70's Traynor Bass Master. Prog rock EVIL!!!!

This was a fun one. At Sonic Circus they have 3 amazing Ampeg B-15 amps of varying vintage. They have an early cathode bias model, which is out favorite, a later fixed bias from around 1966 and a more powerful 70's one. They all record so nicely.

We were cutting tracks and believe it or not I was getting a bit bored of the B15 Fender Precision bass combo. Some of Dave's material is venturing into Prog territory. He's a great guitar player, his son is a great everything player, so I felt like just kicking back and playing bass, acoustic guitar and some saxophone.

So anyway, I pulled this neglected old Traynor off the shelf. Another fine amp from Indigo Ranch Studios...



It's no B15, that's certain. It's aggressive, nasty, impolite.... sounds like Geddy Lee or John Wetton rather than James Jamerson! All are outstanding bassist. Both inspire me!

Amp is about 50 watts with 2x EL34 tubes and 3 12AX7 tubes. Single 15" speaker. EVIL SOUND!



















Another simple Re-cap, changed the output tubes. Sadly the Mullard RCA stamped tubes were shot.

These are a bargain. Great for guitar as well. Hand wired, Hammond transformers, Mullard Mustard caps in the signal path, and built like a tank. Go get it! You won't regret it!

1978 Traynor YGM3 revisited. Well, that didn't work!

So my last post was about this lovely Traynor YGM-3 and specifically what to do about that high EL84 eating plate voltage.

The solution I tried was to use the Sovtek EL84M, rated for higher current and a whopping 500V on the plate. The amp left here sounding lovely.....

But, well, that didn't work. In this business one is always experimenting, largely to keep the cost reasonable. This is an expensive business. And I don't like seeing a customer return for a long time. It's not ideal for them especially.

And I'll just say it. I'm not here to sell anything, not even my services. So I can be honest here.

New tubes suck. It's just a fact we need to live with. The world will never produce another RCA, Mullard, Tung Sol, Western Electric, General Electric, Mazda, National Union, Amperex, Brimar or genuine Telefunken tube again. There is absolutely no incentive to do so. We need to live with the mediocre in this world now. Music is changing, the world is changing. There will be no exceptional tubes ever made again much like there may never be another platinum record again. It's over. Music is free, the population of guitar players and audiophiles is diminishing. I love tube amps. I find them fascinating so I carry on. And I will play music till the day I die and I will sound my best till then so that is that.

So what happened? My client got home and rocked it out for a couple rehearsals. It sounded great then it ceased to sound great. One tube totally died, the other test about 1/2 on my TV7 tester.

Not acceptable.

There are several ways to drop voltage. Zener diode, dropping resistor. But I don't like those methods. Since my client wants this to be road ready we opted for the most expensive route: changing the power transformer.

I used a nice Canadian made Hammond, part number 270DAX. I write this so I can have a record of it. If I see another amp I can just tell them their options if they want reliability.

With the original transformer the B+ sat around 425-440vdc. With this part depending on bias its between 329-345vdc. About the same range as your Blues Jr. Those run hot but they are reliable. I think this is a safe range.

You do lose a few watts. But the amp sounds as good as it did before, a tad warmer my ears say.

Nice thing about this part is it's the same size as the original. You need to get creative with some washers to run the heater wires around to the chassis hole, drilling is not an option here, and with that I had no need to drill anything. It's a 520 vCt transformer so you'll need to take out the 2 diodes going to ground and put the red/yellow CT wire to where the diodes terminated otherwise you'll have some seriously high voltage problems!

Once that's done you'll need to change the bias resistors until you get an acceptable range. In this case I changed the 18k coming off the AC feed to a 10k and replaced the 22k  with a 7.5k tied in series to my 20k trim pot. Now the amp is sitting at 329vdv with 22ma on the output tubes. That's about where a Blues Jr sits.

So in conclusion, if you have one of these this is a good path to reliability unless you have the dough for genuine 7189 tubes. It's worth doing. I still maintain this is a great amp. Now it's a great amp for modern times.

JB

1978 Traynor YGM3 Guitar Mate from our northern neighbors

Here's a bargain amp. A late 70's Traynor YGM-3 Guitar Mate!

These were built in Canada. I've worked on plenty of Traynor amps before and am quite fond of them. They are built to last and can be had for a cheapish price. Much like Jim Marshall who was motivated by building a cheaper amp than the Fender amps around London, Traynor did the same thing in 1963: let's build local, high quality affordable amps for the new music being made. All in the name of problem solving. All in the name of service. The best stuff is motivated by those 2 very important human things.

This amp is all hand wired just like a boutique amp. My client bought this on Craigslist for $400....

I believe this to be the Canadian response to the Fender Deluxe Reverb. It has a single 12" speaker, tremolo and reverb with a bright switch. The biggest differences are the lack of a power choke, no reverb driver transformer (cheaper to use a capacitor!) and a pair of 6BQ5/EL84 power tubes rather than the American 6V6. The result is it sounds like an English Deluxe Reverb, more chime and accented mids like a Vox.

Hand wired guts:

One of the nice things about working on these old Traynor amps is you don't even need to pull the chassis. You can remove the 4 bolts holding the top on and simply pull the hood off. Then you're ready to get to work! Though I can't help but think of brain surgery....

These amps boast the famous Mullard "Mustard" capacitors. Those are almost always still good so I'm leaving them alone. The amp hummed badly and sounded harsh. I knew right away what was up: bad filter caps and one dead power tube. Turns out one tube was completely dead, the other was very weak.

So a word about the tubes in these. They tend to get eaten alive. The new JJ or Sovtek / Electro Harmonix glass? You may experience shortened tube life. Those tubes are rated for around 300 volts. This amp boast around 420 volts! Luckily my client wanted more headroom so I just ordered some EL84M tubes from Sovtek. They are rated for 500v. They are the modern version of the 7189 tube. More for hi-fi like my old Fisher SA-100. Linear and clean. I find them to be very punchy, strong sounding tubes. They are a bit maligned by the guitar crowd, people prefer the sweeter tone of an EL84 but just keep in mind these are an option.

Cool Russian boxes!

 I re-capped it and added a bias pot. Due to the layout Traynor made the job so easy.... I used a 20K trim pot and changed the 22k bias resistor to a 15K cause the EL84M / 7189 biases a bit differently than a JJ EL84.

I also added a couple 1 ohm resistors from the cathodes (pin 3) of the EL84 tubes to ground. You'll read millivolts there which correspond to milliamps. 25mv=25ma. Easy and convenient:

I hate the bright switch in these. They use a .001 cap. It's like shaking a can of nails by your ear! I replaced that cap with a 100pf NOS silver mica cap. Now it adds a bit of smooth bite:

I ran it tonight with a set of JJ tubes running at 25ma each. I didn't get any red plate stuff but don't really trust them to last. The amp sounds great now. No hum at all unless you add that beautifully lush but humtastic reverb.

So if you want boutique quality at a crappy new amp price, don't turn your nose up to one of these. They can truly hold their own with the best of them. I actually like the rather mod styling too. Fender, Marshall and Ampeg went full industrial unattractive by this era. But these Traynor amps still have a touch of class. They look nice, and looks matter to me. If you buy one do keep in mind you'll want to get it checked out and possibly set it up with the beefier tubes. Unless you don't mind burning them up that is.

JB