tele_savales
Tele-Afflicted
I finally got around to going to one of the very decent rehearsal studios in Brooklyn to put both my point to point tweed build and my JCM800 in a Princeton cab ala @robrob thru the torture test.
I put the recommended Weber 30 watt tweed speaker in the 5E3, and I have a 75W Eminence Governor in the Marshall build. One of the minor hassles of being in an apartment is that I have to shlep across town to really test an amp at anything over speaking volume.
I had made some changes a while back to the Marshall circuit as Rob had originally laid out, pretty much along w the changes he suggested. It was having some weird symptoms (cutting out completely and then working again for seemingly no reason), it was almost unplayable- super shrill, even w the treble turned all the way down, and the treble rolled off on my guitar(s). Basically I went w the changes Rob put on his page, fiddling w the treble caps values, putting a 1000pf snubber on V1, and getting rid of the Type 3 MV in favor of the pre-PI MV.
The 5E3 build sounded awesome all the way up to the top of both volume knobs w my Strat w noiseless Mojotone pickups. W my Tele with a high output bridge HB and Neck P90, a little buzzy-ness to the distortion w the amp cranked, but pretty good at a more reasonable volume. I think the humbucker mod might be in my future. I noticed when playing at full volume that using the channel jumper switch doesnt seem to be quite as dramatic as when used at moderate volumes. I noticed that one of the vintage GE 6V6's I had in the amp was redplating even though it was only biased right around 12 watts per tube, so I threw some new Sovteks in before I left the house.
The JCM800... sounds unbelievable. I really wasn't super stoked on it as originally built but now it sounds completely insane. Still could use a little less treble, but that's what the treble pot on the guitar is for. After trying it w 6V6's, 6L6's (really nice, actually), I decided to keep it my dedicated EL34 amp, and the ones that are in there are TAD's. I am very happy w the Eminence Governer- I tried the WGS ET-65 and I just didn't dig it. Didn't like it in any of my amps, actually, until I stuck it w my AA764 build.
Then I played thru both of them via the dual out on my HOF reverb. It actually sounded a lot better than I thought- the reverb sounded very decent thru the tweed, a bit messy thru the marshall. Obviously the tweed was nowhere near as loud but the two together sounded pretty awesome.
Just for fun I plugged one amp and then the other into the 4x12 Marshall cab the studio was equipped with. Very good fun.
I had a lot of fun building both of these amps and they are both totally gig worthy. You can definitely piss a lot of people off by showing up w a 45 watt Marshall in Princeton cab!
I did not record any sound clips as I was by myself, in a super small room, and only had a couple hours to really put both amps thru their paces. My wife says she wants to come the next time (she doesn't really have any idea how loud it's going to be, but she did seem to have fun at Black Label Society when they were in town) so I think I'll rent a bigger room so she can get some decent clips that dont blow out the iphone mic. I PROMISE that I'll post some clips of my deafeningly loud crummy guitar playing.
I put the recommended Weber 30 watt tweed speaker in the 5E3, and I have a 75W Eminence Governor in the Marshall build. One of the minor hassles of being in an apartment is that I have to shlep across town to really test an amp at anything over speaking volume.
I had made some changes a while back to the Marshall circuit as Rob had originally laid out, pretty much along w the changes he suggested. It was having some weird symptoms (cutting out completely and then working again for seemingly no reason), it was almost unplayable- super shrill, even w the treble turned all the way down, and the treble rolled off on my guitar(s). Basically I went w the changes Rob put on his page, fiddling w the treble caps values, putting a 1000pf snubber on V1, and getting rid of the Type 3 MV in favor of the pre-PI MV.
The 5E3 build sounded awesome all the way up to the top of both volume knobs w my Strat w noiseless Mojotone pickups. W my Tele with a high output bridge HB and Neck P90, a little buzzy-ness to the distortion w the amp cranked, but pretty good at a more reasonable volume. I think the humbucker mod might be in my future. I noticed when playing at full volume that using the channel jumper switch doesnt seem to be quite as dramatic as when used at moderate volumes. I noticed that one of the vintage GE 6V6's I had in the amp was redplating even though it was only biased right around 12 watts per tube, so I threw some new Sovteks in before I left the house.
The JCM800... sounds unbelievable. I really wasn't super stoked on it as originally built but now it sounds completely insane. Still could use a little less treble, but that's what the treble pot on the guitar is for. After trying it w 6V6's, 6L6's (really nice, actually), I decided to keep it my dedicated EL34 amp, and the ones that are in there are TAD's. I am very happy w the Eminence Governer- I tried the WGS ET-65 and I just didn't dig it. Didn't like it in any of my amps, actually, until I stuck it w my AA764 build.
Then I played thru both of them via the dual out on my HOF reverb. It actually sounded a lot better than I thought- the reverb sounded very decent thru the tweed, a bit messy thru the marshall. Obviously the tweed was nowhere near as loud but the two together sounded pretty awesome.
Just for fun I plugged one amp and then the other into the 4x12 Marshall cab the studio was equipped with. Very good fun.
I had a lot of fun building both of these amps and they are both totally gig worthy. You can definitely piss a lot of people off by showing up w a 45 watt Marshall in Princeton cab!
I did not record any sound clips as I was by myself, in a super small room, and only had a couple hours to really put both amps thru their paces. My wife says she wants to come the next time (she doesn't really have any idea how loud it's going to be, but she did seem to have fun at Black Label Society when they were in town) so I think I'll rent a bigger room so she can get some decent clips that dont blow out the iphone mic. I PROMISE that I'll post some clips of my deafeningly loud crummy guitar playing.
