Any rare/cool schematics out there?

[mooreamps]

Is it ? Is it really foolhardy to think so ? I've never seen a build like my basic model-5 before. It uses parallel narrow band voiced gain stages in the pre-amp. Are there any other pre-amps with narrow band gain stages ? Are there any other power amp layouts with an EL84 running in parallel with a 6V6 ; with the EL84 voiced for treble frequencies, and the 6V6 voiced for bass frequencies with individual master volume dial control ? Or how about in my model-18 ; same set-up except it's an EL34 running with a 6L6 ? Or, has anyone seen a vibrato circuit layed out as a mixer stage, verses the Fender circuit which only varies the amplitude of the tone instead of the actual pitch ?

I'm not trying to come off as a wise guy, or some Jolly Joker, but these are the types of circuits I am bringing up.

-g

[kg]

Is it ? Is it really foolhardy to think so ? I've never seen a build like my basic model-5 before. It uses parallel narrow band voiced gain stages in the pre-amp. Are there any other pre-amps with narrow band gain stages ? Are there any other power amp layouts with an EL84 running in parallel with a 6V6 ; with the EL84 voiced for treble frequencies, and the 6V6 voiced for bass frequencies with individual master volume dial control ? Or how about in my model-18 ; same set-up except it's an EL34 running with a 6L6 ? Or, has anyone seen a vibrato circuit layed out as a mixer stage, verses the Fender circuit which only varies the amplitude of the tone instead of the actual pitch ?

I'm not trying to come off as a wise guy, or some Jolly Joker, but these are the types of circuits I am bringing up.

-g

so you're basically saying that nobody has run parallel tube stages, with either different tube types or different LCR values, either in the preamp or the power amp?

i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yes, i HAVE seen those types of stages before. not physically manifested in front of me opened up on my bench, but in handbooks like the RDH4 (the RF section has a lot of parallel bandpass mixers in particular). much more recently kevin o'conner's ultimate tone series (one of them, v.1 or 2 iirc) mentioned mixing multiple parallel preamp stages together. iirc his twist on it was to use a "virtual earth" op-amp style 0-gain inverting mixing stage to sum them together without intrachannel bleed.

if you think you're really on your own with a circuit it's probably because you haven't looked hard enough. not to mention the people who try new stuff out and never sell it or patent it. i'm not trying to be a dick, but that's the way i see things. hell, even in my "crazy assed" preamp with CCS loaded high gm tubes, exotic pentodes, etc, i was inspired by the prior work of the hifi community... their seek of the ultimate linearity has been invaluable for me over the years of my searching for the ultimate non-linearity. :lol:

over the last few years i've immersed myself in the world of high performance forced induction engine tuning. one of the strange things i've noticed is how protective certain professional tuners are of their tunes... like they're protecting their very essence.

the thing is, every car is different, just like every tube amp is different. what works with one tube brand choice for a preamp may not work with another. i'm sure if you're as experienced as you seem to be you've already become well aware of that fact.

if one particular car nets a max of 350 wheel horsepower running a garrett gt30r @ 22psig @ 11.7:1 afr @ 6000rpm with 24* ignition timing and 93 octane gas in the tank, there's no guarantee that that is going to be the best operating point for EVERY car running the same mods. tiny little differences (in deck height, piston ring seal, cam timing, carbon deposits, sensor accuracy, etc) mean that the next car--even with the same "mod list"--might run a bit better a little richer and more advanced, or a little leaner and more retarded, or even leaner and more advanced with a bit less boost. if you're a "cut and paste" type of tuner, you're not going to be extracting the maximum potential out of that particular collection of parts that constitutes a car.

we won't even talk about the variations in gasoline formulation and quality!

