Reverb pans...WTF

[Chuck H]

It seems like all the new reverb pans just sound like crap. Is it just me? All I hear is a vague representation of the note and a bunch of midrange hash. Every note is followed by "whaaa", but not that specific to the actual note. AND... Most pans seem to be too long and more microphonic than they use to be. What ever happened to pans that would make that big, drippy surf reverb. The kind that grabbed the note and didn't linger so long as to smear everything else!?! I know that Accutronics is owned by Belton now. But what retards took over and disregarded the working formula. Is this to become a world of digital reverb? I still have a request for a pan reverb and I don't know what to do! The last four pans I've tried from Belton and Accutronics sound like crap. I've read a bunch of on line reviews. As you would expect, everyone loves what they bought. But there are some here that know what I'm talking about.

I need to make a purchase and I have no confidence in any of the offered products.

Experiences and advice is most welcome.

[bob p]

I'm stuck in the same boat. I don't have a tank for my Super Twin Reverb because the previous owner bounced the amp and ripped the wires in the tank off of the coil. I can't bring myself to put in one of the new "sounds like ass" tanks from Accurtronics/Belton.

Have you tried the Mod? Some people here have said it's OK, but I find it hard to believe that it could be any different deep down inside than the Accutronics/Belton tanks... I mean, the Mod can't be anything more than the same OEM asian tank with a different label on it, can it? I doubt that CE-Dist is making their own line of tanks the old fashioned way in Arizona. The price is just too low.

I hate to think that the only way to get decent reverb is going to be to custom rewind your own coils on old tanks. I can't do that kind of thing. The wires are too small for me to see. I tried soldering a broken wire once and didn't get anywhere. I have no reverb because I just can't bring myself to put one of those new tanks into my amp. So my amp has a big hole in it while I keep waiting for a better solution to come along.

I keep hoping that maybe one of the pickup guys might start a tank rebuilding service.

AAARGH!

[Chuck H]

The MOD pans are made in China. As are the Belton and new Accutronics/Belton pans. I haven't tried the MOD pans. They are said to be well made and have features like adjustable jack isolation. From what I've read, the MOD tanks are made by the same people as the Belton and Accutronics pans but to CE Dist. specifications. Since I haven't used one I can't report on more than that. I may order one. If only because I KNOW I'm wasting money on the other two options. So if the MOD pan blows, at least I've paid my money to learn something!?!

[bob p]

I thought the Accu/Beltons came out of Korea?

I have thought about taking a chance with the Mod the next time that I place an order. I keep procrastinating because I keep hoping that a better solution will come along. I'm hoping that if the market demands a better reverb tank, then somebody will respond by making a better reverb tank. But the reality of the situation is that there just might not be any options that are better than those lame-ass tanks.

This seems to be a recurring theme -- a classic product is too expensive to manufacture in the country where it had always been manufactured, so the manufacturing gets moved to asia to decrease the cost. And in the process of manufacturing the product in the new factory, the quality falls apart. At least with some things, the problems get recognized and eventually they get fixed. But the fact that people are giving these new tanks good reviews really bothers me. It suggests that the problem isn't being regarded as a problem and that without the recognition, the problem will never get fixed and we'll be stuck with these crappy-sounding tanks forever.

[Chuck H]

I thought the Accu/Beltons came out of Korea?

Your right. It seems that the Belton and Accutronics pans are made in Korea and the MOD pans are made in China. Here's a link that has a bunch of useful, and some subjective information:

Spring Reverb Tanks Explained and Compared | Amplified Parts

I think I'll try the MOD pan next. I modded the Belton pan I have, and it's slightly better. But only passable at best. It will eventually be replaced. Whenever that happens I'll report on the MOD pan.

[R.G.]

There is some engineering behind the problems with pans today.

