I'm still building this amp (still)

cactuskeeb · July 08, 2009, 04:48:34 AM

Poster · July 08, 2009, 04:46:02 PM

it is awesome looking! i hope it sounds like you want it to... I remember not a couple years ago I was lusting over this particular boutique amp (name escapes me now) and I was convinced I had to have it. The day before I ordered the damned thing, I happened to stop through a guitar shop that had a bunch of amps lying about. Sure enough bam there is this little tube combo I had a hard on for. And of course, I plug into this thing for an hour, and cant find that tone I was looking for. Lol! Iam sure it will be awesome cactus. What kinda cabinet are you going to use with that thing? Lopo line makes great stuff, dove tail joints, the whole 9. I use a couple of their cabs and they are f*cking road tested :0)

strangedesign · July 08, 2009, 06:20:35 PM

i wish i knew something or anything about electronics. I would love to build my own amp. post some sound clips when it's finished!

cactuskeeb · July 09, 2009, 06:04:29 AM

Quote from: posternutbag on July 08, 2009, 04:46:02 PM
it is awesome looking! i hope it sounds like you want it to... I remember not a couple years ago I was lusting over this particular boutique amp (name escapes me now) and I was convinced I had to have it. The day before I ordered the damned thing, I happened to stop through a guitar shop that had a bunch of amps lying about. Sure enough bam there is this little tube combo I had a hard on for. And of course, I plug into this thing for an hour, and cant find that tone I was looking for. Lol! Iam sure it will be awesome cactus. What kinda cabinet are you going to use with that thing? Lopo line makes great stuff, dove tail joints, the whole 9. I use a couple of their cabs and they are f*cking road tested :0)

Dude no doubt - but this thing is not your run 'o the mill boutique cash cow. I've spent TWO years R&D-ing the thing. Each part has its own unique history -- that is, how it got to my abode and why, technically speaking, I came to chose it over the countless others that could ostensibly have gone in the same spot.

As far as the cabinet -- I'm using my old Deluxe Reverb reissue with a baffle and grill cloth (custom made to look aged) to which I added a tweed-era Fender faceplate logo, which I prefer over the blackface (and beyond) one. I definitely want to remain with the combo-type setup with one speaker because a) I like the sound when pushing a 25 watt speaker with 22 watts and b) Paul explained to me in detail how he used to mic Trey's Deluxe to get a "wide stereo image," something that I've come to realize is one of the main reasons why I love listening to Phish shows taped via Paul's DA 88 (records to DAT) from '97 to '00.

As far as speaker -- that is perhaps the thing I am most unsure about; that is to say, I don't know which way to go: re-coned Oxford (original speaker), new-production celestion alnico blue (made in 2004), or Tone Tubby Alnico (the red one that looks identical to the one in Trey's Deluxe, except that Trey's is blue-colored instead of the familiar red -- what this means, I don't know, but it definitely doesn't resemble my celestion blue). I own all these speakers, and I am well aware of the time it (may) take to "break in" a speaker, so I'm not looking forward to picking the wrong one (and yes, there is a "right one" as far as this amp is concerned) right off the bat.

cactuskeeb · July 09, 2009, 06:19:10 AM

Quote from: strangedesign on July 08, 2009, 06:20:35 PM
i wish i knew something or anything about electronics. I would love to build my own amp. post some sound clips when it's finished!

I would love to! However, even if the amp is finished tomorrow I would still be lacking a sound desk (soundboard), which I need to plug my two AKG 414s into. Then I have to figure out how I'm going to get that stereo image, as it were, onto a recordable surface or device (hard drive). I've tried mic preamps that record direct to computer but after talking to Paul I see his reasoning for not using a mic preamp (unless I'm driving a 300 foot 'snake', which I am not); these things are, on the whole pretty awful destroyers of faithful source transmission (in other words, they are 'tone-sucking', to borrow from the crude yet common-sense lingo of electric-guitar players.)

cactuskeeb · July 25, 2009, 06:49:55 AM

It's hopeless. The board already looks completely different from that picture! I have no idea what to expect at this point - just, dear god, give me the motivation to stop masturbating for five seconds and wire the gd amp and flip the switch on it.

cactuskeeb · July 30, 2009, 10:28:58 AM

cactuskeeb · July 30, 2009, 10:46:44 AM

So, there's something I realized about the famed blue molded caps that you find in all Fenders circa '63 to '68, something that sets them apart from all other contenders both vintage and modern. They're rated at 400VDC but even if you put 500VDC through them, there is no leakage, not even for the first couple of seconds the voltage hits them. This is not true of Zoso caps, nor Jupiter ones (which have a 600vdc rating). Nor is it true of orange drops.

