Story of the Suhr pickup magnets :

[Steve Conner]

I heard that the old cloth-covered wire is impregnated in sodium silicate as a flame retardant, which gives it extremely high capacitance per foot compared to the modern plastic stuff. Sorry if I blew Possum's secret sauce recipe prematurely.

Where were you all when we did the blind test on coupling caps in amps? Most people wussed out, and the few who tried it did no better than chance.

[RedHouse]

Well I would have to agree with Possum (Dave) on the aspect that it just doesn't hurt to replace cheap-ass crappy wiring/components with decent quality wire and components. Guitar techs have been doing it for years despite the EE's analytical discourse on the subject.
(no offense to Tech's or EE's)

Not saying it makes a crappy guitar sound like a fine instrument, but it sure can make a crappy guitar ...well, less crappy. Specially when the cheap china (Switchcraft look-alike) jacks are replaced which are prone to having connection issues where the bushing is crimped into the connector ring. It's an old-school tech fix to file and solder all switchcraft style jacks where the bushing is crimped to the connection rings but with the china jacks often the metal won't take a decent solder joint.
(to be clear, that is a fix for reliability not tone issues, just sayin)

On the cap issue I'd have to stand with Dave on that too, I've done many-a-cap test/replacement/swap on instruments in my 37 years of working on guitars and the issue is settled in my mind. I'm quickly reminded of a recent cap-swap-test done on a particularly resonant (wood) Les Paul R0, we used the rotary switch hanging off some aligator tipped leads method so we wouldn't loose perspective as we changed caps. The decided stinkers in the test were those (Russian?) paper-in-oil caps being popularly flogged over on LPF and MLPF all the time. They completely changed the overall voice of the guitar and not in a good way.
(not talking about tone on 10 here)

Additionally, being an old amp tech, I'd have to stand with Dave once again on the coupling caps issue, it just does make a tonal difference.

Sorry to insult you (Possum) by standing with you on these aspects, I know we usually see things quite differently, at least regarding pickup "things" that is.

[Possum]

Well, see, Redhouse actually tested these things and uses them, instead of quoting some 13 year old expert on some guitar forum who read a book that quoted hearsay from an engineer who flunked out of MIT ;-) who knows things are true because he heard about them in a bar ;-) There ain't no secret sauce, there's just curiosity and finding things that actually work, thats all I ever do and ever did, and unfortunately its actually hard work, amen. There ARE some Russian caps that do sound good though, all my Les Paul demo's use the small grey metal paper in oil Russian military caps in .015uf in neck position, they are dirt cheap and good for that purpose. Then there are ones that stink, like the green bodies ones and the ones being painted or encased in wax and sold for high prices in fancy packaging, sucker bait.

Coupling caps in tube amps sound just like they do in guitars, the copper foil did the same things, the Cornell Dubiliers sounds the same as they did in guitars, they all held their character in guitar or coupling stages in amps. Another cap that had a very distinct sound of its was a NOS mustard cap Grabham sent to me, he builds amps for a living now and knows an awful lot about them. The mustard was dark but extremely musical, it didn't work in the Princeton but it sure stood out, I hear that some love them in guitars but haven't tried it, since they weren't used in guitars so few have any interest in them in that regard. Next beer's on me Mr. R'House ;-)

[big_teee]

No matter how hard you guys try, you can't go back to the 50s and 60s.
You can make a tube amp sound just as good with modern components, as old crap from the past.
Plastic or teflon wire and modern Caps and resistors, can sound just as good.
Values, and tolerances of components, is the biggest thing.
You can't get the good NOS tubes anymore anyway, and if you do you can't afford them.
They did a test in the amp section, A guy built two identical 5e3 Deluxe amp kits.
The only difference was the components.
They spared no expense on one, and made the other with standard parts.
There were several hundred dollars difference in the two amps.
If anything, the cheapest one sounded the best.
I have always liked good commercial grade components, but beyond that IMO it's just Cork Sniffing.

[JGundry]

There ain't no secret sauce, there's just curiosity and finding things that actually work, thats all I ever do and ever did, and unfortunately its actually hard work, amen.

Oh please. You have been telling your customers that you have a secret dielectric sauce that you use. Again, I'm not making that up, I can't make stuff up that is that funny. Maybe you should call it magic dielectric sauce since it is no longer secret.

As far as sodium silicate on cloth wire goes, if that is true for P.A.F. hookup wire, which I doubt it is, it is already baked into the two strand braided wire most repro makers use. I just took a 1' strand of vintage braided wire from my '60 junior harness and measured it against the same length of modern repro wire which is constructed exactly the same, .4 ohms per foot for both. If you are experimenting with water glass be real careful. I have used it to treat violin wood. It is caustic enough to attack cellulose and darken the wood. So you want to make real sure you are using neutral ph water glass or you may end up with cotton wire insulation that comes apart in a few years.

