talbany wrote:Apparently these parts sound good to them and their many customers..So what do you do!!
Tony, what about just asking yourself and your customers in regard to your amps, if "these parts sound good to them (you)"? Too simple?
IMO erwin_ve is completely right: to find out what parts will sound best in your amps in a strictly scientific way will IMO be far too expensive and far too time consuming - not only for hobbybuilders but for any boutique amp builder, too.
So what's wrong with just trial and error, asking friends, asking customers, asking your family, asking other boutique amp builders etc.?
It's IMO an ongoing process anyway, what's the hottest OT today will perhaps be looked upon as shitty crap in 20 years. Perhaps the "facts" of today will turn out as the greatest nonsens of tomorrow - vice versa.
BTW: Any hobbybuilder should perhaps be aware that the moment of the completion of his personal grail amp with the long hunted grail parts may perhaps turn out to be a nightmare made true: A hobbybuilder with the holy grail in his hands is a knight without a quest!
Perhaps it comes down to the tolerances and properties of the parts and what their true values actually are.
The analogy that comes to mind goes back to my hot rod years as a young person interested in squeezing the last bit of power out of a Chevy small block engine.
I had one 283 cui motor that was exceptional.
Sometimes at the factory the right parts would come together and the tolerances and clearances would be just right.
This engine was often accused of being a 327 cui because of the power.
You can't tell from the outside what the bore and stroke is.
Today's engines that are cnc and computer checked have much tighter tolerances so you don't run into that much if at all.
So with an amplifier, using parts that have up to 20% tolerances or more, depending what the actual values and properties are when it is put together may determine whether you have an exceptional amplifier or a boat anchor.
Max wrote:BTW: Any hobbybuilder should perhaps be aware that the moment of the completion of his personal grail amp with the long hunted grail parts may perhaps turn out to be a nightmare made true: A hobbybuilder with the holy grail in his hands is a knight without a quest!
I would think that there is also a danger that the judgement of the result, both by the builder and others, will be colored by the mere knowledge that the exact parts have been hunted down and used in the build!
Good point on the tolerances, Tom. HAD seems to minimize this by using more tightly-toleranced parts than the norm, especially in the case of the Ra's and Rk's, which would help him with understanding where the remaining differences were coming from. It's also well known that other components like transformers were measured and their characteristics recorded.
martin manning wrote:Good point on the tolerances, Tom. HAD seems to minimize this by using more tightly-toleranced parts than the norm
"There WAS overdrive special on Tones...Zap! And possibly Friends...maybe one or two others.
...
His was quite a bit different from the stock version. It used some parts variations that Alexander changed to make it do what Ej wanted it to do."
[I'm not sure which amp the following quote is in reference to, but it might have been the ODS]
"Well...interestingly enough I remember when he got it. Alexander had finished it finally and Ej was playing through it and it wasn't exactly what he had in mind...we were at his old shop in N. Hollywood at Amigo studios if I recall. He listened to Eric's comments and said oh...and he got a little pad out and wrote some things on it and sent Jerry Holmes to Radio Shack...in about 20 minutes after Jerry got back Alex had it up and running...after soldering like crazy...Ej plugged it in and it was like totally Ej...eric said what did you do...??? Alexander basically said.....you like crummy parts... My parts have too close of tolerances for what you are going for so I just got some parts with really sloppy wide tolerances and put them in some of the key places...and he kind of grinned."
So perhaps there aro no "good sounding" and no "bad sounding" parts, but just different players with a different personal taste in regard to the timbre and feel of their amplifiers?
Cheers,
Max
Last edited by Max on Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I remember reading that... It's hard to know exactly what went on there without knowing exactly which parts were changed and whether it was a change in component value due to the wider tolerance of the RS parts, or for example a change in the type of dialectric in a capacitor and its associated temperature coefficient. Then again HAD could simply have been adjusting some component values, and had to resort to getting them from the local RS because he didn't have any of his preferred type and joking about it.
The genius of HAD was that he could define the character of his amps through choice of components. Tony has already remarked on how smooth sounding the piher resistors are... If you don't like a smooth sound, then you wont ever like the sound of these resistors. To me, the amazing thing about no.102 is the complexity of tone created. However, who knows how many times it has been 'tuned'?
martin manning wrote:Good point on the tolerances, Tom. HAD seems to minimize this by using more tightly-toleranced parts than the norm
"There WAS overdrive special on Tones...Zap! And possibly Friends...maybe one or two others.
...
His was quite a bit different from the stock version. It used some parts variations that Alexander changed to make it do what Ej wanted it to do."
[I'm not sure which amp the following quote is in reference to, but it might have been the ODS]
"Well...interestingly enough I remember when he got it. Alexander had finished it finally and Ej was playing through it and it wasn't exactly what he had in mind...we were at his old shop in N. Hollywood at Amigo studios if I recall. He listened to Eric's comments and said oh...and he got a little pad out and wrote some things on it and sent Jerry Holmes to Radio Shack...in about 20 minutes after Jerry got back Alex had it up and running...after soldering like crazy...Ej plugged it in and it was like totally Ej...eric said what did you do...??? Alexander basically said.....you like crummy parts... My parts have too close of tolerances for what you are going for so I just got some parts with really sloppy wide tolerances and put them in some of the key places...and he kind of grinned."
So perhaps there aro no "good sounding" and no "bad sounding" parts, but just different players with a different personal taste in regard to the timbre and feel of their amplifiers?
Cheers,
Max
Th year musta been 1984, here is the Dumble on stage, i remember not seeing this amp on stage just prior to this! @ 3.20 he kicks the tires and lights the FIRE of that thing!
Max, there is some thought that a transformer that is vintage and that has current passed through it for a good length of time sounds better than say a brand new built transformer.
That possibly the structure at the atomic level changes somewhat/ somehow that causes it to be more pleasing to the ear when later utilized in a newer amplifier build.
I don't think there is anyway to quantify that or measure it, just what some people with musically trained ears hear and feel when compared to new "iron".
And why do you think, that these Fender OTs in these amps you're talking about are "used" and not new official replacement parts that some other techs ordered for him?
Because they have Fender stamped on them and can only be ordered by Fender and Shipped to Fender...afaik
I suppose the tech could have ordered them from Fender however I seriously doubt this as this would. Be very expensive..
Tony
Last edited by talbany on Wed Feb 15, 2012 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
" The psychics on my bench is the same as Dumble'"
Tony, I think what Max is getting at is that these may have been factory replacement parts that were new when they were installed in HAD's amps rather than parts taken from older Fender amps. I read somewhere that MESA was ordering parts from Fender to build their amps in the early days, until Fender caught on that they were unwittingly making parts for a competitor and shut off the supply. One could circumvent this to a degree by having various people with access to factory replacements order them to conceal their intended use. I've noticed however, that the transformers in the #124 pictures have had some leads replaced, indicating that they may well have been salvaged units.
talbany wrote:I suppose the tech could have ordered them from Fender
Tony, AFAIK this is exactly how Alexander Dumble did get at least the vast majority of them: usual brand new official Fender replacement parts. But of course this doesn't mean, that there can't be some rare exceptions. But IMO a general theory, that he intentionally fitted his amps with used transformers, because he generally preferred the performance of such a seasoned transformer, isn't built upon a solid data base.
