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Help. I need recommendations on how to bring anemic sounding Valcos back to life.
Hello everyone,
Admittedly, I'm a valco amp junky and just can't help myself from buying these old amps online. Unfortunately, there are times when one of these beauties arrives, I plug it in, dime it and sadly my excitement turns to disappointment when all I get is an anemic clean tone when I was expecting a roar. Such was the case with a Gretsch 6162 I recently got from the west coast. I played a 6162 before that roared but this one definitely doesn't. Not to mention, I have a couple more Valcos in my collection that should roar but don't. This being the case, I set myself out on a mission on how to bring these back to life. So here I am praying that the collective experience of this forum can help me trouble shoot this anemic amp and replace what ever needs replacing to bring it's former glory.
I did do a bit of homework before posting and from what I've read on this forum (as well as other's) I found the following:
1) Check/replace the ground reference caps coming off the preamp plates (this was Leon's advice). Many valcos use the brown paper variety but mine has the dark red (polyester??) ones in place. Question: would these dark red ones be as prone to fail as the brown paper ones??
2) Check/replace the white 35uf mallory electrolytic cathode bypass caps. Now where does one get 35uf caps these days??
3) Check OT. What are the chances of a bad OT in these anemic valcos? Saying that, I know I've had at least 2 Supros with mismatched OTs. A 1961 1624T with a replaced OT specced for an 8ohm speaker hooked up to a stock 4ohm rola
The other was a 59 Coronado with a replaced OT spec'd out for a 3 speaker layout (like a 6161). I replaced that one with a Thunderbolt OT and a fresh Celestion G30H. Now that amp just screams.
4) Check Tubes: Easy enough but for a 6EU7 with is hard/expensive to find. I've read that rewiring that socket to take a 12ax7 is easy to do.
5) Check Speakers: easy enough to do.
Now can anybody here add to this. What would be the logical trouble shooting approach to finding the problem with an anemic sounding 6162.
Schematic link (mine is the single channel version):
http://www.guitaramplifierblueprinti...es/6162sch.gif
Here is a link to some pictures of my anemic 6162.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yv7xsmkuc...rpMjjzTVE-OiHa
Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks
Joseph
Hello everyone,
Admittedly, I'm a valco amp junky and just can't help myself from buying these old amps online. Unfortunately, there are times when one of these beauties arrives, I plug it in, dime it and sadly my excitement turns to disappointment when all I get is an anemic clean tone when I was expecting a roar. Such was the case with a Gretsch 6162 I recently got from the west coast. I played a 6162 before that roared but this one definitely doesn't. Not to mention, I have a couple more Valcos in my collection that should roar but don't. This being the case, I set myself out on a mission on how to bring these back to life. So here I am praying that the collective experience of this forum can help me trouble shoot this anemic amp and replace what ever needs replacing to bring it's former glory.
I did do a bit of homework before posting and from what I've read on this forum (as well as other's) I found the following:
1) Check/replace the ground reference caps coming off the preamp plates (this was Leon's advice). Many valcos use the brown paper variety but mine has the dark red (polyester??) ones in place. Question: would these dark red ones be as prone to fail as the brown paper ones??
2) Check/replace the white 35uf mallory electrolytic cathode bypass caps. Now where does one get 35uf caps these days??
3) Check OT. What are the chances of a bad OT in these anemic valcos? Saying that, I know I've had at least 2 Supros with mismatched OTs. A 1961 1624T with a replaced OT specced for an 8ohm speaker hooked up to a stock 4ohm rola
The other was a 59 Coronado with a replaced OT spec'd out for a 3 speaker layout (like a 6161). I replaced that one with a Thunderbolt OT and a fresh Celestion G30H. Now that amp just screams.
4) Check Tubes: Easy enough but for a 6EU7 with is hard/expensive to find. I've read that rewiring that socket to take a 12ax7 is easy to do.
5) Check Speakers: easy enough to do.
Now can anybody here add to this. What would be the logical trouble shooting approach to finding the problem with an anemic sounding 6162.
Schematic link (mine is the single channel version):
http://www.guitaramplifierblueprinti...es/6162sch.gif
Here is a link to some pictures of my anemic 6162.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yv7xsmkuc...rpMjjzTVE-OiHa
Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks
Joseph
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