Meet Lori Pearl

[Gibsonman63]

See attached. Thanks for the help and support.

[Gibsonman63]

Wires in training. I read somewhere the Mr. Fischer used to use a little superglue here and there, but I need to make sure things are where they should be before I do anything permanent.

[Gibsonman63]

The fruits of the last two nights labor. Yeah, I know, the bright capacitors are backwards. I am leaving it for now. I hear you guys end up changing them frequently when tweaking the amp, so I'll see where it goes.

[Gibsonman63]

see below

[Gibsonman63]

see below

[M Fowler]

OK this amp should be alive now, right?

[Gibsonman63]

I still have the filter capacitors and my power supply wiring from the various taps left to do. I will be busy playing for the next couple of days, so it will more than likely be next week before I start testing.

... but yes, I am starting to get excited

[M Fowler]

Oh yeah I should have noticed that, Its quite obvious now that you mention it.

[Gibsonman63]

Unfortunately, I won't have time for testing for a couple of days. Here's the amp with the filter caps installed.

[Gibsonman63]

Oops. Missing R23 and R24.

[Gibsonman63]

I had to fix a couple of wiring errors on my power supply and I had the bias pot oriented incorrectly, but she is up and running. I can't dime all the controls without creating high frequency oscillations, but it performs well at usable levels and settings. Just a small bit of high frequency feedback at high levels when I let the notes sustain a long time, but no worse than my Marshall 800 when I crank it and push it really hard with a TS-9. I haven't tested with my good tubes yet and I haven't put the cover on it yet, so that may help a bit as well.

... oh, I amost forgot. This amp really rocks in a big way. I just tested with one V30 in a 1 x12 cab and the sound is unbelievable. I am still waiting on Jim to ship my Scumback to put in that cabinet and I plan to make that into my gig rig.

Thanks to everyone who helped. Now, I am just going to play it for a week or two while I work on the head cab before I make any adjustments.

I'll try to get some clips recorded and posted this week.

[Gibsonman63]

Did I mention that my ears are ringing?

[Gibsonman63]

With the NOS Siemens power tubes and NOS Sylvania pre-amp tubes, I can dime all the controls with no feed back with the cover off of the amp. If you turn the volume knob to hard at the end, it makes a little "clink" noise when it hits the end of it's travel that will amplify and cause feedback, but if you ease into it slow, it will sit steady with no feedback.

The NOS tubes smooth the amp out a bit, but I did notice a little less attack.

Did you guys know that these amps are really loud?

[RJ Guitars]

I just got settled in overseas and was gonna arrange to have one of those varistors sent out... do you still need it?

Sounds like you have conquered the hard part of the Express - congratulations?

rj

[Gibsonman63]

Thanks, RJ. I put in a 150V Varistor so I could get on with the testing. I honestly don't know if the 130V would make a difference or not. I would not imagine that it would change the sound, but might react faster to a voltage spike and I would assume that it is there for protection.

I played the amp for a while through a 4 X 12 cabinet loaded with V30s. My first attempt produced no sound. Then I figured out that two of the screws holding the cover on were shorting into the lugs on the pots and grounding out my signal, so I am going to have to find some shorter screws for that. In hindsite I should have put those holes between the pots instead of evenly spacing them.

Anyway, I got it up and running again and sounding great. I have to crank it louder than I want it (but not by much) to get it to do what I want it to do, so I can see that there is a power attenuator in my near future.

This amp loves staccato playing. It is very articulate and I can't play fast enough to outplay the amp. I tried it with my pedal board and that works fine as well. I have a phase 90 that I use on a couple of Robin Trower songs and that sounds great with this amp. Very throaty vowel like sounds. I have an Ibanez UE-300 multieffects pedal that I bought new in 1982 that I only use for the tube screamer. The tube screamer is supposedly the TS-9 circuit, but I can't find or build a smaller pedal that I like better, so I keep using it. The tube screamer sounds nice on the amp. I like the sound of the amp overdriven on it's own a little better, but I have to really crank it to get there. The wah also sounds great on this amp. I actually like the sound of the wah with the tube screamer better than just the wah direct to the amp.

The amp is really holding together now. I am not getting any high frequency squealing so I guess the cover is helping. I may have to work on my 4 x12 cab now because I am starting to hear a little rattle on the low end on some notes.

I'll put some hours on the amp, then when I tweak, I will post my voltages.