Some years ago when we designed the Workhorse amps, the made-in-the-USA pans we got from Accutronics sounded horrible. We got good-sounding pan samples from another vendor, and switched, at the loss of a fairly big chunk of money on unused pans. We eventually found that the damping material in the little soldered tubes the springs attach into had been changed because the material was no longer commercially available, and they had switched to an alternate material. A worker at Accutronics who shall remain nameless and faceless admitted that they had experience huge numbers of defects and returns.

I do not know, but suspect that the business repercussions of this is what led Accutronics and Belton to "merge" in their present location.

I do not know, but suspect that Belton may have been using the magic damping material and that it may have become unavailable to them later. It is difficult to tell why things like this happen. Remember that we humans can no longer be trusted with incandescent light bulbs, for example.

For a large world, there are remarkably few places that make certain things. Remember the world-wide shortage of ICs when the Japanese company that made half the world's IC encapsulation epoxy had a fire? And hard drives for computers are still in short supply and expensive compared to where they were before the floods in the hard drive factories a couple of years ago. Possibly the sole remaining world wide manufacturer of the magic damping material went bankrupt, was bought by an MBA-fueled acquisition, or told they were a Danger To The Environment. Or just had a fire. Hard to say.

It is very human to blame the most-visible part of something - like paper versus plastic bobbins, or the country of manufacture - for something that's disappointing. And usually incomplete or wrong to do so. Details matter.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Possibly the sole remaining world wide manufacturer of the magic damping material went bankrupt, was bought by an MBA-fueled acquisition, or told they were a Danger To The Environment. Or just had a fire. Hard to say.

Or maybe they couldn't sell enough to make it worthwhile to continue as the only application was "obsolete" reverb tanks.

Something I came to understand by the late 80's when Accutronics was the big gorilla (and the only easily obtainable) tank, is every tank sounded different, one to the next. Back then I bought a dozen at a time through Magic Parts (Ruby Tubes.) One of my customers, wanting only the very best, auditioned 14 tanks until he found the one that suited his ear. He also did me the favor of grading the remaining tanks in my stock according to his opinion. 1 thru 4, 1 being best. The sole #4 dog-sounding tank took 20 years to find a home, but finally found an amp even that one sounded good in.

Before all tanks came from the far east, I've noticed a 12-15 year "rash" of damaged tanks, all Accutronics. Seems something went off the rails when they decided to use the 2-pin connector to the transducers instead of soldered connections. In almost every case, one of the transducers goes open-coil.

Now that all tanks are either Belton or Mod (or Ruby which seem to be identical to Mod) I'm sure there's still a unit-to-unit variation in tone, but yes overall they don't sound anywhere near as good as tanks from way back when. (Still-working tanks in old Ampeg combos sound terrific!)

So, no solution, but one thing to watch out for, is some current tanks include a little swatch of foam rubber located right at the middle of the springs, I suppose to cushion them in shipping. Leave that in place and your tank will sound crapulent for sure. It's easy to miss. I've done that once or twice.

[Diablo]

Perhaps it's an option to use some of those old organ reverb tanks? There are a lot of organs from the 1950-1960s that are going to the landfill. Getting the right impedance tank could be an issue though.

[Mark Hammer]

It's hard for me to imagine a component of the signal path where materials matter more than they do with reverb. Spring reverb is fundamentally a mechanical effect, whose qualities depend on the right balance of rigidity and compliance at the right points. Change the composition of where the springs are anchored, how the springs are joined in the middle, what the springs are made of, the diameter of the wire used to form the springs, the outer diameter of the springs, etc., and you change the sonic properties of the springs every bit as much as hanging tapestries on the wall in the mixing booth or laying down / pulling up carpet in a recording studio. The springs can LOOK the same, and have the same electrical measurements, but behave differently.

So I wonder about not just the folks who make and sell the pans, but about the folks who make the materials that form the springs....that are ultimately used in the pans. I'm fairly confident that whomever makes that steel does not rely on spring reverb as their only client and revenue stream.

[Alex R]

Perhaps it's an option to use some of those old organ reverb tanks? There are a lot of organs from the 1950-1960s that are going to the landfill. Getting the right impedance tank could be an issue though.

