I have a donor amp to transform into a D'lite or? Ideas?

[den58]

Hi,
I have an Allen Old Flame I build from a kit a few years ago and it pains me to see it sitting around, but it's not right for me. The clean is pretty good but not anything to set it apart from a Fender and when pushed, the overdrive, I think, is just not real nice. I can remember building it and hearing Dumble-like sounds in my head, though at that time, I had no idea what a Dumble was. I did know who Robben Ford and Larry Carlton were, however . I have since built an 18 watter from scratch with great results, thanks to the terrific folks at the 18 watt web site. I am, however, still a real rookie with amp building, but I'm pretty good with a nice layout I think I'm going to transform this amp into a D'lite. Would the trannies be suitable? I believe the power transformer is 340-0-340, 200 ma, 6.3V @5A, 5V@3A. The output is a 4,000 ohm primary with 4 and 8 ohm secondaries, if I'm not mistaken. Thanks for your comments in advance, I truly appreciate you help and ideas.
Dennis

[Funkalicousgroove]

You should be able to re-wire the tonestack on that and get pretty dumble-esque tones. I had a ToneSavor I did that to a few years ago, with a Boost pedal in front it sang!!

[Bob-I]

I'd think it would be a great donor. You can take one of 2 approaches. You can mod the tone stack and PI to match the Dumble clean then use an OD pedal like a Zen to get the OD tone, OR you can gut it and make a 100% Dumble clone using some of the layouts over on the files page, possibly Norm's Bassman conversion. It simply depends on how aggressive you want to be.

[den58]

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm leaning toward gutting it, but what would do I do about the tranformers? Would it make it easier to get a new set of tranformers? I think I would like to make it a D'lite. With a D'lite can one switch between 6V6's and 6L6's with just a rebias? What are correct spec. trannies for a D'lite? If I have the correct transformers I'm pretty good at following a layout. Again, thanks for your time!
Dennis

[Normster]

I would keep the transformers. Moss and I tried the Allen OPT in one of our early prototypes and it's a very fine piece of iron. The PT will work with 6V6's if you stick to JJ's (which sound pretty good). Better yet, stick with the tube rectifier and swap from 5AR4 to 5U4G when using 6V6's. (I know it sounds like heresy, but Dumble style amp circuits WILL work and sound great with a tube rectifier!)

As for layouts, here's one that you may want to ponder:
http://bad-domain/6V6_ODS/6V6_ODS_full.JPG

Certainly change a few values around to match whatever schematic you're using, but the basic layout should get you moving in the right direction.

[den58]

Thanks Norm! I had lurked here enough to know what a huge resource you are to this forum and was hoping you'd reply. And I really DO want to use the transformers I have as I'd like to avoid putting too much more money into this. Also, I had wondered if I could keep the tube rectifier as it would simplify my rebuild. Who knows, maybe I will have something interesting to report about the sound when finished. Thanks again and I'm sure I'll have many more questions as I get going on this. By the way, I'm right over the hill from you in what is now, snowy Reno.
Dennis