Tube Amp Archive

Removing 2 of the four tubes means you need to double the load in the secondary winding. Obviously you won't change the cab, so you need to connect the cab to the impedance that is the half of its rating. 8 ohm cab connects to a 4 ohm tap, and so on. The difference in output volume is minimal though...

A zener clipping mode should be done together with a MV mod, to place it before the tone stack, right after the CF. This is because you generally want any tone shaping to be post clipping. Look for Jose clipping mod, there is a lot of info on various sites. I did it on a Marshall but found the 12V Z...

I got a set of 15W transformers from TDS a few months ago, and the communication was perfect. I used the contact email address from the website. I'm also very happy with the products I got.

I did it on an 1987 MK2, scaled the power amp and the PI and installed a standard MV (pre PI). It works great, but keep in mind that you will need serious heat sinking for the FET, I blew a couple of them before installing an aluminium heat sink outside the chassis, and it still gets really hot. Ide...

The way I see it, the main difference is the 820 vs 1.5K resistor in the PI. It won't make much of a difference, I tried it. Which Lightning schematic did you use? There are 2 versions, one is, IMO, incorrect. The correct one, that brings out all the good crunch and chime from the amp, is without th...

This is insane, absolutely incredible work.

I recently built a Rocket/AC30 inspired amp, and was set on installing a VVR for the power tubes, coupled with a LarMar PPIMV. I found out, after installing the VVR, that the amp had lost some of it's touch responsivness. Also, the VVR didn't add anything that couldn't be achieved with the PPIMV. Al...

Ok, so I ditched the lower gain (Spitfire) mode, and did a Hot mode, with a tone bypass switch. This is shown in the examples above. I liked the hot mode but found it was a bit over the top, also the volume jump was too big. So I used a DPDT switch, and removed the V2 cathode bypass cap in the Hot m...

Thanks

Yes, this was a direct out, taken from the 8 ohm tap through a 20K pot. Speaker sims applied in computer.

I made some quick demos for the amp: First is with 500p coupling cap http://soundcloud.com/dass101/lightwreck-demo Second with 1000p coupling cap http://soundcloud.com/dass101/lightwreck-demo-2 I think I like the 1000p better. This was very low volume, I expect the amp to sound much better when cran...

Yes, it's Zinc (I believe it's the same as galvanized steel) I didn't know about different conductivity, I just chose it because I wanted some protection against corrosion. I used a grounding scheme as close as possible to a star grounding: All relevant grounds connect to the stage filter cap, all f...

After fooling around with designing my amp in 3D with Solidworks I finally finished the chassis project and had it laser cut. The amp started life as a Lightning clone, for which I ordered the transformers from TDS. I also designed it on paper to have VVR for the power section only. For now I finish...

For a 30-50W VVR you need some serious heat dissipation. You should look into a dedicated aluminium heat sink of around 10/10 cm (or something with a similar surface) and use thermal paste. Connect the heat sink to the side of the Mosfet that provides the biggest contact surface. I built a VVR for a...

I think it's easy to implement the asymetric PP power section, the only compromise I see is using the 6V6 at lower B+ so you can power both sides at the same voltage. You will also have to use independent cathode resistors/capacitors, so you can tweak the current for each tube. Both EL84 and 6V6 gen...

The idea in the first place was just to design the chassis so I can have it laser cut, with all socket and pot holes, but then I started modelling all the other components because I wanted to see how everything will fit. I was actually very helpful, because of that I could adjust the chassis dimensi...