Suggestion for next build

[Tonegeek]

Its amp building time again! I already have a 50w Dumble HRM clone which I absolutely love. This time I want something that I can control mostly with my guitar volume knob. It needs to clean-up when I back off the volume, but not too clean (think early Stones). I want to do blues and get some good crunchy chord sounds and maybe some Brad Paisley kind of stuff going on. I really want it to fatten up when cranked with some good power tube distortion. I don't mind hitting it with a clean boost for this, and don't mind a master volume either but I do want the power tubes working. I am thinking I should do an 18watt something or other although I wonder if it will cut through the band enough. I would think I would need no more than 35 watts tops. Would like to try cathode biased with 6L6 tubes sometime although for an 18 watter I would think El-84's would be the choice. It will be a head driving my existing 4 ohm, 2X12 cab loaded with Hellatone G12H-30s. So I am looking for suggestions.
thanks

[10thTx]

I suspect you may have already seen this schematic? I'm very happy with this amp. 25 watts cathode biased 5881. Get's decent clean tone and also a reasonable overdrive to it. I use a 5751 in the paralleled V1.
The band I sit in with occasionally has a bass, keyboard, acoustic, drums and 3 singers plus me. This amp has no problem holding it's own.

I play mostly blues. The switchable NFB, PAB and local NFB give a lot of tonal options along with the switchable single gain stage.

Plus it has a nice sounding reverb. Speaker is Red,White and Blues

http://www.el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=3947.0

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c216/ ... ketcab.jpg

One of my favorite tones is with the overdrive stage switched out, with the PAB engaged and the NFB switched out also. Very bluesy tone


With respect, 10thtx

[FunkyE9th]

That's a nice looking amp! Got clips?

[selloutrr]

if you want stones build an ampeg V-4 and get your yeah yeah's out. tip... buy a broken one they need new filter caps a good cleaning and a new reverb tube. if you really wanted to be cool you could rebuild it point to point.

[Tonegeek]

if you want stones build an ampeg V-4 and get your yeah yeah's out. tip... buy a broken one they need new filter caps a good cleaning and a new reverb tube. if you really wanted to be cool you could rebuild it point to point.

I think I actually had one of those one time. Someone gave me a broken one that I never got around to fixing and then like a real dumbass, I left it in the garage when i moved.

[Tonegeek]

I suspect you may have already seen this schematic? I'm very happy with this amp. 25 watts cathode biased 5881. Get's decent clean tone and also a reasonable overdrive to it. I use a 5751 in the paralleled V1.
The band I sit in with occasionally has a bass, keyboard, acoustic, drums and 3 singers plus me. This amp has no problem holding it's own.

I play mostly blues. The switchable NFB, PAB and local NFB give a lot of tonal options along with the switchable single gain stage.

Plus it has a nice sounding reverb. Speaker is Red,White and Blues

http://www.el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=3947.0

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c216/ ... ketcab.jpg

With respect, 10thtx

I do see some similarities to the D style amps, but is also along the lines of what I had in mind to build. I tried some old 5881's in another Dclone I built for a friend and they sounded terrific. With the cathode bias, they would be in the wattage range I am looking for. I will give it some consideration.
thanks!

[10thTx]

Another amp along the lines of what you might be interested in is the Texas Raptor amp. It's a quasi cathode biased Marshall type amp with a paralleled V1 and reverb and some switches for bright/full/fat and NFB.

It does not have as smooth of overdrive as the Carolina Blues Rocket but has more Marshall type crunch and it covers a wide range of tones from clean to overdrive. The reverb on it is also nice. If I were building it again, I'd have a mid tone pot & add a passive effects loop like on the other amp for digital delay.

I built the Texas Raptor for 6V6's but it can support 5881's with no bias changes, just switch the tubes. However, if my original plan was to use 5881's, I'd build it with 272HX & 1650F trannies.

My Carolina Blues Rocket schematic failed to show that I use a DPDT to switch in the single overdrive stage so I posted a revised schematic above. That amp also switches from 6V6 to 5881's without having to rebias.

Note: both posts of both amps include links to show the layouts also.

http://www.el34world.com/Forum/index.php?topic=2442.0

The guitar and amp cab my son built for the Texas Raptor

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c216/ ... itarII.jpg

With respect, 10thtx

[Tonegeek]

I am thinking I should plan for a VVR. Does it make sense to do say a 36 watter with VVR or just do an 18 watter with/without VVR? I am not sure I need 36 watts but I might. I guess I am really wanting to know if the tone will be as good with the higher wattage amp scaled back. The tone is the most important part of the equation so I don't want to sacrifice any of it. One thing i failed to mention earlier is I want an amp that will do double stops with the least amount of intermodulation distortion and ghost noting. This is a lot to ask since i also want really smooth transitions into clipping.

10thTx I like your ideas and thanks for posting your circuits. They are in the ballpark for what I am wanting to do.