Gut shot of Torres "Custom Build"

[jasjr]

All these pics inspired me.
I made spaghetti for dinner tonight!

[renshen1957]

mhartman- The amp actually is fairly quiet considering how it looks on the inside. But tonewise- flat and lifeless is being kind. Must have something to do with the 10 miles of shielded cable runs and the suppression caps stuck all over the circuit.

Hi,

There was a Torres Engineering store (a little larger than a closet) in Santa Barbara, CA on outer State Street for a brief while. It had a few hand outs on how to hot rod a guitar. The information was good as to guitars, they had kits (much of which could be found in guitar books at the Public Library) and the amp mods were advertised there, too, if you shipped them into the main office.

Later, I saw the amp kits and mods online. I thought of building one of these amps. So I performed some due diligence prior to laying out some cash.

The reviews online I read at the time, when Harmony Central was (emphasis on past tense) an easy place to do research locate reviews from actual users of services scared me off quick. Dan sure knew how to P.O. people. Especially those who had the bad luck to have Modifications or repairs performed (the ones got their amps back) in shop, or had purchased amps or amp kits from this company.

(Now HC purges its negative reviews and only prints 5* reviews for their biggest advertisers. But they haven't spared Torres Engineering by any margin, but have given poor reviews (in the text) 5* ratings for value.)

Best regards,

Steve

[Cliff Schecht]

Looks like Johnny Winter might have had an amp or 2 modified by Torres!!..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXi0o5RiZg8



Tony

Nice, hadn't seen that one!!

[kkregsg]

Yeah, the more some of these guys keep saying they are a genius and the best, the more I edge away from them. At least if my amps sound bad, I know who to point the finger at.

My brother sent an amp to a self-professed genius Amp Murderer, er I mean Modder, and he got back a bent chassis and an amp that sounded like the north end of a southbound mule. When he called to complain, he was informed that he just wasn't a good enough player to appreciate the magical awesomeness that the hack had bestowed upon him. Clear case of ego poisoning.

[kkregsg]

5150.

[talbany]

IMO..The only guy's that have any business doing major modifications on a PCB amp are the ones who either designed and MAYBE! the ones that built it (only so many times you can put an iron on those boards)..

Minor tone surgery on PCB to take out some bass or maybe add a little gain and do some small tweaks MAYBE!, if it's a well designed/Made board..
I normally refuse to mod PCB amps unless I know the circuit front to back and have done several SUCCESSFULLY!.. The other ones like the older Fenders and Marshall's can be good platforms for mods BUT! I consider even for some of these old hand wired gems sac-relig..I normally tell them to sell the amp and I'll build them something else..

IMO a good sounding amp is designed for a certain sound (clean or OD) so a mod like turning a clean into an OD doesn't really work unless you do Major surgery,and visa vers for an OD amp (everything affects everything else)..Especially in a cascade type amp like a Dumble,clean feeds the OD you really need to know how that circuit works,otherwise you end up in worse shape..If the amp already sounds bad I doubt seriously a few mods will turn it into a good sounding amp!

I can't tell you how many of those old classic fenders I've had to put back to spec because someone has modded it into something it was just not meant to be..I can't really remember any of those amps sounding very good although I can see what it was they were trying to do!..
I used to hold these mod sessions for players to come in and do a few changes but only with them there and to do minor things..This actually worked out pretty well
..Sending an amp off to be modded by someone who claims to turn your already built amp into something great or better is to me a giant risk!..Tone is just really too subjective for that method to work.A good tech already knows this.

Tony

[gui_tarzan]

Here is my mess by Dan himself.

I'd be embarrassed to send something out like that. No, wait, I wouldn't send something back out to a customer like that. Holy cow.

[gui_tarzan]

Wow, I can't believe he's still in business. The more I read about him and others like him the more I'm glad I can work on my own stuff.

[Structo]

Isn't he sick or dead or something?

[gui_tarzan]

According to his site he had some health problems but is recovering and "never went out of business".

He even says what his illness is and goes into great detail about it.

[amplifiednation]

This would only be better if those builders used just one single color of wire

[xtian]

Today, on "Built by Bubba," we visit a gentleman who tries to solve his bad hum issues by using long runs of copper tubing as shielding:

[img2448]http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/338010IMG31631.jpg[/img]

Sorry, I know it's not cool to make fun of the other kids, but this one made my jaw drop. Here's the thread if you want to follow it.

[rp]

maybe it's water cooling???

[ToneMerc]

Today, on "Built by Bubba," we visit a gentleman who tries to solve his bad hum issues by using long runs of copper tubing as shielding:

[img2448]http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/338010IMG31631.jpg[/img]

Sorry, I know it's not cool to make fun of the other kids, but this one made my jaw drop. Here's the thread if you want to follow it.

Dayum is the red wire 14AWG? Looks like he used a pound of solder on the terminals. I'll say it, that kid rides the amp build short bus.

TM

[xtian]

"Shortbus Amplification Corps (SAC)" -- my new brand!