Hi Guys, just finished a 100w built. It's for a forumite;Johan.
He chose the trannies which are TAD(germany)and they sound great!
For the relay I used a pcb transformer from a company called Block.de . Works good!
I only had 4 hours to play this beast and it sounds superb, one of the best sounding builts I did.
Johan also sent me some GT STR 387 from Mr A. Pittman. Unfortunatly Mr. Pittman is using a whole different approach when selling matched quartets. Tubes were 16mA(!) apart from each other when biasing, which kind of make it hard to balance the amp properly. Other than that Johan sent some very nice RCA 12ax7 which sound cool at v1 and v2. I used a balanced JJ at v3.
beautiful build Erwin! Can you be more specific to the qualities you are liking from the #102 and compare it to your popular Bluesmaster Non-HR build? I see there is no Dumbleator and others have commented the #102 is bright without it.
I made it as close as possible to #102 layout on this forum, which is a little different to the Ceriatone one.
#102 compared to the BM-NonHRM: #102 is a very fat mid aggressive lead tone based amp. I would call the Bm NOn-HRm more mellow.
I tested it only with a dlator but it isn't shown on the picture. Johan has a Catulator which is the Custom by Cougar version of the dlator.
Big thanks to Erwin for helping me out with this amp.
I needed help and although he's in the Netherlans and I'm in Sweden he said ok. I got photos throughout the process which was very straight forward.
You probably see this as a lesser amp as it says Ceriatone. I don't care. I got a stripped down package without tubes, transformers and head cab. Transformers are from TAD which are supposed to be Mojo (Heyboer). Not sure they all are Heyboers though. Twin Reverb OT and PT. Big beasts! This head weights a ton!
Head cab are from Tube Town in Germany. Dirk makes awesome cabs. I have the 2x12 Dumble cab too....very much like the Two Rock Signature cab.
Any idea what to make of the Groove Tubes matched power tubes. Erwin says, two are 41mA and two are 26mA biased at 455V. I've checked with Aspen and he says they got their own way of matching tubes. Dynamic matching instead of static matching or something. GT has matched tubes like this for decades. Someone must have experienced this before.
I haven't recived the amp yet but Erwin says I have something special to look forward too. Can't wait to try it out!
I'll use it together with my Custom by Cougar Catulator (2 knob D-lator).
Sounds like you got two pairs, one soft and one hard. With a single bias pot you have one pair that will break up easily and the other pair may not break up at all.
If they were within 5 mA I might buy it, but 15 mA?? I don't see it.
Unless they are all the same Gm, which seems unlikely with a current spread that big.
Like Dave points out current draw and transconductance are 2 different things..Transconductance ratings are marked on the tube 1-10 on the GT's
Dumble amps are designed to run a more balanced (AC and DC) output section the reason for the trimmer on the phase inverter.. I doubt you will achieve this with those tubes operating on opposite sides of the OT primary..
Another problem with the quad being mismatched that wide is they don't wear evenly so they go further out of whack and shortens the quad's life..
Tony
Last edited by talbany on Tue Mar 08, 2011 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
" The psychics on my bench is the same as Dumble'"
Thanks. We will see what happens. Aspen tries to find another set to match one of the duets I have.
Can't I use one tube from each set on either side? One 41 and one 26 on each side?
I think they were rated at #4 on the GT scale
dogears wrote:My tubes were all matched that I got from Aspen. I think there is a mistake at hand. There should not be more than a few ma difference at idle.
Sorry to hear about this..... Good news is you can sell them for a profit, I think.... In pairs.
I saw Aspen's reply on this matter; he's perfectly comfortable with this. I'm puzzled really
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