Gut shot of Torres "Custom Build"

[jasjr]

Hello all.
A Torres "Super Texan" was dropped off to me for repair. This amp was brought to me with complaints of a "strange noise" after playing for a few minutes.
It is owned by a local church here, and is played by two different guitarists during services. Their settings are inked on the control panel, and I was quickly able to replicate the noise using the markings as a template.
Found the socket on V1 loose, so I pulled the chassis to tighten it up (which took care of the noise) and found........

[Jana]

About 15 years ago, I worked on a Deluxe Reverb that was owned by a rock star (not going to say who). I must say, the rat's nest wiring theme has improved since then.

[Blackburn]

Ewwww

[Tubetastic]

Image 4 was worrying. Seeing as I have the same socks on right now - thought I was in the shot for a 'mo. LOL

[Teleguy61]

"No user serviceable parts inside"

[lord preset]

Looks fine to me.

BTW the orange thingees are pretty.

[overtone]

very nice


put me right off my tagliatelle

[rp]

This is one case where a quart of potting compound would have helped.

[M Fowler]

My Super Texan amp looks the same except I have a radio shack relay board laying on top of my tone board. It is the worst sounding amp I've ever played through and is out of phase so I run a reversed speaker wire.

[mhartman]

Does it sound good. I'll go for sound over looks every time, but I prefer both.

[Cantplay]

Is one power supply cap installed backwards? 100uf 350V

John

[chopstuck]

Is that an alternative to the Komet coiled wire thingy ?

"Which wire are we supposed to coil ? - HELL COIL A BUNCH !"

"-but it's kinda too hard, I'll do this instead..."



I ordered a SF Super Reverb he modded back in about '94.
Took it out of the box and shipped it back the same day.
I opened it up and, and and...

Electrical tape has no business inside an amplifier.

It was all over the place.
Oh, and it sounded bad - the kind of bad where you know it's not broken it just sounds that bad.
How a Super Reverb could be that midrangy is still a mystery.

Lesson learned.

He did have a nice guitar mid pot mod for $5 back then. Was a little transformer with all but 2 leads clipped off. Kinda cool.
THe amp shipping just about ruined me

[telentubes]

Here's the innards of a Jim Kelly.

[jasjr]

Well- first things first- my Costco socks look awesome!
Ha! Obviously I'm not a photographer!!!

Jana- This thing looks better than the one you saw?
That's scary.

Mark- Sorry to hear he got ahold of your Super. If it looks anything like this it is a shame. Hope you have salvaged something decent out of it. He used to be
local here in San Mateo, and back in the early nineties I stopped in his shop to pick up some tubes. I'd never been in before, and the first thing I saw was a HUGE box of blue caps pulled from Blackface Fenders he modded. Even then I loved the old Fenders and owned a few, so I bought about 20 of them for $10.
I've always thought of how many amps that box of pulls represented, and how many people must be kicking themselves for handing their amps over to this guy. My regret now is I didn't buy the whole box!

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.

Cantplay- Didn't notice anything on the cap. To be honest I tightened up the tube socket, took a few pics and threw it back together. After seeing it, I was hesitant to even touch it.

In a general sense- this thing just rubs me wrong in so many ways. I've worked with my hands all my life, and I always feel that the work you do is a reflection of who you are. This was supposedly built by a professional. My feelings would be different had this been someone's home project. I was an aircraft mechanic for 15 years, and we would have to "sell" our work to an inspector after completion. I always remember an old inspector telling me "If a guy cares enough to make it LOOK good, it usually IS good."
I have found that to be a wise statement over the years.

[Ken Moon]

Aircraft mechanics always seem to make nice amps.