And one of my own "B" amplifiers.....dedicated to Michael Carothers.

Well here's one of my main amps. I built this one around 2008. I sold around a dozen of these and kept this one cause it was the best and, well, I was working hard and I deserved to keep something.

It's been on a lot of gigs with me. The stain in the cabinet is from a wedding I did years ago, it's cake man, cake! There's no tax for cake in NYC. Actually, I think it's Cake from the Cake Shop on Ludlow. I just can't figure out how to get it out.

A bit of how this amp sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXU1AJwVGH8
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And with a Jazz Box.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFuXUhtO4mA
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Push here!^^^^^^^^


I had the cabinet made in white. I think I was trying to get my man Michael Carothers to buy it. White and black, he's got this salt and pepper thing going on. He didn't bite. And I'm glad. He owns one of my amps, a green sorta Marshall 18 watter I built for Jim Lowenherz in Portland with EF86 preamp tubes. That one was a beast.

About this amp: It's kind of a Tweed Deluxe. Where it differs is I prefer the low end to hold up. First stage filter cap is a 47uf. The cathode bias cap is 100uf rather than 25uf. Also I added a 3.3meg resistor between the last B+ stage and pin 7 on the phase inverter. I can't actually tell you the science of this move, I just discovered somewhere that the amp focuses better with this little mod.

You would simply connect it between the 16uf 450V cap on the right of the power supply to the 1 meg resistor that goes to pin 7 of your phase inverter tube.

You can see it here:

The speaker is a Weber 12" alnico. Just their standard one the recommend for a Tweed Deluxe. Caps are Sozo and a couple CDE Black Cats for the preamp. Power transformer is Heyboer, output is Mercury. Now the wire. It's all Mogami. I have no idea how to get this any longer. I bought it years ago from BTX or Bi-Tronics. It's lovely to work with and it's also 99% pure oxygen free copper. There's no dispute for me, it sounds more clear and defined. Quiet too. More builders should use this. I got Brian Sours of Soursound in Portland hooked on this hook up wire for his own tube preamps and guitar amps. It wasn't all that expensive either. I had to special order it from Japan though and don't know where to get it any longer. If someone knows, please share! Little tricks like this can make your amps go from good to great. I like great. This amp upset some guys who have expensive Tweed Fenders! Kinda blew them away.

The trick to building a great amp is to use good components, but don't go overboard. A real vintage amp has some pretty crap components in them. Hence things like the Black Cat caps. They are valuable, and they aren't all that good compared to what you can buy for the same price. But that crappiness is a part of the mojo, part of the sound.

For tubes I've had the same glass since I built it. A pair of matched GE black plate 6V6 tubes and a pair of Telefunken 12AX7 tubes with an RCA 5Y3. All of these came from my used bin. None were new when I installed them and I probably spent almost nothing on this glass at Hamfest or surplus stores when those were still around. And, they still work great, still sound great and are still quiet. No, they will NEVER make glass this well ever again.

The knobs are old Bakelite big ass Disco knobs from the Swing era:

It's little touches like that that make your amp special. There are tons of parts like this about so why settle for boring reproduction chicken head knobs???? It's parts like this that draw attention to the object!

Last photo is taken at a wedding on the beach in the Hamptons...... No, I'm not a wedding musician. I only do that kind of thing for folks that are special to me! And my amp survived the sand here and no more cake stains happened!

Now where did that first cake come from? Where was I? I remember cake.....not much else!

JB

1951 Fender Pro.... terrible looking, sounds like gold!

This was a fun and interesting project. Came from Division Street Guitars in Peekskill, a great lil' shop run by my good friend Paul Decourcey. When it came to me it was, well, truly a barn find. Translation: absolutely disgusting. Barns are no places for instruments and definitely not a place to store an amplifier. This amp was badly water damaged on the bottom with plenty of mud to prove it. Some of the plywood had separated so much gluing and clamping was needed. Very time consuming and rather educational. I never realized how many layers of stuff are between the wood and the tweed exterior. More than I thought! And I also know, I'm not the man to do a re-cover job. Used a lotta Simple Green on this one.

He bought it on Reverb from a store in the midwest as a project amp. At least 2 other very good techs turned down working on it. I don't blame them either. If I wasn't a little nutty myself, I may have made the same choice. Amp was full of dead egg sacs from some unknown bugs and some of the wires had been chewed by mice. First order of business was to use a couple cans of compressed air outside just to get the nasties out. Next was the black mold. That and the mud is where I used a lot of Simple Green and a lot of towels, old toothbrushes.....gross man.

It also came with a replacement output transformer that was nice, but the wrong type. This amp had the transformer mounted to the speaker originally, but that old Jensen was long gone. So since this amp is so ugly and we're not re-tweeding it, we decided to just make it player friendly. I replaced the output transformer with a Heyboer tweed 8 ohm Bandmaster transformer availble through Mojo Musical Supply. Not terribly expensive and they are fantastic sounding transformers. I believe Mercury makes the proper '51 Pro part but it's much more expensive and we want to keep this amp affordable for re-sale. And truthfully, I like the Heyboer Iron I've used a bit better though my own amps are loaded with Mercury.

