Anyone built a trainwreck and not liked it?

[gearhead]

Yeah, I know Mike. He's about 10 miles away The Brimar that's in my Express's V1 is from him, a while back.

His price is comparable to another one or two places I've found them, other than Mesa. Bummer is I gotta pay sales tax, LOL. He is a known good guy, and that's worth the difference.

[geetarpicker]

Now all I gotta do is find a source for NOS Siemens. Grack. Mesa caught on in the last month and upped their Mesa-branded NOS Siemens from 70 a pair to 150! Aaaahhh.

Glen "Mr. Trainwreck" Kuykendall says he has been using the new GT XF2 Mullard reproductions in his Express clones. Have heard a lot of good things about them, but that they had a high rate of failure in the first 10-20 hours. Anyone else use them, and are they now doing fine?

I bought a pair of the GT's They were perfectly matched out of the box....for 8 seconds. They started separating and now they are 12 mA apart in any amp! They also sound like ass to me. I bought a matched quad of siemens and they were dead on even in dissapation...both sets! They sound great. Usually it's not the amp if you've built it correctly with the correct parts. It's almost always the tubes and guitar. I like a LP with an Express...period. But that's me. YMMV. I also play with the volume between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock and control gain with the volume knob. I don't think TW's get into gear til then.

Allyn

Sounds like you got a pretty crummy pair of GTs EL34Ms! 12ma off from each other out of the box sounds like a dud in there...

I've had good luck with 10 of these tubes in different amps (most have been labeled grade #7 I'm pretty sure) and all have been within about 2-3ma out of the box and stayed pretty close to the same over time. Haven't had one fail, though the ones I run in a Marshall 100 I keep the B+ down by running it only at about 105v in. I don't think these tubes are good for much over 450v B+, but in an Express I haven't had any reliablity issues.

I have some original NOS National 6CA7s, that are actually small bottle EL34s and appear to be just like the old Seimens I've had in the past. Anyway, these Nationals came from Ken Fischer's private stash. That said, I still think that my two clones and original Express actually sound better with the EL34Ms. For what it's worth all my Youtube clips (even the raw living room ones) were with GT EL34Ms.

Still, I'd like to get a nice pair of matched original Mullard XF2s. I've just had bad luck finding a nice truly matched set. I have some old tired ones here, but they don't sound very good anymore.

[Buschman]

Not to pick a fight but.............I have been liking some grey glass RCA 6v6s in mine. I know---Don't be hating on me! They are nice & thick sounding & it does cut the volume just a bit. Not as much as you might think. As far as new 12ax7s, most of them are not very good in the long run. Seems like the cheap Chinese ones are as good as any.

I guess this turned into a tube thread, sorry.

[nickt]

Not to pick a fight but.............I have been liking some grey glass RCA 6v6s in mine. I know---Don't be hating on me! They are nice & thick sounding & it does cut the volume just a bit. Not as much as you might think. As far as new 12ax7s, most of them are not very good in the long run. Seems like the cheap Chinese ones are as good as any.

I guess this turned into a tube thread, sorry.

Interesting you mention the Sino's being "good as any" - does this mean good as JJ, TungSol, Winged C ?

In what way specificly? Have they improved recently/slowly?

.. also apologies for the hijack...

[Buschman]

I have not tried the Tung Sol but I think they are as good as the JJ & EI. They sound good & the throw away ratio is as good as anything new. I don't think I have seen a winged C 12ax7.

I also need to try the JJecc-803s & Sovtec 12ax7lps. I have read good things about both.

My point was spend an axtra $30 I get good old preamp tubes. It just didn't type out that way.

[drz400]

OK with the tubes but I'm still un-answered and curious
Which schematic is your great one and what iron?

[leaveitalone84]

Franchesca layout in the files section.
https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=1408

Toneslut Irons.
http://www.toneslut.com/transformers/index.html

Parts list.
https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=bom+xls

[gearhead]

OK with the tubes but I'm still un-answered and curious
Which schematic is your great one and what iron?

+1 on 84's, although DrHulsey also did a good compilation:
https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=2930

I'm not there yet with mine, am still tweaking, but others have used them.

