are not numbered.
Good Luck with that.

[nashvillebill]

You might try subbing a 5751 in the gain stages. Same specs as a 12AX7 (your ECC83) but less gain (roughly 70% of the gain of the 12AX7, I believe)

[greengriff]

What a piece of crap schematic!
There are not any notations for tube type.
The tube pins are not numbered.
Good Luck with that.

Sadly I am not a technical artist. I assumed the pin layout would be obvious from the heater wires and I mentioned in my original post that they were ECC83s.

[J M Fahey]

No hard feelings please, but to begin with, ECC83s are 9 pin tubes, to be more precise have a 10 pin layout with one missing, as to provide indexing.
This drawing shows only 8 evenly spaced pins , so it's absolutely useless for the intended purpose.
If that basic thing can't be trusted, even less so other parts or connections.
And those "U", "V", "T", "O", etc. labels confuse more than they help.
I'm *sure* Jazz P didn't mean to be unkind, by any means, simply he wrote a gut reaction some of us just thought.
Sorry.
PS: maybe you can redraw that and turn it into a proper schematic, rather than a layout (which is a different, complementary thing)

[Jazz P Bass]

Sadly I am not a technical artist. I assumed the pin layout would be obvious from the heater wires and I mentioned in my original post that they were ECC83s.

Sorry about the schematic rant.
It just struck me the wrong way.
If you want help, then the more information that is available, the better the help will be.
Again, I apologize.

[greengriff]

No problem. This is normally an extremely friendly forum, so I was a little taken aback by the fierce response :-)