Power transformer was the original Triad. Bakelite fuse holder was broken in half and the power cable and switch were done. Replaced all that and grounded the poor thing!

No tubes came with it. Had to buy 3 6SC7 tubes. A word about those: at this stage of the game, they are risky to purchase. Most of the remaining tubes suck. A decade ago when I was really doing this I could buy a dozen for $60, reject 1/2 of them and still make my money of the remaining ones. Now they set me back at least $18 a bottle. Most I come across are microphonic or have a good hum going on. This one 2 outta 3 were passable, the third I used as the phase inverter. RING! It works but I advised Paul to get another one or buy a 6SC7 to 12AX7 converter on EBay. Other octal preamp tubes are plentiful, like the 6SL7 or 6SN7. For some old Gibson amps 6SJ7 tubes are cheap and plentiful. But, I'm not rewiring this amp for those.

The filter caps were all leaking. They had to go. Don't even bother turning an amp on with those old caps still in it. Throw them away right away. All the electrolytic caps had exploded in this amp. Also the original signal caps were all leaking, badly. I use polyester Orange Drop Spragues in the phase inverter and my favorite Mojo Dijon caps in the preamp. The input caps I left alone. No DC on those so why bother. I'm sure they leaked when they were new but that's a part of the sound so, leave them be!

Also replaced the power resistors with 10k 5 watt wire wound types and the load resistors with carbon composition like the originals. Amp was making those telltale spitting sounds. It's dead quiet now.

When he got the amp it had one of those ugly ass 70's Disco square magnet heavy 15" CTS speakers that belong in an Ampeg cabinet. Nope! Not for a tweed amp! Paul fortunately had this beautiful sounding and great looking Jensen from a 60's rather useless Epiphone amp that lives in his window. He bought the thing for the "someday I may need this speaker" factor. That someday is today and this amps just gives up a beautiful tone now....

It really needs a Telecaster. That is what this amp was built for. My '58 Jazzmaster loves this amp as well. That's a combination from heaven. Big, warm with lots of bite.

Nice and simple 2 channel amp with a single tone control. One channel is nice and dark and is set up for a microphone, the other has plenty of bite. Whenever I get a chance to show a Mesa Channel Switch reared youngster one of these amps I take it. They usually plug in and wonder where the 27 other knobs are but when they start playing something always happens: they start playing better. More grit? Turn the tone knob up and play harder. More clean, back off that pick.

I wound up bolting the new output transformer to the chassis and adding a 1/4" Switchcraft jack so you can plug this amp into any 8 ohm cabinet of your choosing. Also this amp is cathode/self biasing. You can simply drop in any matched pair of 5881, 6L6 or KT66 tubes of your choice and jam out. That's the fun/madness of these early tweed amps. Endless choices! You can make decisions about your tone on the fly. New amps they pretty much make the choices for you. No thanks. But ya know, those new amps are good for getting you there. A real amp like this is good for the one who has already arrived dig?


                                                         Mandatory photo with a Tele:

So if you want to see this amp, hang ten and make the drive to Division Street Guitars in Peekskill NY. Great shop and Paul may even sell it to you!

JB 

Oliver B120

Ok. I stole this photo. It's not mine. I neglected to shoot this amp when I had the chance.

These are uncommon. Very good studio bass amp. About 50 watts with 2 6EU7 tubes and a pair of 6L6 tubes. It was noisy and weak. Solution was change the power tubes which were shot, re-bias it and replace the main filter can which had burst. I replaced it with 2x 220@350V caps in series for a total of 110uf @ 700v. Added bleeder resistors across them as well.

Also grounded it and removed the 'death cap'. My customer doesn't enjoy getting shocked and nor should she!!!

This one belongs to 75 dollar bill as well! Do check them out! One of my favorite bands in Brooklyn, or this world for that matter! I love me a band that can get a big sound with little tube amps. They are that band. Hypnotic, dreamy, driving, wild and never too freaking loud that you can't sail with them!

https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/
Click here^^^^^^^^
Thank you! JB

1974 Marshall 100 watt Super Lead (model 1959S)

Oh yes. The ticket to hell, or heaven depending on your point of view. This came to me with complaints of noise and poor volume. The owner runs it with only 2 of the 6550 tubes at 50 watts. He was certain it was dead tubes. These are big amps and I can make good dough on a tube sale for them. Caps too...

But the filters were all new and it's a good job too! And the tubes all tested great. Amp was only drawing about 6ma per output tube. So just a good cleaning and re-biasing is all it needed to get going. Also replaced the 100k cathode resistor in the cathode bias tone stack. It had drifted to 130k and this is common. Check that one if you have spits and crackles!

This particular one was modded to behave like a JCM800. Good job too. Nice, creamy and nasty distortion at any volume!