Walker done done · July 30, 2009, 02:02:43 PM

Quote from: cactuskeeb on July 30, 2009, 10:46:44 AM
So, there's something I realized about the famed blue molded caps that you find in all Fenders circa '63 to '68, something that sets them apart from all other contenders both vintage and modern. They're rated at 400VDC but even if you put 500VDC through them, there is no leakage, not even for the first couple of seconds the voltage hits them. This is not true of Zoso caps, nor Jupiter ones (which have a 600vdc rating). Nor is it true of orange drops.

Can you elaborate more?

cactuskeeb · July 30, 2009, 08:02:18 PM

I would like to but honestly I have no idea why these blue molded caps are, quite literally, the least leaky caps of the fifty or so varieties that I've tested. My guess, after breaking one open--I destroyed a 30 dollar capacitor for the sake of knowing--is that because the blue-colored mold is so dense and thick (I've broken many a cap, and this was by far the hardest) it doesn't leak. Even the metal ones break easier--someone, please, explain that to me??

EDIT: The one thing that I can explain, however, is why they tolerate voltages far in excess of what they're rated for (I'm speaking of the 400vdc and 200vdc blue-molded caps). First of all, with Zoso and Jupiter--the virtues of both are extolled by countless famous and not-so-famous amp builders--you get a 600vdc cap not because they're specifically engineered to tolerate higher voltages than, say, for instance, a 400vdc blue-molded, but rather because they actually show a constant leakage (and they hold at a number higher than zero when applying a constant voltage of 600vdc) at their peak rating and thus have to be built to spec of 600vdc so that they don't show a leakage at 400vdc and below, which is below the peak level--and, by extension, below where they would sound their best. The reason for this apparently lousy performance is simple when comparing their insides to a blue-molded's. The latter is wrapped with an almost impossibly thin precision, whereas the Zoso and Jupiter appear just as they advertise--that is, hand-wrapped. In other words, the foil and whatever else that is in between (I can't tell) is stronger and yet there is such a higher number times wraps than the Jup's and Zoso's, which--as if they could get any less great on the scale of production quality--are much larger in terms of their core dielectric materials.

EDIT (2 of 2): A kind of meta-analysis of the issue is possible if one knows anything at all about the history of production and manufacturing in this country. If you were born Generation X or later, you no doubt hear the lament of your parents and/or grandparents, 'they don't make 'em like they used to'. At least in the area of passive components (capacitors, resistors, etc.) as well as virtually everything that was standard hi-tech in the 1950s, this lament holds true in regard to the same kinds of components produced after the first "Energy Crisis" in this country, in the seventies. That is to say, the technology of the guitar amplifier already had it's peak moment, and now-a-days what we have instead are goods that perform the same function but, in relation, can only be seen as low-tech (the binary comparison is in essence wrong but it at least goes to show that there is no reality to the relation of components simply by grouping them in terms of function; instead, one gets to the truth of the matter only after grouping them by production era).

Walker done done · July 31, 2009, 10:56:47 AM

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about.

Great post 'keeb. I knew you had it in ya!

cactuskeeb · August 04, 2009, 12:12:23 PM

Thanks, man. It exhausted me to write that, I hope it's readable -- if anything's unclear that you think I could elaborate more on, let me know. I think the very last sentence truly is a 'word to the wise' inasmuch as amp building is concerned.

EDIT: I mean, we've known for decades that new production tubes are generally terrible. It's not that big of a stretch to transfer the same idea to passive components.