DrZ KT45

[billyz]

There does seem to be quite a bit of animosity towards Dr. Z, not sure why.
Perhaps because he does not freely share his Schematics with the world.
I have always found him to be most helpful. I used to do quite a bit of warranty and repair/mod work for him and he never left me in the dark about his circuits, even explained in depth his reasons for some of the designs and exactly where they came from. I had several of his early Carmen Ghia's go thru my shop that were built out of old Hammond reverb amps. It was only later, when they became such a hit that he decided to go into production and had chassis and trannys made. That's when they got flipped over too.

[txbluesboy]

Is this the Leak schematic you are looking for? http://www.freeinfosociety.com/media.php?id=4135
Sorry for bad link

[txbluesboy]

Or try this http://www.freeinfosociety.com/media.php?id=4135

[jaysg]

There does seem to be quite a bit of animosity towards Dr. Z, not sure why.
Perhaps because he does not freely share his Schematics with the world.
I have always found him to be most helpful. I used to do quite a bit of warranty and repair/mod work for him and he never left me in the dark about his circuits, even explained in depth his reasons for some of the designs and exactly where they came from. I had several of his early Carmen Ghia's go thru my shop that were built out of old Hammond reverb amps. It was only later, when they became such a hit that he decided to go into production and had chassis and trannys made. That's when they got flipped over too.

Many professional techs have had the opposite experience with him and complained about it on internet forums. Imo, they feel that their time being their money, an emailed schematic is only fair since the customer owns the amp and sending it to Z central is normally ridiculous money for the owner. Z knows that any competent tech will sketch the schematic out...so why screw these guys out of a half hour of un-recoupable time while they do it? Beyond that, many techs have had mechanical issues with dropped amps and are not impressed with Z's construction approach. You mentioned several CG's. Isn't that a bad sign?

[billyz]

Never had any issues with the Carmen Ghias, Actually very few issues with any of his amps. Mostly it was tube related. there were a couple of Maz heads that had some funky mounted transformers. He acknowledge the problem quickly, also, some issues with reverb hum, it turned out to be a ground loop.
He has grown quite a lot since then and I imagine some of the current complaints are related to his growth. I can only speak for myself, he was always very responsive and direct. having been inside quite a few of his amps ( out of curiosity not necessity ) His build quality is as good or better than most.

When I was first getting into building my own designs he told me where he sourced his parts from, I.E transformers and Capacitors, gave me contact info and even how he factored his prices. When I had a design problem he helped me out too.

Anyway, I don't want or need to defend him. When I hear somethings about him it just seems so incongruous with my own personal experience. He is doing just fine.

[ampdoc1]

The Carmen Ghia power amp is almost an exact copy of the one of the Hammond amplifiers (sorry, I don't remember the model). But the power supply alone is fairly intricate, and there is NO WAY this was just a coincidence.

On the other hand, as a person to deal with, I think Dr Z is rather an ass. I was working for a local shop 4-5 years ago (an MI repair shop open since 1986) and got in a dead Route 66. And to boot, both transformers had broken mounts. I sent Z an email (using the shop email address) request for a schematic as I wasn't familiar with the tube compliment, and pricing/availability for the transformer parts. He didn't even honor me with a reply. After a couple of days I took the amp home and made a schematic which I later posted to the enet.

F*** Dr Z and his com padres that bally-hoo their "proprietary" circuitry. Precious little is really new in tubes, and to many of the more knowledgeable people into amp building, it's obvious a lot of these things are blatant rip-offs of earlier circuits.

ampdoc

[chief mushroom cloud]

and bad ones at that......

[funkmeblue]

is it x-mas stress....everyone bad mouthing everyone? This place is bringing me down. Someone asks a simple question and instead of a simple answer, you get someones bad mouthing opinion about stealing, even though we are all guilty of trainwreck fraud. Why? This place use to be fun and interesting......Now I'm afraid to even post. Take it out on your wife, not us....see ya next year

[D-Day]

Being such a newbie around these parts I didn't want to be the first to point out the ridiculous irony present in this thread.

But yeah. Seriously?

[Structo]

Yeah, F'ing cloners!

All of them.........er.........uh.............wait a minute........oops!

Really, this topic has been beat to death here as well as at TGP.

The difference is, here you probably won't get banned but really, it's a pretty tired subject.

And yes the holiday stress factor is huge this year with many out of work.

My state just announced 9% unemployment and that number is only the ones reported.
It's guessed to be more like 11-12%.

I haven;t worked since September and was off for three months before that with a knee injury.

When I need to blow off a little steam I go to the target range...........

[chief mushroom cloud]

Jim Marshall was a hack.....how's that for holiday bashing

[bnwitt]

Well I know why I'm so damned grumpy, It has been raining like shit here in southern california off and on for weeks now and I'm sick of it!!!! We're not supposed to get rain until January and February out here. I think this is some commie plot to wash all the mud off the burnt hillsides and cover us all up.

My shop is not climate controlled yet and I'm freezin' my butt off fixing mackie mixers and other non tube stuff. I've joined the darned rat race.....

[chief mushroom cloud]

not me....rain makes me VERY HAPPY....and I'm in Pasadena next to the mtns
my lawn will be beautiful
it's about time we had some weather....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuMrOWtQ ... re=related

[Structo]

At least you're working....

[Zippy]

The Carmen Ghia power amp is almost an exact copy of the one of the Hammond amplifiers (sorry, I don't remember the model). But the power supply alone is fairly intricate, and there is NO WAY this was just a coincidence.

It was the Hammond reverb amp, AO-35. It's documented by Mike Z that the original Ghias were mod'ed AO-35s. His adaptation was more of an exercise of removing the snubbers and adding two knobs and two jacks. I've a couple AO-35s on my bench as we speak. His later iterations kept the circuit and used new parts.