Bay Area tech for Brown Note?

[docmh]

Can any body recommend a tech in the SF bay area who could help me with my Brown Note D'lite? I'm in Santa Rosa.
Thanks

[selloutrr]

contact steve at modern vintage.

[Mark]

What is wrong with your D'Lite?

I had a look at your posts and there seems to be instances of finger trouble.

[docmh]

I have a few issues. I bought a Brown Note 22/33 from a guy who built it as a kit. He had an electronics background and the build kooks really neat. He sent me the layout with the amp and all looks good to me. The tone on the clean channel is very bright and nasally unlike some clips I saw on you tube. I have to run the treble and mids real low 9:00 oclock and the bass almost all the all the way up to get a mellow tone. This is with a semi-hollow guitar with the neck p/u.
1) Lately while trying to change tubes the V4 power tube didn't light up, After jiggling the tube, the tube came on and I biased it, but the amp doesn't have the same headroom as before, real dirty at 9:00 oclock and the master up. I see no loose parts or breaks on the tube sockets.
2) I was told I could get 33 watts with 6L6's by running an 8 ohm cab at 16 ohms. This would give me the proper 4ohms to run 6L6 tubes. The OT is supposed to be 35 watts. Because I can't get any answers from Brown Note, I'm not sure this is true and I wanted to see if I can measure wattage to see what OT I have.
I'm talking clean channel here, no OD or PAB on. I switched them to see if they work and they seem to work fine.
What did you mean by finger trouble?

[Mark]

I was making reference to the swooshing sound where an effects pedal was the problem.

I'd post a few photo's of the build.

[docmh]

You're right about that swooshing sound problem, that was a bonehead move on my part.

[Mark]

Actually, I saw no use in laying any blame as this sort of thing happens to everyone. It's just a matter digging down to the root of the problem.

The D'Lite I encountered, had a lot of bad solder joints which were an issue. The earth for the power tubes was also a problem for this amp, as this caused the amp to stop working. I decided to drill an extra hole and have a dedicated earth for the output tubes.

Pictures and audio would be helpful, though I suppose you'd still have to be handy with a soldering.

[ER]

Yeah sounds like a grounding issue, check all the ground points and make sure they're to bare metal especially on the tone pots and any connection to the chassis (especially on a powdercoated chassis), it takes a lot of heat to get the pot body to ground well.

If you have a voltage chart and meter that's the place to start on each of the tubes to see if you're in the ball park. I check 1) voltage to tubes (listen for healthy buzz on each stages plate going from output to input if the signal drops make a note of where), 2) signal grounds, 3) trace signal path. Eliminate what's working right and you'll get to the problem.

I'm thinking about coming down to SR the end of the month (25-27th), if you don't have it figured out by then shot me a PM, sometime two heads are better than one. I always learn twice as much from troubleshooting amps as from building them.

Take care, Erik