As you can guess by my name, I have a fascination with these things, but know very little about them. I'm going to be tackling an organ conversion very soon, and with little (more like no) electronics knowledge, I'm hoping to learn as I go along by diligently reading and asking on this forum, and reading several ebooks I've found on the subject.
Anyway...so here I am, planning to build a 5e5 or 5e7 out of an old Wurlitzer speaker power amp. I know that I have to either rewire the power tubes to 6l6 power, which is apparently easy, or stick with the 7025a tubes I have. I understand they're very clean...seems simple enough.
I have to test the transformers (or have a dude do it for me) to see if they're still running. Again, not too bad.
I'll also need to decide on keeping the 7199 for the preamp, or buying 2 12ax7s instead of 1. Also...need another socket.
NOW comes the tough part for me, and the part I don't understand. I see that the 5e5/5e7 have what...2 dozen capacitors of varying...uhm...resistance? no...whatever "farads" are. Well, anyway, not many of the caps I have in my organ amp match the spec'd caps in the Fender build. I understand the voltages can be a little disparate, as long as the rating is higher than necessary, but I think I'll buy all new just the same. Now the thing is that I have a pile of chubby cardboard firecrackers, apparently "electrolytic" caps. The chassis layout on the 5e5 looks like electrolytic, and the Bandmaster circuit at Ceriatone looks like it has a couple of electrolytics. BUT, I go look up what a capacitor is, and apparently they come in all sorta flavors, from epoxy, to electrolytic, to tantalum (oooh). Does it matter what style of capacitor I use in this build, as long as they match the specs listed on the schematic? The thing is, I priced the difference between SPrague "orange drop" 750? capacitors, and a repop Sprague electrolytic capacitor, and it seemed a huge jump, like 10x the price. I didn't practice due diligence and check for a .22mf/600v little cap and the same size electro cap, but it looked pretty equally unbalanced down the list.
So..my question is, what if I use little caps on my board? I'm not looking for period-correctness (I'm going to be building a wood combo cab for it, no tweed involved anyway), but I am looking for more mojo in the tone, and I am looking to spend as little as possible, as I'm doing a trial build for my friend who has my amp's sister. Seems to me that, if there is very little difference in tone from switching to a more solid-state capacitor, then it'd leave me to spend a little more on the speakers or something.
Thanks for putting up with my rambling, and thanks in advance for any answers ya'll have.
Anyway...so here I am, planning to build a 5e5 or 5e7 out of an old Wurlitzer speaker power amp. I know that I have to either rewire the power tubes to 6l6 power, which is apparently easy, or stick with the 7025a tubes I have. I understand they're very clean...seems simple enough.
I have to test the transformers (or have a dude do it for me) to see if they're still running. Again, not too bad.
I'll also need to decide on keeping the 7199 for the preamp, or buying 2 12ax7s instead of 1. Also...need another socket.
NOW comes the tough part for me, and the part I don't understand. I see that the 5e5/5e7 have what...2 dozen capacitors of varying...uhm...resistance? no...whatever "farads" are. Well, anyway, not many of the caps I have in my organ amp match the spec'd caps in the Fender build. I understand the voltages can be a little disparate, as long as the rating is higher than necessary, but I think I'll buy all new just the same. Now the thing is that I have a pile of chubby cardboard firecrackers, apparently "electrolytic" caps. The chassis layout on the 5e5 looks like electrolytic, and the Bandmaster circuit at Ceriatone looks like it has a couple of electrolytics. BUT, I go look up what a capacitor is, and apparently they come in all sorta flavors, from epoxy, to electrolytic, to tantalum (oooh). Does it matter what style of capacitor I use in this build, as long as they match the specs listed on the schematic? The thing is, I priced the difference between SPrague "orange drop" 750? capacitors, and a repop Sprague electrolytic capacitor, and it seemed a huge jump, like 10x the price. I didn't practice due diligence and check for a .22mf/600v little cap and the same size electro cap, but it looked pretty equally unbalanced down the list.
So..my question is, what if I use little caps on my board? I'm not looking for period-correctness (I'm going to be building a wood combo cab for it, no tweed involved anyway), but I am looking for more mojo in the tone, and I am looking to spend as little as possible, as I'm doing a trial build for my friend who has my amp's sister. Seems to me that, if there is very little difference in tone from switching to a more solid-state capacitor, then it'd leave me to spend a little more on the speakers or something.
Thanks for putting up with my rambling, and thanks in advance for any answers ya'll have.
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