the point i'm trying to make is that a good tuner--whether they be a tuner of amplifiers or of cars--is about the JUNCTION of the theory/design and the physical iteration. to have one, in isolation, is missing half of the equation. when you painstakingly reverse-engineer a PCB amp, and replicate it using PTP wiring, and it doesn't sound ANYTHING like the original, what does that tell you? the "cut and paste" amp tuners that merely duplicate and parrot what they've seen elsewhere are never going to be exemplary, because they don't really understand what they're actually doing. they don't understand the difference between a metal film and a carbon comp resistor and they don't know which one to use because the schematic someone emailed to them doesn't say which one it is. they don't know how a mylar cap sounds different from a ceramic. they don't comprehend the difference in stray capacitance between PTP conductor pushed right up against the grounded metallic chassis and one that's been dressed to float an inch away from anything else... and even more important, even if they DID know about the different capacitance they wouldn't know how it could be used to shape the tone in a pleasing way.

the tuners i personally respect go out of their way to try to explain things. one shop out in portland goes so far as to actually post datalogs along with their dyno charts. in theory, one should be able to replicate the conditions of tune and mechanical assembly and come out with exactly the same power. they've tried to bait other shops into doing the same open sharing of data and results but for the most part they're all chicken. they're afraid they're going to be out of a job if "the secret" gets out. the reality is that "the secret" lies in the hands and skills of the tuner to tailor the parameters to the individual totally unique iteration of car, and not in the end-result engine maps. as far as i'm concerned it's exactly the same way with hand built tube amps.

jm2c
ken

[Amp Kat]

Is it ? Is it really foolhardy to think so ? I've never seen a build like my basic model-5 before.
I'm not trying to come off as a wise guy, or some Jolly Joker, but these are the types of circuits I am bringing up.

-g

As I said before I'm sure it's been done but probably much better and more sophisticated. How can you say it's foolhardy when you don't even know what the hell were talking about. You see kg has allready proved to me that he knows what he's doing and as a former poster of Ampage for at least 15 years he's helped many people here and I've seen his work and schematics. Can't say the same for you because you won't post them. You see any one can build an amp and right now everyone is building them so it's not that big a deal to put a 18 watt amp in a cabinet and do some tweeks to it and change a few things and call it your amp. I've ran every kind of tube combination you can think of from EL-84's to KT-88's and the worst combo I've probably heard is a 6V6 and EL-84 so do somemore digging there bud. One thing that does happen there is you get some asymetry which in the distortion mode is a good thing for even order harmonics but not real well for the clean.Your not going to make much on amps right now, at least not guitar amps because the competition is too great so having a design that nobody else has isn't the answer. Another problem with your amp that showed in the video is you have to turn around and adjust it to get the right tone or volume. The amp I'm working on does everything at the control of your foot so when your smoking on a killer lead you can change it if needed. That's what players want. Not a amp they can stick two different tubes in and attenuate it but versatility and control while performing is what they want. I gave you some props before and now I'm giving you the truth. Post some schemos and talk some circuits with us. Nobody here is going to steal your design.

[Jag]

I'm much farther behind than most of you in terms of designing amps. I do know, very well, how to restore, repair, mod and otherwise tweak an amplifier.

About the second thing I did, once I realized I could actually build an amp from the ground up, was look at KOC's writing regarding parallel preamp stages. I started by looking at the typical "Plexi" circuit and experimenting with what happens when one parallel input stage is designed to throw away most of the low frequency content while the other is designed to enhance it.

My experimenting in this area is very rudimentary but, if I am at the start of it just tinkering, I'm pretty sure others have gone farther. I've also been looking for information on paralleling similar and dissimilar output tubes. I haven't done any tinkering with it but, again, if a tinkerer is thinking about it I'm sure a designer has done it.

I seem to remember recently reading, in one of the guitar mags, about an amp that was released recently that was specifically designed with two channels run in parallel with exactly the purpose of of using one to handle the high end while the other handles the low frequencies.

No offense to you Mooreamps, I really thought the clips of your amp showed that you do know what you're talking about and have a great sounding design. I'm sure you are doing things which are not common and possibly even completely original. I'm just saying I don't really think you've been the only one to think along these lines. In fact, it's pretty obvious that KOC was thinking about it when he wrote about it in the TUT series.