For caps of course there is some tonal difference. If you make amps or effect pedals you can tell. But people don't even factor in with these tests that there are 3 different types of ceramic caps. They are just lumped together "ceramic" caps, useless from a research standpoint. Just learn the differences tonally and decide with your ears what sounds best.

[salvarsan]

I heard that the old cloth-covered wire is impregnated in sodium silicate as a flame retardant, which gives it extremely high capacitance per foot compared to the modern plastic stuff.

Naw. The cotton braid is a flame retardant armor over a very skinny PVC insulation.
If you pull back the cloth braid, it's self-evident.

Skinny insulation means higher capacitance only when you bundle the wires
but not when you have "flying" leads.

And too, that sodium silicate soak makes it very abrasive to wire strippers.

[Redact vitriolic rant about vintage fetishism and stupid people who need more fiber in their diets]

[Possum]

Actually the "secret sauce" was a joke. A friend on the LPF posted that for me, they were saying such ridiculous things anyway, I thought it'd be funny But I actually did a year's worth of work on looking for a dielectric fluid that would work and I did find it. Its just too hard to control how much to use and in the end its just better to, well never mind......... But no, I don't use it ;-)

Yeah you can build good sounding amps with modern parts etc. but you can't nail 100% repro of any vintage amp. I spent last year working on learning amp building theory, got a Weber Princeton kit, Grabham sent me a complete pile of NOS vintage components, that I haven't yet substituted in full. Read Funk's book, Torres' book, Hunter's, and have an amp friend who answered all my questions. I wanted to make replica of the White amp I got to play for several weeks as a kid, it had the same circuit, well all these Weber modern parts don't even come close to the old White. That amp was only about ten years old when I played it, in mint condition and just sounded fantastic.

With vintage amp you run into the same problems you run into duplicating vintage PAF's. Pretty much none of the materials that existed back when, exist in their same form today. Transformer metallurgy has gotta be different, copper wire is, all the resistors and capacitors were made differently. I'm sure even the chassis metallurgy of modern aluminum and steel aren't going to do exactly what a vintage chassis will. Sure there's companies trying to make clone stuff as always. Then there's tubes. From what i read the metallurgy alone in tubes was extremely complex and is pretty much a lost art. There's good tubes being made, but nothing equals what they were making up until the end. I don't use modern power tubes in any of my amps because they just don't have "it." Pretty sad. I've been really interested in making a JTM45 to get the Bluesbreaker tone, but I looked at every clone, every kit, and none of them sound right to me. Then Eric said just a few months ago "that amp sounded terrible unless you turned everything all the way up." I have a sound engineer friend/customer, who is friends with 2 brilliant transformer designers, and a couple amp guru's who have studied vintage amps for years; he is going to attempt to make a JTM45 clone using the absolute best transformers, NOS mustard caps, NOS GEC KT66's, and is going to learn all the essential tips and secrets from these guys how to "do it right." It'll be months before I get to hear how it comes out, so am waiting to see what a first class effort will result in. No one has really nailed the old speakers either, Weber got really close though.

As for the braided wire, vintage braid wire measures noticeably higher capacitance, I have a theory its because of aging of the cotton maybe, I dunno. My packing list for braided wire describes it as One natural Celanese wrap, overall waxed cotton braid #36. Its the 3 pair stuff. I bought some 2 pair "repro" wire from a member here, but the wire was higher capacitance in a bad way, I had one of my guitars wired with it and any pickups I put in that guitar sounded dullish, pulled it all out and put in the widely available 2 pair stuff and the good sounds came back.

[big_teee]

Actually the "secret sauce" was a joke. A friend on the LPF posted that for me, they were saying such ridiculous things anyway, I thought it'd be funny But I actually did a year's worth of work on looking for a dielectric fluid that would work and I did find it. Its just too hard to control how much to use and in the end its just better to, well never mind......... But no, I don't use it ;-)

Yeah you can build good sounding amps with modern parts etc. but you can't nail 100% repro of any vintage amp. I spent last year working on learning amp building theory, got a Weber Princeton kit, Grabham sent me a complete pile of NOS vintage components, that I haven't yet substituted in full. Read Funk's book, Torres' book, Hunter's, and have an amp friend who answered all my questions. I wanted to make replica of the White amp I got to play for several weeks as a kid, it had the same circuit, well all these Weber modern parts don't even come close to the old White. That amp was only about ten years old when I played it, in mint condition and just sounded fantastic.

