More sag please... Weber Copper Caps?

[cdc3jj]

Took my 5e3 to practice last night and it sagged all over my shoes. Sounded incredible. I feel like that's something I'm not getting from my Ceriatone HRM BM. I tried the Robben Ford mod with a 500ohm 10w resistor but really couldn't tell a difference. I know the tube rectifiers make the old tweedies sag, and I read about Weber's copper caps (when I should have been practicing no doubt) and now my wheels are turning again. Does anyone have experience with these things? How they work and which ones might work well with my amp? It's the 50w. I thought I would ask here before emailing Nik or Weber. Thanks

Here's a link to the cap info... http://www.webervst.com/ccap.html#FAQ

[rfgordon]

The Weber Copper Cap rectifier is solid state diodes, a power resistor, and a thermistor. They have been known to self-destruct.

The key to getting true sag out of any amp is to run the snot out of it--that's just not possible for most of us mortals with an amp that runs more than about 15 watts.

However, many people mistake sustain for sag, and they ain't the same. If you listen so some of Buddy Guys recordings, his Bassman sounds like it's barely keeping up--on the verge of "coughing out." That's true sag that can feed sustain. On the other hand, the 11-beat sustained note in Santana's Abraxis recording of Europa is harmonic feedback. His Boogie Mark I can sing for days, but it can't sag.

If an amp uses a tube rectifier, more sag can be had by carefully choosing the recto tube. There are lots more out there than are in current production. Consider their voltage drop, current capacity and whether their cathode is directly or indirectly heated. All that impacts the behavior of the amp's power supply.

[d95err]

Took my 5e3 to practice last night and it sagged all over my shoes. Sounded incredible. I feel like that's something I'm not getting from my Ceriatone HRM BM. I tried the Robben Ford mod with a 500ohm 10w resistor but really couldn't tell a difference. I know the tube rectifiers make the old tweedies sag, and I read about Weber's copper caps (when I should have been practicing no doubt) and now my wheels are turning again. Does anyone have experience with these things? How they work and which ones might work well with my amp? It's the 50w. I thought I would ask here before emailing Nik or Weber. Thanks

Here's a link to the cap info... http://www.webervst.com/ccap.html#FAQ

Checkout Kevin O'Connor's sag (or Sustain) kits:

http://www.londonpower.com/catalog/prod ... ucts_id=81
They can make your poweramp compress as much as you want at virtually any volume.

[cdc3jj]

I had never heard of london power. Just spent half the afternoon trolling around their site. Pretty cool... Which of the sus kits would I need for the ceriatone?

From their site:
SUS-1 can be used with any non-Power Scaled fixed-biased amplifier.

SUS-2 can be used with any cathode-biased amplifier, regardless of whether the amp is Power Scaled.

SUS-3 is for fixed-biased amplifiers fitted with Power Scaling.

I'm thinking sus-2. Are these pretty easy to install? I'm sure they have a layout, I'm just not clear on where I would put it in the amp. Thanks for the link. Wheels are turning steady now.

[cdc3jj]

After more london surfing...

Is the line buffer like a dumble-ator?
http://www.londonpower.com/catalog/prod ... ucts_id=66

And could their stand-alone preamps be turned into pedals?

I have to stop before my head explodes...

[greiswig]

After more london surfing...

Is the line buffer like a dumble-ator?
http://www.londonpower.com/catalog/prod ... ucts_id=66

And could their stand-alone preamps be turned into pedals?

I have to stop before my head explodes...

I'm using a version of their old all-tube effects loop with serial/parallel switching on my D'lite build, and have the same on my Bad Cat. I can't compare it to a Dumbleator, but I like it just fine and it's better than the Ironsounds to my ears.

I've forgotten the name of the owner of LP, but he's a decent guy and helpful if you need it.

[dartanion]

Three things really play into the 5E3 having glorious saggy singing sustain.

Low filtering
Cathode Biased
Saggy 5Y3 with low B+

I guess that's four things!

Yes! Four things!

Be careful and aware of the 5E3 flatulence.

A Bluesmaster type amp is fixed biased, stiffly filtered, SS rectified, and high B+ (in relative terms). That said, a Bluesmaster should sing easily, but it isn't going to mush like a 5E3.

[cdc3jj]

Oh yeah man. I'm not trying to turn the HRM into a 5e3. I already have one of those. I was just looking for a way to get more sag out of it.

[Structo]

Not sure how much sag you will get from solid state.
You could always install a tube rectifier and low filtering to get what you want.
But then it really wouldn't be an ODS amp.

[mlp-mx6]

Are you *sure* that sag is what you're after?

[M Fowler]

The 5E3 doesn't have much head room, the preamp distorts early, the 5Y3 limits the voltage and the output section starts to break up pretty early now that doesn't sound like rectifier sag.

Take that Fender 5B6 PTP amp I built with octal pre that sucker sounds fantastic right out of the chute with low volume sustain. But the trade off is your not going to bring the house down unless its miked and your only style of music for the night is playing blues. Which isn't all that bad to me.

What the hell exactly is sag (rectifer) sag (transformer)? Resistor based sag such as in some 18w Marshall type builds?

[cdc3jj]

I'm fairly certain. I know it's not sustain. Although I love sustain I'm looking for the slightly softened attack and nice bloom. Seems like that's more on the compression side of things. I wish I had more education to speak in better technical terms. All I can really do is compare it with other brands. It's the two-rock jet kind of sound. Or Bogner Duende. It's the youtube clips of OTS's and so forth. I'm not looking for a particular dumble sound, although a lot of dumble's and clones I've heard clips of have the bloom factor.

I'm not concerned about digging into my amp. It is afterall, just an amp. I could order another one tomorrow. I'm much more concerned with learning what makes the sounds I like and figuring out how different parts of tube amps work together to reach the end result of "good tone" or more importantly a sound that makes me happy when it comes out of the speaker (if that's possible). I'm really interested in trying the sag concept, whether by installing a tube, or a cap or LP's sus kit thing. If it's lame I can take it out and try something else.

I fully realize that noobs can flood forums with questions about things that pro's can answer in their sleep... and I'm a noob when it comes to this stuff. But hopefully before this is all over I'll have a better idea about what I'm going for when it comes to building an amp around a tone.

So, all that said... How would I go about installing a rectifier tube? I was checking out the BM layout on Nik's site and I'm wondering where it would go in the circuit. Is it the 345's? Woud it go before or after the secondary board on the left? Or somewhere else entirely?

[M Fowler]

The tube rectifiers are limited to the 50-60w range two power tube amps not the BM-100 for which diode rectifers are needed.

The rectifer tube needs to be placed near the power transformer so you'll need room there. The best thing to do if your going to buy a chassis is get the 100w chassis and use one of the extra two power tube holes for the tube rectifier. You can also put in a heavy duty switch to go between SS and tube rectifier.

[Structo]

How about using a compressor pedal?

I have a home made Ross compressor that sounds almost like sagging when the sustain knob is turned up.

Sag to me is when you dig into a big chord or note and the volume dies just a little bit on attack, usually because the filtering can't keep up with the demand, causing the voltage to drop slightly on the attack.

[bluesfendermanblues]

I've forgotten the name of the owner of LP, but he's a decent guy and helpful if you need it.

Kevin O'Conner?