Oddly enough I just took an old Hammond tank out of a Selmer T&B 50 Mk III. It was very weak. The owner said it always had been. The springs were ok and the coils had continuity. I had a spare Mod tank so I put that in, sounded nice I thought.

Bad Cat fit Mod tanks, they sound ok in their amps I think.

[Raybob]

I've been using MOD tanks for a few years. They are much better than any Accutronics or Belton I've used before.

[bob p]

Perhaps it's an option to use some of those old organ reverb tanks? There are a lot of organs from the 1950-1960s that are going to the landfill. Getting the right impedance tank could be an issue though.

I have a friend who bought an old "Theatre Organ" and did a complete restoration on it. Fixing the reverb turned out to be his biggest problem.

In my neck of the woods we're already progressing to a scavenging economy. There aren't any more cheap 50-60s organs because the professional scavengers will take them, and around here professional scavenging is a competitive business. The professional scavengers are methodical, efficient and competitive with one another; they drive the pickup routes on garbage day, they hit the Goodwill and Salvation Army resale stores on a regular schedule, and they pick anything worthwhile out of the trash like a buzzard picks at carrion. They know to eBay the electronics and speakers before the organ goes into the landfill. I have absolutely zero chance of finding a free 50-60s organ because as a hobbyist, I can't compete with them. They're far too efficient.

I shudder at the thought that to get decent tone we might end up having to accept whatever vintage tank we can salvage off of the scrapheap, and that we'd end up having to change all of the reverb circuitry in the amp to accommodate something that doesn't match the application.

[Chuck H]

Thanks to ALL who have replied. I've been reading good things about the MOD pans elsewhere too. A couple of reports even claim that the MOD pan is louder than others!?! I'm not sure how the efficiency of such simple and tiny transducers could vary that much, so I suspect it may be the actual frequency balance of the springs. The effect of "grabbing the note" that I mentioned earlier is probably the larges missing component that I've heard in the Belton and Accutronics pans. Which all seem to sound more like a generic fading white noise than an echo. Just really bad. Shouldn't even qualify as reverb. It may be that the MOD pans have a little more of that missing quality.

As to the use of vintage pans, I would happily audition any vintage pans to come my way. But I don't think I would ever buy one with hopes of happiness. One reason is that they are fragile things and I could easily foresee a pan that someone thought to be in working order only being in half working order. The other is that the little rubber disks, the ones that R.G. was mentioning, do dry out and change with age. That's one reason really old BF pans seem to go microphonic and the decay time increases. I've seen a few that were longer than "long" and couldn't even be in the same room with speakers. Let alone in the amp cabinet.

Crossing my fingers and ordering a MOD pan.

[Steve A.]

We eventually found that the damping material in the little soldered tubes the springs attach into had been changed because the material was no longer commercially available, and they had switched to an alternate material. A worker at Accutronics who shall remain nameless and faceless admitted that they had experience huge numbers of defects and returns.

Just wondering if you tried modifying those pans to make them better, strictly for personal use of course.

Steve Ahola

P.S. IMO you can get pretty good reverb sounds with the Belton bricks for $18.50. While they are digital you can keep the dry sound in your amp 100% analog.

http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=1211

https://www.smallbearelec.com/Projects/BTDR-1H.pdf

[Tom Phillips]

Interesting. Thanks for the info Steve. I hadn't heard about those modules.

I have run across old pans that would ring on seemingly forever because the dampening material had gone bad. I thought about adding a dab of RTV at the base of the spring to transducer connection but never gave it a try.

Several years ago Seymour Duncan told me that he could rewind reverb tank transducer coils. I didn't pursue it because replacement tanks worked fine at the time and it seemed that the rewind process would be time consuming and expensive when you consider the total remove & replace process. (Drilling out rivets, getting the coil off the lamination stack etc.) Also, that wouldn't fix a worn out damper.

Tom