recommendations for a "twin" in a small package ?

[iknowjohnny]

Thanks to some people here, one in particular and you know who you are, i'm done with my nearly 2 year experiment that is now the marshall i always wanted. So it's time to start a new project that is the total opposite and i've been wanting to do for a long time.

A fender blackface twin is IMO the ultimate clean fender tone. Nothing i have played is the same. I want to build a baby twin. that is, a small amp that can be 15 watts or whatever, and i don't care about the fact it will distort when cranked because i won't be cranking it. So keep in mind that the amp will only be played at volumes below the output's point of distortion. But the key is i want that twin tone as close a possible. so is there a homebrew out there dedicated to this very same objective, and if so can anyone point me to a schematic? I believe the preamp should be exactly like the twin, preferably the one i know and love which is a reissue. I suppose you'll all say a old blackface original is better, but i imagine they are very close. So an amp with a output thats small but clear and pristine sounding married to a twin pre is what i want. I guess i can just build a twin pre and marry it to any known good el84 or 6v6 PA, or how about a single ended 6L6? And whatever the build you may suggest, what PT and OT?

Any info, thoughts or schematics you can give me to help me decide would be great. As long as i end up with a truly twin like spongy snappy clean and not a blues junior of something bland like that i will be happy. I'd hate to go to all the trouble and end up with a blues junior or such. they sound good, but not remotely close to a twin's clean. thanks all.

[M Fowler]

So what your saying is you want a Blackface Princeton or Deluxe at 15-22watts?

[iknowjohnny]

No, i want a amp about that size but sounds like a twin.

[DonMoose]

With just a cursory glance, the difference in preamp that I see between the AB763 TR and the AB763 Deluxe Reverb are that the TR has mid knobs where the DR is fixed resistors.

If I didn't want the 'Norm' Channel, I'd think about packaging an AB763 DR in a princeton-sized chassis and cab (12" speaker, though).

[Structo]

Funny, the thing that makes a Twin a Twin besides the pair of 12" speakers is the output section and transformer......
That is called head room and that is why they are so clean.

[iknowjohnny]

To me they don't sound a lot alike, so i guess i need to find out what power section will give the closest sound when combined with the same preamp. Again, maybe a single ended 6L6. But i guess i need to post this everywhere and hopefully someone will have gone the same route and found the answer.

[Jana]

I second the blackface Princeton with a 12" speaker. Best little amp there is.

As for a twin--a twin is a twin because of the 4-6L6 tubes and the massive power on tap. Drop it down to a pair of 6v6's and you don't have a twin, you have a princeton or deluxe.

Compare the schematics for a Blackface DR and TR and notice how similar the preamps are. Compare the power amps--there is where the difference is.

The Princeton or Deluxe is what you want. The Twin Reverb is what your chiropractor wants you to have.

[iknowjohnny]

I guess thats the way i'm going to have to go. BUT, i posted this knowing chances are i won't find it possible but HOPED maybe someone like i said went down the same road and had some success. I'm a big believer in the power amp being where the majic is. But i was hoping there was a PA design that had been designed to sound as close as possible to a twin with a twin's preamp. With a million variations of every amp know to man being talked up and built all over the internet i'm surprised no one has come up with something like this. To me the twin has a incredible clean that i don't hear in other fenders. But i have never played the princetons. I have played DR's and i don't care much for them. But Jana, you've come thru with some good advice so far, so i doubt you're far off here. I'll look into this. Any suggestions for good sounding iron? If not i'll likely go the hammond route, as i seem to have luck with those.I have a 18 watt i built that i converted to 6L6 and has the heyboer 18 tranny set. I wouldn't mind rebuilding that into a princeton....is that doable? The blackface is single ended, right? But is there a way to use that OT for a single ended 6V6 amp?

By the way, i'm still just floored by my "marshall" since i made that change to the cathode on V1B. It's just incredible, and i now find i can tweak it to perfection because once the sound is right, fine tuning really allows you to make it perfect. Where as before it was always to try and rectify issues. I've tuned it further to the point i wonder if it's possible to sound better. It's just smooth as butter but with crunch at the same time, perfectly balanced, fluid, transparent, and in high gain it just sustains forever and quickly takes off into the high harmonic with ease when you hold a note. It's a thing of beauty ! now i just need a gorgeous clean fender to go with it.

