Good Fender Twin Output Tranny Replacements?

[fatboy01]

I've been looking around for a decent replacement for a fender Twin, and I've come across Hoffman, Mojo, and Mercury Mags. What do you guys know about either of these brands, and do you have any suggestions on to which I should try? Thanks

[Jag]

I've been using MM in my home brew amps and I think they sound great. I haven't compared them to anything other than original Fener trannies though. I'd be curious to know opinions on other brands.

[tubeboy]

I've been looking around for a decent replacement for a fender Twin, and I've come across Hoffman, Mojo, and Mercury Mags. What do you guys know about either of these brands, and do you have any suggestions on to which I should try? Thanks

The Mercury is great, but I like Heyboer for the money. Is your output transformer bad or are you looking for a different tone?

[fatboy01]

Well I'm looking at a bassman 135 with a blown output tranny, and I'm thinking of rebuilding it with a twin clean channel, add a tube reverb, and maybe have a higher gain channel, but that will be down the road if I'm not happy with my pedals. So, I'm basically looking for good tone for a decent price. I'm not limited to a twin output tranny, but I need something around 100watts with good tone.

[bob p]

it all depends what you mean by good tone. the "135" Fenders are great ultralinear amps, though a lot of people don't like them just because they're a CBS designed product. imho they're the reference standard for high power Fender clean, though for some reason the blackface snobs tend to look down on them. if i had that amp, i wouldn't be looking for 100W pentode mode iron. i'd be looking for a replacement 135W UL OT. ymmv.

[fatboy01]

Well I may have to consider that,keeping it stock. I've just been told for years that ultralinear is for Hi-Fi, and makes guitar tone somewhat sterile. I haven't been around that many tube amps to know the difference for myself, although I have a tube hi-fi stereo and it really full sounding. But thats why I come here, to get some more knowledgeable opinions.

Anyways, this will be my first tube amp build, if I decide to go that route, and I am a huge SRV fan as well as hendrix and gilmour and the like. The clean tone I'm looking for would be something similar to "Lenny", and then I just want nice smooth distortion. I'll use one of my homebrews to get more distortion if I need it. I've never played a Bassman135 before, so I really don't know the tone it has stock, but I have played a silverface twin and it sounded pretty good to my ears. Also, I can't afford to try out transformers (broke college student), but if keeping it a bassman135 would fit my tone needs then that would be great and would save the bank account some rather than building a new amp. Also, I will be building a cabinet for the chassis, with either 2 EV 12"s, or 1 EV15" speaker.

[bob p]

it all depends on what you're looking for. i wouldn't call UL Fenders sterile, but they are definitely clean amps.

i've used a Bassman 50 with an EVM-15L for a number of years. the combination of a high power Fender and EVM speakers is truly magical. its a good recipe for the SRV tone. there's a real sweet spot around 7 on the volume control, but damn, the amp is LOUD -- too loud for home use. its definitely a stage setup.

the combination of a Bassman 135 and EVM speakers will plant you firmly in the zone, but if you're looking for distortion, your ears will be bleeding by the time you get it. if you need distorted tone, you might want to look to stompboxes or a smaller amp.

from a practical standpoint, people that own UL Fenders typically own them because they want the amp's tone to remain clean (the same) at all levels, and they obtain distortion through stompboxes or preamp mods.

[bob p]

another bit about UL amps for guitar: just in case you weren't aware, the Dr.Z Route 66 is an UL design using the KT66 output tube. Its a little known fact that the Route 66 is actualy a rebuild of one of the Leak (UK) ultralinear HiFi amps. It sounds great, but it gets damned loud before it gets nasty.

[fatboy01]

Thanks for the quick replys and good info. Now I need to decide if I should pick up the busted bassman for $100 (good deal?), or find something smaller, like a Pro Reverb.

The amp will be for use with a band, I use an old Supro 6V6 for jamming out at home. I do want clean tone loud, but I'd also like to have good sustain and gain at high levels as well, without the aid of a fuzz or overdrive. Perhaps I could build a higher gain preamp into the second channel? Also, should I remove the master volume control? I have read they thin out the sound some.

[Alex R]

A push-pull on the MV can switch it in and out of the circuit. The standard Fender MV thins out the tone just as much as a 1meg resistor to ground before the PI does, ie not much at all but just about noticeable. Because when you turn it right up, that's all it is, 1meg to ground.

Agreed about the ultralinear Fenders. That's just a good loud valve power amp. The reason those amps can sound 'clinical' is in the preamps, which go in for too many neg feedback loops around stages.

[fatboy01]

A push-pull on the MV can switch it in and out of the circuit. The standard Fender MV thins out the tone just as much as a 1meg resistor to ground before the PI does, ie not much at all but just about noticeable. Because when you turn it right up, that's all it is, 1meg to ground.

Agreed about the ultralinear Fenders. That's just a good loud valve power amp. The reason those amps can sound 'clinical' is in the preamps, which go in for too many neg feedback loops around stages.

Well I got an original bassman 135 ultraliner OT and wired it up. The amp sounds great clean, but I certainly would like some fat, slightly overdriven tone out of it. I tried removing the ultralinear taps, which was a slight improvement in tone, but I don't like having the amp rigged like that.

So any suggestions on modding the preamp to fatten it up some? I do use a lot of overdrive/fuzz/wah in my music, and my goal is the cliche SRV style clean tone (which is fairly overdriven). I also swapped in 12ax7s, which really helped out a lot, but I would like some more out of the preamp.

[Alex R]

You have the opportunity to remove the current preamp and rebuild it in a style you prefer. Blackface Twin, say. Or even '59 Bassman. The preamp as it stands can't be modified in a useful way by simple removing components in my view.

[bob p]

You have the opportunity to remove the current preamp and rebuild it in a style you prefer. Blackface Twin, say. Or even '59 Bassman. The preamp as it stands can't be modified in a useful way by simple removing components in my view.

lots of people will rebuild the normal channel preamp to be higher gain, keeping the effects channel preamp as-is for fender cleans.

[TD_Madden]

not much of an effects channel on a bassman... ;-)

[Jelle]

Maybe try two tubescreamers for the SRV tone...Stevie used really clean Dumble amps and two tubescreamers...

Jelle