The reason Tubes sneaked into this thread is because they are an integral part of the Trainwreck tweaking process. You can say "enough with the tubes", but you'd be ignoring part of the equation that might be responsible for your disapointment in your build.

[FE911]

Tubes, Speakers seem to affect mine the most. Also, when I turn my stereo on, the voltage in the house goes from 118 to about 110(really big system!, and really old house). I also have a really good 60hz hum that I need to dig into. But it doesn't bother me enough right now to tear it apart again. My favorite guitar has some shielding issues also, seems to be a trend in my handywork! I just love swapping tubes out. I've got an old set of mullard ecc83's that just sing in it, but they are getting close to being done. It's a fun amp to play around with.

[jlatrace]

Interesting post and I love mine. I'd be interetsed in some of the non-tube and non-speaket tweaking that has been done.

My band members love the lead tone but have not given the amp great reviews for chording, they say its too aggressive. They are used to me playing either a marshall JTM 45, twead deluxe or twead bassman (all with tweaked cathode caps to give more drive and less woofy bass).

[leaveitalone84]

Interesting post and I love mine. I'd be interetsed in some of the non-tube and non-speaket tweaking that has been done.

My band members love the lead tone but have not given the amp great reviews for chording, they say its too aggressive. They are used to me playing either a marshall JTM 45, twead deluxe or twead bassman (all with tweaked cathode caps to give more drive and less woofy bass).

I roll back my tone pots when I riff with my band. Seems to sit better and tames the aggression in the amp.

[jlatrace]

I'm going to experiement with different tone settings this weekend. I used to have a Prosonic and it required unusual tone settings to get the best sound. Maybe that is the trick here.

If I have time today I may try the following mod to see what happens
Change:
C1 from 25 to 4.7uf
C8 from .002 to .02uf
C9 from .1 to .02uf
C13 & 14 frm .02 to .01uf

Essentially that flips the phase inverter and PT coupling cap section to a 5f6a/JTM 45 (which I hope will add some bottom) and then compensates for what I expect will be added bass (and woofiness) by lowering the value of the C1 bypass cap to 4.7uf, a value I've used in a varierty of amps with great success.

I recognize that this is not a trainwreck at this point, but my hope is that it will retain some of the positive attributes (controlled feedback, swell, clean-up at lower volume settings) and delete the sometime "edge" my band members sometimes complain about.

If anyone has tried this I'd appreciate feedback. Also, I will let you know the results.

[jlatrace]

Well I made the changes outlined above, played with my band and the amp got good reviews over the weekend.

The amp has more bass response, but not woofy, and still has much of the other characteristics of the TW circuit... sparkling clean sounds when volume is rolled off... sustain and feedback when pushed... opens up at 11 oclock and reaches the point of almost unstable at 2 oclock and higher volume levels.

For me it was an improvement. However I can see how others would not like this change.

[Brad737]

Do you think it's possible that the Chinese had the wreckage of that F-117 that was shot down in the basement?

I recall our Air Force managed to drop some bombs on a Chinese embassy in one of the countries. Gotta be careful with reading the GPS.

[drz400]

OK with the tubes but I'm still un-answered and curious
Which schematic is your great one and what iron?

+1 on 84's, although DrHulsey also did a good compilation:
https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=2930

I'm not there yet with mine, am still tweaking, but others have used them.

The reason Tubes sneaked into this thread is because they are an integral part of the Trainwreck tweaking process. You can say "enough with the tubes", but you'd be ignoring part of the equation that might be responsible for your disapointment in your build.

Well my point is that I do have other amps I'm very happy with and have been for years. They sound great with pretty much any good decent sounding tube, I dont need NOS in them and dont even prefer it. More like the amps were dialed in for what is available. IF I have to install $200 worth of tubes when I want to retube then I'm really not interested in the amp. Dont get me wrong, I know good tone and have been playing since the 70's have had some killer amps, played for a living for 10 or so years. I just believe that more tone comes from the fingers than the gear and I love great sounding amps. I guess I just connect more with a fuller less midrangey amp and I dont think the tubes will change it THAT much, if they do I'm interested in high maintenance (women or amps) I'm not talking about tweaking here.