[M Fowler]

I'm not talking about a single ended Princeton or Deluxe I am talking about a push-pull 6V6 amp that is a holy grail of amps. The twin sounds great because it is four 6L6 with 2 12inch speakers for a crystal clean sound sought after by many especially country pickers. The Bakersfield sound.

I'm quite sure that you are not going to get the sound your thinking of with any smaller amp, but you will get a good amp in that size package.

[iknowjohnny]

I'm not talking about a single ended Princeton or Deluxe I am talking about a push-pull 6V6 amp that is a holy grail of amps. The twin sounds great because it is four 6L6 with 2 12inch speakers for a crystal clean sound sought after by many especially country pickers. The Bakersfield sound.

I'm quite sure that you are not going to get the sound your thinking of with any smaller amp, but you will get a good amp in that size package.

Which amp are you speaking of? I know theres one princeton at schematic heaven thats push/pull. Is that what you mean or are you speaking about a custom design? Schematic?

[M Fowler]

The AB673 Deluxe

[iknowjohnny]

been thinking about this, and i think what i may do is start a new turret board for the 6V6 amp i have and build it into a quasi fender using the twin pre and leave the PA as is till it's done. Then if it sounds good i'll leave it. If not i will convert it to fixed bias (it's CB now) and start copying the deluxe as much as possible from the PI on. The amp has a very nice sounding PA as is, but the pre is a experiment in high gain gone wrong. It was the predecessor to my current el34 amp. So you know it's been thru the mill. Since i'm not going to get what i was hoping for i'd rather convert what i have than start from scratch.

[Tinkerer]

Just a thought, but it may help you in your quest based on your original idea. I've built a BFT, and in the testing stages of diagnosing a strange noise, I plucked two power tubes and played it. The tone was no different even though I had less power, so why not build a BFT using two 6L6s instead of four using the same PT as for four tubes which would give you more reserve in the PT, and I'm sure there is an OT from some other amp which could be substituted to correct the impedance mismatch which would arise if you were to use the original BFT OT... assuming you didn't buy a multi tap OT which could be set to 8 Ohms.

Hope this helps
Tinkerer

[Bear]

Last idea isn't bad -- there is something to an overrated OT that goes towards preserving a big-headroom, high-power sound and feel. You lose the option of getting the pushed sound, but if you're not looking at it, no loss.

All the same, I used to have a silverface Bandmaster Reverb. It had one of the "small" OT's for it's output configuration, a pair of 6L6, and the conventional wisdom is you need the bigger variety for headroom. I really had to get it drummer-and-full-band loud to get it to break up, and that still needed a clean boost up front. Another element was that I was using really clean, loud speakers, JBL K110's. Get something like a JBL or an EV in the combo and you take speaker break-up out as a factor.

FWIW, when tinnitus started hitting, Eric Johnson tried replacing Twins with Deluxes for his clean sound and he said he found he liked their sound better.

[mlp-mx6]

I am not intending to rain on your parade, but I think what you're seeking is going to be VERY hard to find. However, I do have another thought. (though I'm probably completely off-base)

As others have mentioned, a BIG part of the tone you seem to be seeking is the big power section. And it isn't that you're pushing more watts, necessarily. At an equivalent volume level the difference in feel between my 20W ODS and my 50W ODS is not that significant. The difference between either of those and my 100W ODS *IS* significant. There's just something about that power section that *feels* different.

I wonder if it is less the size of the power section and more the paralleled power tubes on each "side." IOW, having 2 tubes per side seems to do something to the feel that just isn't the same as only having 1 per side. See the AC30/Rocket as another example. Everyone I've read about in the Trainwreck section here who has tried to cut out 2 of the 4 power tubes (half-power switch) says that what changed was not the volume so much as the feel. Almost to a person they all preferred the 4-output-tube sound/feel.

All of this to "think out loud" that if you have a 4-power-tube output section, even of very small tubes, perhaps that will help with the amp feel you are seeking. Taken to an extreme, I wonder what 2 12AT7s or 12AU7s would sound like - if you paralleled the two halves for either "side" of the output signal... It would certainly be low power (relatively).