Gibson EH150

[Colossal]

Those pictures of the EH150 at Time Electronics...you should pick up the phone and call Rich Koerner, phone number on his website. He's old school and he didn't seem to have a problem using modern caps in it. I have connected with Rich via another group he no longer visits and can say he knows a great deal about old stuff like this. He can be a bit crusty at times, but I would be surprised if he didn't want to talk to you about this amp. email is not the way to reach him. Make the phone call. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Good call Phil, Rich may be a great resource for this and as you said, I've got nothing to lose.

[Colossal]

Interestingly Josh Homme has started taking his 1930's Gibson EH185 out on the road with him for the Them Crooked Vultures tour. Definitely some tone to be had out of these little octal-based tweeds.

I saw TCV in Austin before their album released. What a great show and some great tones. Josh was playing a Bad Cat amp (at least that what was visible). The EH150 is supposed to have some really good distortion on the Microphone channel, although the guy I am building for will primarily be using it for clean jazz work.

I'll keep the paper-in-oil idea in mind if I speaking with Rich doesn't work out or another solution doesn't present itself. The Beeswax Jupiters are always a possibility especially if that is where <the> tone for this amp ultimately lies but perhaps there is a modern alternative which will get it there.

Thanks Paulster.

[paulster]

I saw TCV in Austin before their album released. What a great show and some great tones. Josh was playing a Bad Cat amp (at least that what was visible).

If that was the one next to JPJs bass rig then it was actually for his 8 and 12 string basses. He uses the neck pickup into the bass rig and the bridge pickup into the Bad Cat rig.

At the first couple of (secret) shows this side of the pond Josh and Alain were both using a couple of Fender blackface amps each, probably rentals for the European dates.

For the 'proper' tour Alain has still been using a pair of blackface Fenders and Josh is using a Silvertone and Teisco head, and the little Gibson, and both of them are getting some pretty stellar tones out of their rigs.

I don't know if you've seen this but Gibson actually publishes official schematics for the old amps:
http://www.gibson.com/Service/Tech/Schematics/

It includes the EH150.

[Colossal]

If that was the one next to JPJs bass rig then it was actually for his 8 and 12 string basses. He uses the neck pickup into the bass rig and the bridge pickup into the Bad Cat rig.

Well yes it was, and I stand corrected! The 8-string sounded killer. JPJ is god incarnate. I therefore have no idea what Josh and Alain were playing through then! Sounded great though.

For the 'proper' tour Alain has still been using a pair of blackface Fenders and Josh is using a Silvertone and Teisco head, and the little Gibson, and both of them are getting some pretty stellar tones out of their rigs.

I have read that Josh has a penchant for 'odd' guitars and amps. Both sounded true to the album tones however. Alain's tone playing the lilting, singing melody underneath the guitar riff on New Fang was really great. Gunmen, Bandoliers, all of it was really top notch.

I don't know if you've seen this but Gibson actually publishes official schematics for the old amps: http://www.gibson.com/Service/Tech/Schematics

Yes I have, thanks, and it was helpful to get the various evolutions of the EH150 sorted out. The earliest one had an 8" field coil speaker but the later and more popular the 12" field coil.

Mark Fowler also had a very good schematic which he passed along. A choke is substituted for the field coil in the more modern adaptation of the EH150 of the Type III schematic. Fortunately the 6SQ7 and 6N7 preamp tubes are readily available on quite inexpensively too.

[M Fowler]

I understand that you need 0.01 uf/400v or 600v and also 0.1uf/400v or 600v I think mine are 400v.

Dave let me know and I will send them to you if you decide to use new ones well no problem.

Mark

[M Fowler]

Well Dave this maybe would save you some money.

http://cgi.ebay.com/30s-GIBSON-EH-150-G ... 1c104b83a9

[paulster]

That looks like one of the really early field coil variants judging by the four wires going up to the speaker.

It's kind of hard to think that these things are over 70 years old!

[Colossal]

Well Dave this maybe would save you some money.

http://cgi.ebay.com/30s-GIBSON-EH-150-G ... 1c104b83a9

haha, yes that certainly would, but probably would need to gut it!

[Colossal]

Just as a followup to this discussion (and thanks everyone for your comments), I did get hold of Rich Koerner. He was very friendly and eager to chat about his experience with an original EH150. From my research, there are three types of 150s out there, all of which are different. The one Rich worked with was the earliest, a Type I, and it has quite a unique complement of tubes.

Rich said that the real magic for that amp was in that 6F5 preamp tube. It has the grid connection on top of a metal can housing; truly a very early tube and was discontinued by Gibson in favor of the 6SQ7. We discussed my goals for this Type III build and talked a bit about my concern with getting a good set of coupling caps for it. He used orange drops at his customer's request and I think cost was an issue, hence the choice. He said that it still sounded great. He did not say what kind of orange drops they were. The amp is quite dark sounding by design (and there are no bright caps to be found anywhere of course).

I spoke with John Gaynor from SoZo today as I am trying out some of his new Blue Molded caps for a pair of Blackface Deluxe Reverb builds I've got on the back burner and think they might be a good fit for this EH150 build. John explained that both his Sozo Vintage Mustards and Blue Molded caps are polyester film/foil however the Blue Molded are a little deeper sounding. I am going to give them a shot in the 150. Should be interesting.

Thanks all.

[M Fowler]

Colossal has a sweet build going and I though I should post the EH150 I finished this weekend, well still have cab left to build.

Sounds a lot like my 5b6 bassman and I love the octal preamp tubes. The tone control limited as it is worked well with my Strat so I will have to see how the LP works with it.

The normal channel is clean up to about 7-8 then gets a nice bite. The OD channel will pickup oscillation at 7-8 so I will see what is going on there.

Mark

[M Fowler]

I used the Hammond 274Bx and that weird PT tranny has a CT on the 5v why?

[Structo]

That's pretty sweet looking Mark.

Man you guys build a lot of amps!

[M Fowler]

Thanks Tom,

I have been wanting to build that EH150 amp for a long time and finally got around to it.

On the bench this afternoon/evening I am building an 80 watt Rocket Reverb.

Mark

[Structo]

Sweet!

When I get some extra cash I will build a full sized Rocket Reverb.

I messed around with my 6V6 Rocket yesterday and made it a little better.

[M Fowler]

The Rocket circuit is such a fine amp no matter if your going tradition 4 EL84s or 2 -4 hole octals. The reverb circuit works so well I am glad I decided to finally built one with reverb. I play the damn thing almost everyday.

Giving the Rocket that extra push should really make for one nice Fenderish type of tone.

Tom, what did you do to your 6V6 Rocket

Mark