I was a 100 watt Marshall player for years. This is one of the last really attractive ones with the 60's styling. After that they went the way of the cheap looking President Ford/Carter suit. Boxy, ugly and ready for the CBGBs punk Los Angeles heavy metal era. Part of the early Marshall amplifiers appeal is it's beauty. They are some of the best looking amps on the planet. Notice how well it goes with my Persian carpet? Yes. Psychedelic all the way.

JB

Magnatone Varsity

Not much to say about this little amp, I believe it to be made in the 40's, probably before it was called "Varsity". These are one of my all time favorite recording and yes, performing amps. I have a later mother of red toilet seat ones. Just lovely sounding. Not super gainy tweed Champ nasty, just a good sweet overdrive.

This one arrived DOA. Belongs to my friends in 75 Dollar Bill: (click invisible link below!)

https://75dollarbill.bandcamp.com/


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They love these little amps and so do I.

Probably about 4 watts max. They have the classic 3 tube setup: 5Y3 rectifier, 6V6 power tube and a nice 6SJ7 pentode for the preamp.

The problem? Just dead caps. This amp is close to 70 years old. Caps die. Tubes were all NOS, I sold them to the band a few months ago and now this little amp simply rips. Has a new Jensen alnico speaker with barely enough room in the cabinet for the tubes to fit! But it works so.... And it sounds great. Not usually a fan of those new Jensens but in a darker sounding amp like one of these, they work really well.

Go try one, maybe buy one! These are a bargain. Not a "Champ Killer" or anything like that, they have their own thing going on. Perfect bedroom amp!

JB

Maestro Fuzz!

Not much to say about this job. It was simple and fun. Just needed to wire in a new AA battery holder as the original was broken. Thankfully the transistors were still good. After the first blast I knew, oh man this is a good one. They are all a little different, some just plain sound too garbage like, this one sounds just trashtastic enough and not one bit trashier. Like a real beat poet rather than a pimp.

Hope to see more of these again. I dig it!

JB

Trace Elliot Velocette. Oh, modern, amps. Why so lazy?

Had one of these on the ol' desk today, a Trace Elliott Velocette. I remember when these first hit the scene. The crazy 90's "there are no good cheap tubes except EL-84s being made so let's make little boutique sorta VOx sounding sorta Marshall sounding amps" era.

This amp came to me dead. No sound, no lights. Fuse was good, I had a hunch it was an internal fuse or the filament was dead. I haven't seen one of these in years but last one I worked on had a filament line issue.

 All tubes test good, high voltage is good. Yup, too much Bimoze on the filament line.

What's a Bimoze? I really don't know. I just like saying that.

So anyway, these amps are built in the typical modern fashion. With a crappy mother board where most of the components are attached. This includes your tube sockets as well. I never liked this. I'm not opposed to p.c. boards, but come on. Hand wire those tube sockets will ya? It's just better and more reliable. I know, I know. It cuts into profit. I'll shut up.

So the filament line comes off the power transformer into a connector that gets connected to the p.c. board that gets connected to another smaller connector that has wires going to 3 other connectors that connect to each tube. See something wrong with this sentence? It's a run on sentence and I say connector way too many times.


Photo of where the filament line connector meets another connector. Look at all that hot glue..... Got real handy with a razor today. Also notice the heat stains around the smaller black connector.

The underside:

This amp isn't very hard to get apart, that I appreciate. I just turned down working on an amp that I knew would be a nightmare. Life is too short.

More underside:

Hard to tell but wherever there is high current, there are cracked solder joints. This means filament line, high voltage line and speaker. Best to just touch up all of them while you are in there. Also touch up joints on jacks and pots. You can see what I'm talking about if you have a magnifying glass.

Connectors removed:

I wound up hard-wiring where the connector went to connector #2 on the first power tube. Lights on!

But..... after I put the amp back together, the other 6BQ5 tube wouldn't light up. Whack a Mole on such a simple amp! That connector was bad as well. In order to un-solder these connectors you need to remove the tube sockets. Um, EFF THAT!.

So I wound up removing all of these crappy connectors and hard wiring all of the sockets on the other side of the board. Now this little feller makes music. And sweet music it does make. These are really nice sounding amps. Almost has a 'gypsy jazz' quality to it. Warm and dry, cuts nice. They are cathode biased so you may pop in fresh tubes at will.

Speaking if which, one tube did start red-plating. They were just horribly mis-matched so I popped in one that was close. The only sets I have are JJs. Lovely sounding but I popped in 2 sets and they both started red-plating! I don't trust JJ EL-84 for class a operations. They are great for a Blues Jr properly biased but even in this amp, I don't like the risk.

Modern tubes.....bah.

I do like the styling of this amp. It looks like a cross between a vintage British racing car and a French bicycle.

Laziness #2:

Why write the serial number in pen?:

Can you read that? Oh well.

I would love to get one of these and gut it entirely then build a proper amp inside. But even stock, yeah, I would gig with this amp. It's strong point is that sweet, friendly voice it has. More my style then a Fender Pro Jr, which is a similar amp in some ways. I'm a huge fan of cathode bias. The sound produced is infectious.

JB