New amp complete and a question

[oldhousescott]

Hi all, I finally got my Express "inspired" amp (not quite a true clone) finished. The headshell was made by a local cabinet maker. The chassis is a Reverend Hellhound I got on closeout from Joe Naylor. PT is Edcor, OT and choke are NOS Stancor's (the choke is switchable with the 1k resistor). Board set by Dana. On the main board, I had to snap off the turrets and put new ones in on the other side since my head is configured right to left. Sockets, hardware, etc. from Hoffman. I drew the plates in Corel and Jeanne at BNP lasers made them. Thanks for all the great info on this forum!

Pictures aren't too good, but here they are:

cabinet front
chassis front
chassis rear
chassis guts
preamp section
power supply
pots

This thing sounds exactly as has been describe here. It has a lot of gain, but is still articulate. The only issue I am having is there is a slight "swirling" sound at very high gains. It sounds almost like a faint auto-wah, particularly noticeable on heavy low notes. Using JJ 6V6's, B+ is about 440, I've set the bias at ~22mA per cathode.

Any thoughts folks?

[Allynmey]

Beautiful Built Scott! I really like the use of Stancors and the clean look!

Allyn

[lastwinj]

good job!!

germ

[doctord02]

Beautiful build.

As to your question; is it possible you might be getting some interaction from your output wiring and your first preamp tube? Just seems a tad close for my liking... Tho it could just as easily not be the problem at all...

[philmanatee]

That's pretty sweet! I really like the cloth wire among all the other great details, nice work. Phil

[keithrick]

Wow, Very nice build!!! Congrats!

[oldhousescott]

is it possible you might be getting some interaction from your output wiring and your first preamp tube? Just seems a tad close for my liking... Tho it could just as easily not be the problem at all...

They are closer than I would have liked myself, but the chassis was already drilled for the output jacks in those locations, and I wanted to reuse as much as I reasonably could. I suppose I figured "if it worked for Reverend, it will work for me". Oh well. I could try to go up and over with the output jack wiring, perhaps that will help, or maybe as you said, that's not the problem at all.

Anyway, thanks again guys for the kind words and especially thanks to Omar for hosting this place.