With vintage amp you run into the same problems you run into duplicating vintage PAF's. Pretty much none of the materials that existed back when, exist in their same form today. Transformer metallurgy has gotta be different, copper wire is, all the resistors and capacitors were made differently. I'm sure even the chassis metallurgy of modern aluminum and steel aren't going to do exactly what a vintage chassis will. Sure there's companies trying to make clone stuff as always. Then there's tubes. From what i read the metallurgy alone in tubes was extremely complex and is pretty much a lost art. There's good tubes being made, but nothing equals what they were making up until the end. I don't use modern power tubes in any of my amps because they just don't have "it." Pretty sad. I've been really interested in making a JTM45 to get the Bluesbreaker tone, but I looked at every clone, every kit, and none of them sound right to me. Then Eric said just a few months ago "that amp sounded terrible unless you turned everything all the way up." I have a sound engineer friend/customer, who is friends with 2 brilliant transformer designers, and a couple amp guru's who have studied vintage amps for years; he is going to attempt to make a JTM45 clone using the absolute best transformers, NOS mustard caps, NOS GEC KT66's, and is going to learn all the essential tips and secrets from these guys how to "do it right." It'll be months before I get to hear how it comes out, so am waiting to see what a first class effort will result in. No one has really nailed the old speakers either, Weber got really close though.

As for the braided wire, vintage braid wire measures noticeably higher capacitance, I have a theory its because of aging of the cotton maybe, I dunno. My packing list for braided wire describes it as One natural Celanese wrap, overall waxed cotton braid #36. Its the 3 pair stuff. I bought some 2 pair "repro" wire from a member here, but the wire was higher capacitance in a bad way, I had one of my guitars wired with it and any pickups I put in that guitar sounded dullish, pulled it all out and put in the widely available 2 pair stuff and the good sounds came back.

This forum has lots of Amp categories.
You might want to post some of this there.
Build Your Amp

[Possum]

Really, I had my fill of amp building ;-) I think it'd take at least ten years to become competent at building amps not based on someone's kits. I learned some useful things, for sure, but finishing the amp so it sounds great is really low on my priority list. The Weber kit as supplied truly sucked, I've already altered alot of the voltages etc. trying to get some life out of, but I suspect the supplied transformers and cheesy caps and resistors are the biggest problem. The last thing to try is putting in all the NOS carbon comp resistors and caps. Really don't want to sink anymore money into with pricey transformers either, not worth it.....thanks for the link though. Greg Simon "SoundmasterG" from the forum helped me alot, maybe someday find an amp thats not going to be a waste of money to build.....

[belwar]

to get back on topic I once phone az industries and they told me they supplied suhr with magnets

[David Schwab]

Yeah you can build good sounding amps with modern parts etc. but you can't nail 100% repro of any vintage amp.

But then who would know the difference?

I play with a guy that has one of these amps:

Guitar Amp Product - Heretic

Man that thing sounds great. All hand wired, etc. He can get all kinds of tones from it. Compared to his Marshall, you can hear every note in his chords even with a lot of over drive.

Me, I use one of these:

Vox Valvetronix+ VT80+ | Sweetwater.com

I can get very convincing tones that really evoke old Fenders or Marshalls, Voxes etc. I compared the AC-15 patch to my friend's real AC-15, and it was hard to tell them apart. And mine was lighter, and louder (120 watts).

On stage no one knows the difference.

[Possum]

Probably not many have played vintage amps because some of them are real pricey now, so they wouldn't know the difference. The classic rock guys are probably more into vintage amps but alot of them never saw one either and don't really realize how different they were, as in no master volume, no channel switching, high gain stages etc. I have 3 silverface amps and the reissue amps Fender made of them are harsh and nothing like the originals. These old amps are really easy to work on too. The silverface Fenders are still a bargain when compared to modern hand wired boutique products. Who would of thought when we were kids that the amps we played as teens would still alive and kicking butt here almost 50 years later. I wonder how many modern printed circuit amps will still be around 50 years from now ;-)
The only company who's products I've played that sound darn close to vintage is Victoria Amplifiers. But he spent several hundred thousand dollars getting carbon resistors made again the way they were, and I think it probably helped alot. I bought his Regal II and love it. There's some good amp builders out there, Mesa Boogie, Dr. Z, etc. but a vintage amp just has something the modern ones are missing. Junior Watson playing thru his vintage tweed amps, man what a tone. Guess it depends on what genre of music you're playing, whether vintage amps are something you'd like or not.

[David Schwab]

Probably not many have played vintage amps because some of them are real pricey now, so they wouldn't know the difference.

Yeah, that was my point.

[big_teee]

Yeah, that was my point.

Same with pickups.
If it sounds good, I don't care if it sounds like a real PAF or not.
I just know if I like it or not.
T

[Possum]

True, most players buy pickups that way. I have a niche clientele though, that represents the bulk of my sales, all based on studying vintage pickups, its exactly opposite of what i started to do in the beginning. Yet guys who never saw a vintage pickup like what I learned from those old pickups. Gotta keep the blues alive I guess ;-)