Do old school tube amps have more mojo then newer tube amps?

[kgreene]

So....

what is "mojo" again?

[Gibsonman63]

To me, the older designs have mojo because they tend to do one thing quite well. Swiss army knives are cool to look at, but eating a meal with a fork attached to a giant cluster of tools leaves something to be desired.

[malt]

Didn't vox to a test trowing their amps down stairs fore some tests And I think there is an old post of some one fixing a fender falling of a pickup. Think it was still working

[jelle]

To me, the older designs have mojo because they tend to do one thing quite well. Swiss army knives are cool to look at, but eating a meal with a fork attached to a giant cluster of tools leaves something to be desired.

+1000!

[M Fowler]

I really enjoy fixing the old amps people bring to me, mostly amps I have never seen before so it is enjoyable bring life back into them.

I recently got a Teisco Melody combo off ebay, it's a beauty and sounds great even with the little 8" speaker and tubes I never worked with before.

Keep things simple is better I think. Yes old amps have mojo for sure.

Mark

[Christian Jams]

I like simple amps also. I made a guitar amp head out of an old Newcomb phonograph player. It has just one tube but it's a little jewel.

[Structo]

With the newer tube designs with all the chips and tiny components PCB and SMD, do they sound any better than the old ones that were simple?

I think not, unless you like the sound of solid state.

Give me a hand full of tubes in chassis mounted sockets and a PTP board, doin' their thang anyday for good tonez.

[kgreene]

Didn't vox to a test trowing their amps down stairs fore some tests And I think there is an old post of some one fixing a fender falling of a pickup. Think it was still working

I threw a couple of my old Vox AC30's down the stairs back in the days when I was playing full time. They broke down so often, I got tired of fixing them!

[LeftyStrat]

I seem to remember a story about Traynor throwing a head out a second story window and after replacing the broken tubes it still worked.

[M Fowler]

Well the fools are still throwing their amps around. I never seen so many amps with broken pots These people expect this PCB crap to hold up with damage like that?

Got in another Fender Hot Rod Deluxe combo with three broken pots. On one pot you can pull the shaft with knob attached completely out Oh and please install new Switchcraft jacks instead of the broken Cliff style jacks.

Also, with the above amp I got in a Jet City 100H making noise, well it made no noise for me until I saw my bias meter jump from 60mA to over 100mA and tubes redplating Is this the noise you heard Sounded like a a wood stove cooling down, kink, kink, kink.

I'll take the old style amps with pots and tube sockets attached to the chassis.

[rdjones]

So....

what is "mojo" again?

mojo (plural mojos)

A magic charm or spell.
Supernatural power or luck.
(slang) Personal magnetism; charm.


rd

[rdjones]

To directly answer CJ's question, YES.
The older the design, materials and construction techniques used the further removed from current production you get.
Eventually you get to a point where the only similarity is the theory of operation of the active components.

Kinda like "You can't get there from here ..."

rd

[kgreene]

To directly answer CJ's question, YES.
The older the design, materials and construction techniques used the further removed from current production you get.
Eventually you get to a point where the only similarity is the theory of operation of the active components.

Kinda like "You can't get there from here ..."

rd

I dunno. As much respect as I've got for "rd", I can't help but wonder if that answer is a little bit of a cop-out. It really doesn't come closer to explaining a difference we all recognize than "mojo" does.

[martin manning]

I think rd has summed it up nicely. Perhaps CJ shouldn't have used the term mojo in his original query. I think what he was really asking is do old tube amps sound better than new ones, meaning current production as compared to the ones produced in decades past. Mojo implies there is something supernatural involved, and most here won't buy into that- there are physical reasons for any and all differences. rd is saying that the circuit may be the same, but that is an incomplete description of the system that produces the sound.

[selloutrr]

Mojo

Airline, danelectro, silvertone, sears, etc. were student model amps they were not made for mojo just cost effective builds for profit to the mai stream consumer. In fact out of all the brands these ones are some of the farthest from the holy grail quest of tone. However so many old school players and fans owned one at one point or another its a sound they remember and gives them a subconsious memory.