Modern gear....

[olddawg]

Like a lot of us.. I suddenly find I’m getting old, can’t lift a lot of stuff I once did.. am not famous with a road crew, and am still playing in clubs, etc regularly. I’ve scaled down to a 2 channel 1x12” combo and a pedal board and even that is unwieldy at times. I HATE Line 6 and other like modelers out there.. and they really aren’t any lighter. I’ve recently been looking at Quilter and other competing brands, but they all seem to have the same problem. The lower wattage offerings lack features like a switchable gain channel. The ones that seem appropriate are either 200 Watts or have an 8” speaker. I don’t understand why they can’t make a 20 to 30 watt mono 2 channel amp with reverb, tremelo, an effects loop.. in a light cabinet (not MDF) with a lighter, lower power 12” speaker. Seems like a no brained to me. I guess I could DI like I do at casinos.. but you are at the mercy of your monitor mix. I love my tube sound (usually, lol), but I know the last generation of amps are getting pretty good. I just don’t need 200 Watts for the features I like. Any suggestions?

[Tony Bones]

Things you've probably already thought of:

1) Separate head and cab. Make two trips to the car.
2) Lighter weight neo speaker.
3) Dolly or hand truck.

FWIW, the lightest weight cabs are solid pine. If your current cab is MDF, then replacing it with a pine cab and neo speaker will make it significantly lighter.

[olddawg]

Things you've probably already thought of:

1) Separate head and cab. Make two trips to the car.
2) Lighter weight neo speaker.
3) Dolly or hand truck.

FWIW, the lightest weight cabs are solid pine. If your current cab is MDF, then replacing it with a pine cab and neo speaker will make it significantly lighter.

Thanks.. yeah.. I’ve done both. I was thinking of modern SS Class D combo offerings.

[loudthud]

Have you seen this ? Link: https://honeydripperamps.com/

It's a little pricey.

[Jazz P Bass]

Not too sure who's site this is.
A real good explanation of the 'patented' AOT circuit.

https://sites.google.com/site/string.../princeton-aot

[pdf64]

Not too sure who's site this is.
A real good explanation of the 'patented' AOT circuit.

https://sites.google.com/site/string.../princeton-aot

I think it's Ulrich Neumann (who's a member here) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guitar-Ampl.../dp/132959665X

[nickb]

Not too sure who's site this is.
A real good explanation of the 'patented' AOT circuit.

https://sites.google.com/site/string.../princeton-aot

It's uneumann's. I seem to recall he showed us all this design some time back in this forum. I expect Honeydripper's is the commercial end result.

[nosaj]

Have you seen this ? Link: https://honeydripperamps.com/

It's a little pricey.

A Gerald Weber production it seems...

nosaj

[uneumann]

A Gerald Weber production it seems...

nosaj

While I can't speak for GW, I can say this amp is a joint effort with me and GW.

Also - since I've seen a number of posts that speak badly of GW, I suggest you listen to and play some of his amps. He's been writing and building for many years and is reasonably successful, which is to say he actually gets people to pay for his products and services and they're happy return customers.
He's not perfect and doesn't claim to be, so rather than scorn his work or his occasional weakness, perhaps we should also give credit to his successes and contributions.

BTW - I'm happy to answer questions about the HD amp if there are any...

[loudthud]

@uneumann, Last time I talked to GW he said he had applied for a patent on a tremolo circuit that modulated the phase inverter. I opened one of his books and showed him the Fender 5E9A Tremolux schematic. He was still argumentative and I had to point out that the Intensity control is wired straight to the cathodes of the phase inverter. He doesn't read schematics very well.

I looked for his patent application and couldn't find anything under the name Gerald Weber. Can you provide any details or point to a patent application ?

[loudthud]

Back to the topic...

@olddawg, I have a solid state power amp design that is about 20 or 25W into 8 Ohms and it runs off of a 40W wall wort. In a 5E3 cabinet with a neo speaker it would be pretty light. Only problem I see is how many knobs would it take to do a preamp that would suit your needs ?

In a short test I tried an Eminence Lil' Texas 12 inch 125W 8 Ohm neo speaker. Sounded pretty good.

