First power up problem... (Solved)

[martin manning]

48mA isn't excessive for the plate voltage you have, but hotter than most here would like, I think. Right now you have 0.048x440=21W, or 21/30=70%, and the screen current is in there too, if you're measuring cathode current. For now I'd swap the ones with the lowest and the highest idle current (V4 and V6) to balance the two sides.

[butwhatif]

You're there, cool-

[Chris Brown]

Wow everything works and it sounds amazing... best sounding amp I've ever played... thanks to everyone for the help.

I have 5 (yeah 5) gigs this week ... I'm going to go ahead and put this thing to work and make sure it's solid. I'm not looking forward to carrying a backup amp for a week or two though lol. We host a wednesday jam and I'm so looking forward to showing this thing off!

I have a set of amalfitano SPs sitting on my desk and hopefully I can find time to drop them in one of my strats tomorrow... I assume they're going to play well with this amp... I have his svl set and it sounds great through the amp... the sp is hotter... that should be even nicer.


I had jjs in the preamp but I swaped them out for tungsols which were quieter and a less brittle sounding. For the power tubes I swapped the winged Cs back in and ditched the fender branded gt junk... I balanced them among each side as martin suggested. The seds are a big improvement over the gts... much warmer.

Again, thanks everyone!!

Best, CB

[butwhatif]

GTs are the worst. JJs are too bright for me. I like GE, RCA, Telefunken, Sylvania, Mullard, which also last near forever. Tung Sol 5881.