Ghia to spitfire

[paisley_tele]

I started out with the ao35 I turned that to a Ghia but I didn't care much for the thin to full kinda tone knob. So with some parts on had I used kenwatts layout and a few mods of my own to build a spit fire. I use a 5y3 Rec and the original Hammond ao35 filter can. I use the resistor between each node on the capcan. Then made the board with the ao35 board. I used the ceramic cap .02 instead of the .01 it called for I didn't have any so I used what I had. I also didn't have the 47k resistor so I plugged in a 56k. I use the 20uf bypass caps but thou they were suppose to be 25uf25v I will switch them tommorrow to see if there's a dirrefance. Also used a 130r instead of the one it calls for 120 5w. It's to late to play it but I did turn it on and strum a few notes it's dead silent no buzzing at all even when volumes all the way up. Sounds a little muffled so I am going to put a 120pf across the volume lugs suppose to be a treble bleed.

[M Fowler]

I didn't care for the Ghia either but it still sells quite well.

The Spitfire is a great little amp, brighter then the Marshall 18w and the parallel first position adds some gain.

[Darkbluemurder]

Sounds a little muffled so I am going to put a 120pf across the volume lugs suppose to be a treble bleed.

I usually hate bright caps on volume controls but the Spitfire definitely needs one.

Cheers Stephan

[paisley_tele]

tp me it should like poop. its fizzy distortion and no headroomi like the tone stack better than the ghias but the ghia had a vox vibe going on . it wasnt clean enuff on the volumes. so i am going to desgin some things from alll three stangray included and see what i end up with .

[M Fowler]

The Stangray gets its clean head room from the EF86 in first position gain of 200 verses 100 12Ax7 type. The Stangray get's it tone with a simple tone control and the cut control. It stays clean right up to 2-3 on the dial.

The Spitfire gets good gain in first position because of the parallel 12Ax7. It is only a 15-18watt amp but mine the Ken Watts version works very well for small venues. The Lightning breaks up way to soon for me but not my Spitfire. By decreasing the plate resistor from 220k to say 120k will reduce the gain in V1.

With the Ghia as long as you don't adjust the tone control mine will stay clean but once you turn that tone control the conjunctive filter big muff pi circuit adds the buzz saw distortion.

[Darkbluemurder]

tp me it should like poop. its fizzy distortion and no headroomi like the tone stack better than the ghias but the ghia had a vox vibe going on . it wasnt clean enuff on the volumes. so i am going to desgin some things from alll three stangray included and see what i end up with .

Do you mean the Spitfire? If so I was not thrilled either about this amp. It is not really clean but also not really gainy.

I have never built a Ghia and I never will. I tried one once and found it to be painful to listen to - there was something in the low mids that put a lot of pressure to my ears.

There are in fact many options to build an amp with two noval preamp tubes and two power tubes. What kind of sound are you after?

Cheers Stephan

[M Fowler]

I have never built a Ghia and I never will. I tried one once and found it to be painful to listen to

Stephan that was a good laugh thanks, and I agree I did not like it, neither the real Z amp or my own creation. I may make it into another 18w amp.

I really like the Spitfire and got a lot of compliments about that amp on one gig using a Fender Lonestar Strat and Epiphone 1-12 cabinet. I used a pedal board with Boss Metal, distortion, and gain pedals. Also used a Hermida overdrive to cover everything I needed.

[Darkbluemurder]

I did not mean to say the Spitfire was a bad amp - it is not by any means. I just happen to like other designs better for getting cleaner tones and overdrive tones that are not so much dependent on cranking the amp. In addition I built the amp with 6V6s which distort less than EL84s. I liked the Spitfire tone with everything turned up full but that was pretty loud. This may be an interesting design with lower power tubes, e.g. a 12AT7 push pull stage like the East Amplification Studio, to get the loudness in check. Obviously such an amp will not have any clean headroom worth mentioning ...
Or do a Spitfire version with 6BM8 tubes (aka ECL82 - a combined pentode/triode) - that could be done with only three tubes in total for an output of 10-12 watts.

Cheers Stephan