The 5E3 lightbulb came on....over my head

[Telelicious]

So reading about the 5E3 again and again and again and......

It sparked a bit of interest. What is all the fuss about?

So I googled it and just took a quick look at the specs. Huh? (I said to myself)
Then I found my "desktop reference of hip vintage guitar amps" and looked up the schematic.

Huh? why does it look so familiar?

Ive been staring at the schematic of my project amp for a couple days. Some people here know Im a fool......for the old VOM amps. I got one that needed a complete refurb and Ive been going at it slowly.

Heres the schemo:
and heres the chassis:

Does the schemo look familiar? Its not too different from the 5E3!!

I had just bumped this one up from 12w to 18w with some tweaking and some 5881's but now I may swap things around and see what all the 5E3 fuss is about.

This VOM is from 1948 by the way.

If I "fall in love", I could make a cab and put it all together for less than $200.

The going price for these units in stock trim on ebay is $175 which includes the cab, chassis and 12" Jensen. I just got the chassis by itself for way less than that.



Go figure.

[Gee]

That's a neat looking vintage non guitar amp - but it won't sound anything like a 5E3 without some major circuit surgery. Shouldn't cost too much or be too much effort to turn it into a 5E3 though.

[EasilyAmused]

That's really cool...

I'd love to get my hands on something like that to tinker with (once I'm done building the 18watt marshall clone I'm doing right now). I can't seem to find anything anywhere on VOM amps though... maybe someone else has better googling skills than me. Nothing on e-bay either.

[Telelicious]

Originally Posted by EasilyAmused

That's really cool...

I'd love to get my hands on something like that to tinker with (once I'm done building the 18watt marshall clone I'm doing right now). I can't seem to find anything anywhere on VOM amps though... maybe someone else has better googling skills than me. Nothing on e-bay either.

Theres a little on the company here and there...
Try googling "Voice of Music" They also go under "V-M"
They have alot of old products that are ripe for toying around.
Ive created a few pieces of Industrial Waste from their old modular amp boxes.

I made a little 5 watter I'll put up against any single channel Champ.

Good Clean Fun.

[Telelicious]

Originally Posted by Gee

That's a neat looking vintage non guitar amp - but it won't sound anything like a 5E3 without some major circuit surgery. Shouldn't cost too much or be too much effort to turn it into a 5E3 though.

It looks like the only differences will be the OT and PT. The values are real close though. VOM OT has a 4 ohm tap.

Other than that it looks like a couple hours and $15 worth of electronic guts will make the transformation.

One other sticking point is the Electrolytics. The Deluxe uses 3-16's (I have a few I can use) and the VOM uses 4-20's in a can. Easy enough to change this around.
What kind of flavor difference is held in the electrolytics quantity and values?
On the deluxe it looks like both the pre's go through one filter cap and on the VOM they each have their own.

A little extra salt? Hold the Pepper?

[jh45gun]

Originally Posted by Telelicious

It looks like the only differences will be the OT and PT. The values are real close though. VOM OT has a 4 ohm tap.

Other than that it looks like a couple hours and $15 worth of electronic guts will make the transformation.

One other sticking point is the Electrolytics. The Deluxe uses 3-16's (I have a few I can use) and the VOM uses 4-20's in a can. Easy enough to change this around.
What kind of flavor difference is held in the electrolytics quantity and values?
On the deluxe it looks like both the pre's go through one filter cap and on the VOM they each have their own.

A little extra salt? Hold the Pepper?

I tried the route of changeing things around on a Zenith Chassis to make an amp which I thought (WAS CLOSE ENOUGH) even had the help of Hasserl at the gear page and others and it never sounded good. In fact Hasserl looked at the schematic and suggested I mod the amp with input and PI changes which I did. It never had the power or the sound I was looking for. Finally I bit the bullet and bought a pre loaded board at Johnny Crash's suggestion and built my 5e3 with a tube socket change so I could add a 12ax7 instead of the octal preamp tube that was there. It then made the 5e3 clone I was looking for. Now there may be subtle differences from the kits being made as the PT and OT are different from what folks buy for the kits but it sounds good to me. I would suspect you may find the same thing with the trannies making maybe a slight difference if any but close enough for a good sounding amp as long as the guts match the 5e3 schematic. I am not knocking Hasserl's knowledge here as he suggested I try the mods first for little cost and then if it did not work then try other things.

[Telelicious]

Originally Posted by jh45gun

I tried the route of changeing things around on a Zenith Chassis to make an amp which I thought (WAS CLOSE ENOUGH) even had the help of Hasserl at the gear page and others and it never sounded good. In fact Hasserl looked at the schematic and suggested I mod the amp with input and PI changes which I did. It never had the power or the sound I was looking for. Finally I bit the bullet and bought a pre loaded board at Johnny Crash's suggestion and built my 5e3 with a tube socket change so I could add a 12ax7 instead of the octal preamp tube that was there. It then made the 5e3 clone I was looking for. Now there may be subtle differences from the kits being made as the PT and OT are different from what folks buy for the kits but it sounds good to me. I would suspect you may find the same thing with the trannies making maybe a slight difference if any but close enough for a good sounding amp as long as the guts match the 5e3 schematic. I am not knocking Hasserl's knowledge here as he suggested I try the mods first for little cost and then if it did not work then try other things.

Thats kinda what I was thinking. I may not leave it this way anyway. Just want to run the experiments and see what the changes do. I also have a 60's Lafayette Reverb Im thinking of squeezing in the circuit somewhere.

You had asked before, when I mentioned this in another thread about hearing about the 18-20 watt project. This is it. I got it from a guy that had done some non matching mods and it needed new resistors in several places etc, etc. When I got it all sorted out I had two 5881's in place of the 6V6's, had replaced the 5Y3 rectifier with a 5V4 and re-biased it with a bias resistor change for the 5881's.
It is a screamer right now. VERY loud for its size but a bit on the trebly side. Ice pick up top actually with not much mid. The bass gets a little flatulant. This can all be changed around though. Thats the fun part.

18-20w for sure. A far cry from the old 10-12w desktop PA it started out as.

Now I guess its back to the drawing board with a 5E3 schematic.