[Tiago]

I remember an old thread in the old ampage forum...Its because that email address that I remembered. I'm against this policy of "just give if you give me first" but those schematics that I sent (that I don't remember at this time) were also be avaiable to anyone who asked for it.
Well, I sent all the rarest schematics that I had at that time but you never replied or send anything to me. Those schems were not many, but it was just what I had. I even replied in the thread to ask you for it but you never replied again, it just seemed that you disapeared.

[bob p]

As a measure of good faith, and to prove that I mean what I say, I'll give away anything you guys want, no trade required, no strings attached, ect. Just reply with your email address and what you want. I will do my best to keep up with requests.

just a reminder. i haven't been contacted since i made my request.

[Sweetfinger]

It uses parallel narrow band voiced gain stages in the pre-amp. ...Are there any other power amp layouts with an EL84 running in parallel with a 6V6 ; ... an EL34 running with a 6L6 ? Or, has anyone seen a vibrato circuit layed out as a mixer stage, verses the Fender circuit which only varies the amplitude of the tone instead of the actual pitch ?-g

IIRC the vibrato on many chocolate era Fenders IS true pitch shift. The THD Bivalve will run whatever two octal base output tubes you care to stuff into it, and Craig Anderton's Quadrafuzz pre-amp separated the signal into four different ranges which could be distorted separately. If you're talking about a vibrato circuit that toggles between the fundamental and higher frequency content of an audio signal, I've been doing that for years, just outside the amp. I jumper the inputs on an old Valco amp, set one channel really dark, and the other bright. The trem works on one channel only, so when the vols are adjusted just right, it gets a groovy Leslie-like sound.

[Enzo]

We can look at our design and say Gee there is no other amp exactly like this one. On the other hand, the elements are rarely anything new. Different tubes voiced for different freqs sounds an awful lot like biamping to me, for example. Pitch shifting trems are not common because amplitude variation is so much easier to implement, and a commercial amp has to consider retrun on investment. Will making the trem circuit twice as expemsive really sell that many more amps. But they are out there, it is not new.

I don't doubt some of these designs sound awsome, but maybe we all have different ideas of "unique."

I have a secret recipe for a three egg omelet. It uses an extra egg, and no one ever did that before.

[bob p]

I have a secret recipe for a three egg omelet. It uses an extra egg, and no one ever did that before.

If I'm not mistaken, Randall Smith has already patented the three egg omelet. If you don't cease and desist in making your breakfast, you may hear from his lawyers.

[Enzo]

Aha! But has he patented the three egg omelet made with four eggs? I think not.

I like an omelet for my breakfast. I can never finish a box of corn flakes. I guess I am just not a cereal killer.


Thank you!! I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

[Amp Kat]

Actually the omlet is also my favorite but it gets crawfish or shrimp stew poured on top of it and my omlet has onion,garlic and sharp cheddar cheese in it and some other cajun ingredients involved. No other like it and not even close and yes it is patented. Coonass patent # LA 001. Ci ~sey' bon

[Jag]

I'm not riding anywhere in a car with you!!!

[Tiago]

Aha! But has he patented the three egg omelet made with four eggs? I think not.

I don't remember the last time I laugh so much!

[bob p]

I like an omelet for my breakfast. I can never finish a box of corn flakes. I guess I am just not a cereal killer.


Thank you!! I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

I bet you killed them in the Catskills.

Aha! But has he patented the three egg omelet made with four eggs? I think not.

You might get away on the patent issue, but he might still get you with trademark infringement:

His Triple Recto-frier trademark uses the word "Triple" in it. Friers are a type of chicken. Eggs come from chickens as a "derivative work." I think that if you even mentioned frying 3 eggs you'd be skating on thin ice.

Maybe your secret recipe should be for a 4-egg omelet made with 3 eggs... Nah -- that would cause problems too.

(That's about as far as I think i can stretch the joke)