Dumble Mojo, Myth, and Facts - The wiring

[RJ Guitars]

I've just completed my first ODS build and I have a couple observations that I'm curious what the veterans will have to say about them.

I was able to quickly debug a couple significant errors in my build by allowing the build to be scrutinized by the keen eyes of the ODS gurus here. I kinda believe it's been altogether beneficial for me to hear everything said and would recommend it to anyone willing to learn...

There are two areas where previous experience prompted me to do a couple things different than the Dumble way. I'm certainly a rookie at the ODS build so I don't claim to be smarter that HAD or any of you... just seen a few things done differently and in my build they turned out good.

1) Heater Wiring - Before the ODS, I hadn't seen the heater wires stick straight up from the tubes. I didn't have a kit or instructions for my build so I just wired up my heaters the way I've learned from other veteran builders. After the fact I learned about the Dumble way. I left mine as they were knowing that I might have to change them later. In the end my amp is working really well and I'm disinclined to change the heater wiring.

2) I ran my HV wires to the OPT down against the chassis. I ran my speaker leads above the gap in between the power supply board and the main circuit board. This is more calculated than maybe it seems at a glance. I wanted the speaker wires away from the HV wires and just for good measure had them run 90 degrees to the HV wires feeding the main board. I didn't cut off the extra speaker wire taps but just weaved them in with the one speaker output I used.

As I said, the amp is working really well and I have no hum or wierd stuff. In fact I am quite pleased with the way it behaves now. Is there any reason why the heater wire layout or the path of my speaker wires would adversely affect the tone of the amp?

Just a curiosity on my part...

rj

[Bob-I]

Excellent job. Looks clean and I bet she sounds great.

One unique thing HAD did, was to run plate and cathode wores parallel, touching. I learned from reading general lead dress posts on many focums that this was a bad, however I found that on my amps the tone smoothed out a tad. On another forumites amp it was like night and day. Mushy and undefined to tight and crisp, just by moving these wires. Go figure.

[heisthl]

If it works and sounds good you did it right. The only reason to put the heater wires up in the air is to leave chassis floor space for wire runs along the rear panel and no "crossing over" or "crossing under" wiring around the tube sockets. Personally if I have a choice I keep the OT HV wires on the floor as well as the OT secondary wires. One easy way to accomplish this is to plan the 2 entrance hole's placement for these leads to have minimum inside the chassis distance and separation of primary and secondary wires (one thing the old Fender's did very well).