[HaroldBrooks]

I use a real tube amplifier and I also use some digital gear at the same time, and here's what I've done :

Carry along a smallish super light JBL self powered PA cabinet along with my tube amp.

I throw a mike on the amp and you wouldn't believe your ears at how loud that tiny JBL cabinet gets playing slightly out in front of the tube amp. It's an extra piece of gear I know, but its very small and only weighs 17lbs, so it's not a back breaker and allows me to use a small amp and make it sound big by adding extra bass, a host of post distortion effects, and much, much more volume. I've been thinking recently about running a line out box from the amp so I can capture everything it gives without using a microphone - (less the speaker distortion) and send that to the small JBL cabinet, perhaps with some cabinet modeling in between.

Just a different way of doing things, and may not be your cup of tea, but it's very flexible and you can keep using a small amp, but get a stereo rig in the process.

Here's the newer and slightly heavier, but even more powerful version of what I use. 124db at full song without any serious clipping, and let me tell you son, that is a LOUD expansion of any small amplifier !

https://www.jbl.com/pro-series-skus/...SABEgKuNfD_BwE

[uneumann]

@uneumann, Last time I talked to GW he said he had applied for a patent on a tremolo circuit that modulated the phase inverter. I opened one of his books and showed him the Fender 5E9A Tremolux schematic. He was still argumentative and I had to point out that the Intensity control is wired straight to the cathodes of the phase inverter. He doesn't read schematics very well.

I looked for his patent application and couldn't find anything under the name Gerald Weber. Can you provide any details or point to a patent application ?

LT - I don't know of a filed patent. I can't be sure, but I don't know of one.
As for the PI tremolo - I designed a series of small cards for doing tremolo for an LTPI and a series of reverbs for cathodyne and LTPI output stages. I made these for myself initially, but then I posted some info to see if there was general interest (https://sites.google.com/site/ampaid16/home). I sold a few here and there, but I'm not really good at marketing so I gave the designs to GW. He's offering them now. I suspect he's referring to the BMTrem2. It's basically a modulated current source that pulls current up through the LTPI bias and tail resistors (to B+). It is therefore somewhat different than the 5E9A since that's a modulated voltage source tweaking a bias resistor. The effect is also a bit different since the current source varies both the bias voltage and the tail current in the LTPI. It modulates headroom and gain which has OD consequences.

An LTPI trem circuit is also in the HD amp. It's more conventional in that it simply modulates a tail current source.

FYI - I did write a draft patent application for the 3 circuits I contributed to the HD amp.
There is an AOT output stage, the PI tremolo, and a LIO OD circuit in the HD amp.
I gave HD that draft so they could use it for a PTO provisional filing. I believe that was filed and GW is probably referring to that. However, that was well over a year ago and I don't know if HD filed a full application before the provisional expired. Anyway, I don't take this patent stuff very serious since I'm not in business. I let other people sweat those details if they think it's important.

Hope that helps clarify things

[SoulFetish]

While I can't speak for GW, I can say this amp is a joint effort with me and GW.

Also - since I've seen a number of posts that speak badly of GW, I suggest you listen to and play some of his amps. He's been writing and building for many years and is reasonably successful, which is to say he actually gets people to pay for his products and services and they're happy return customers.
He's not perfect and doesn't claim to be, so rather than scorn his work or his occasional weakness, perhaps we should also give credit to his successes and contributions.

BTW - I'm happy to answer questions about the HD amp if there are any...

So I just checked out the link LT first posted to the Honeydripper early on in the thread. After reading a bit about the amp, I started becoming indignant. I said "this f*cker just totally ripped off uneumann's Princeton AOT amp!!"

I was like:




I was just reading about that project development on stringsandfrets a couple of weeks ago, and really kind of dug what he had designed. I wish I thought of it.
Anyway, I'm relieved to hear that it is a collaboration between you guys. In fact, it was totally lost on me that you even mentioned the Honeydripper in the intro to your article.
Princeton AOT/Honeydripper
I'm really interested to hear some demos.

[uneumann]

😎 thanks. There should be some clips and videos on the HD site. GW has a whole show video. The 2x10 version combo is a beast. Fills a big room no problem. To be clear, the HD amps are only derived from my PrincetonAOT. The AOT concept has evolved over several generations.