Let's see your AMP!

[theavondon]

I mean, if you ever wanna get rid of em...

[stephen sawall]

They spread sound very good ... not directional like a 4x12. They have a pretty big midrange hump in the sound / not flat & cut in mix very good. The speakers are 20 watts each & break-up pretty easy. Just guessing - But I think they weigh about 150 pounds each. I would consider selling them ... but shipping would be difficult.

[Holy Schnikes]

Holy spare tube collection!

[univalve]

@stephen sawall, have you been on univalve.net about 10 years ago? I think i remember you from there. Seattle and the nice thd amp Collection would fit. Also the Tube Collection.

[stephen sawall]

That was me ..... I am on several forums. Good to see you / were you using the same name there ?
I recognize a few names around here. There has been a few THD forums since then .... I am on the current one. ( http://fothda.yuku.com/directory#.UDLFBqllR4c )
That is only a small part of my tube collection .... I started collecting tubes 42 years ago...

Lately I have been on a fuzz trip & that is how I found myself here....

[theavondon]

You came to the right place. Welcome.

[stephen sawall]

Thanks theavondon .....

[Holy Schnikes]

Yeah, stephen sawall, you'll like it around here.

And you came in with a pretty formidable first post, well done! Can't wait to see what else you come up with.

Oh, and that double cut LP is badass sir. Don't see enough of those around.

[stephen sawall]

Thanks Holy Schnikes .... That Gibson LPDC is the guitar I use most. It has a JB in the bridge. The Strat I bought in 1978 - It is a 1969 - These days it has a EMG David Gilmour. My favorite amp is the last photo ..... It looks like a Fender, but it is a THD Series One Plexi. ...A JMP style amp.

A few thing THD has said about these amps....

"....is a crunchy, distorted-sounding amp that exudes a strong rock
and roll persona with a bright, snarly, vintage Fender timbre. Plugged into the Bright
channel, we could set the presence and treble knobs at zero and the tone would still be quite clear. In this channel, the controls are very interactive; we found that the unused Normal volume knob affected the bass frequencies even more than the bass control. When we plugged into the Normal channel, the Bright volume knob acted like a notch filter. Settings from 5-8 yielded a cool, skanky midrange dip."

"..... So I went to Andy Brauer’s shop where they had dozens and dozens of Plexi Marshalls and JMPs and asked them if they had an absolute favorite 50W amp. “Oh, yeah” they said, but it belongs to one of our employees, Dave Friedman (now owner of Rack Systems in North Hollywood). It sounds like nothing we’ve ever heard. So I ultimately borrowed that amp, and I’d fly down every month to Make n’ Music with Dave’s amp and our prototype and we’d work on getting it right. Dave’s Marshall was not 100% stock. It had either been changed a little bit or they had used some components that were slightly different at the factory, but it was basically a ’69 small box JMP and it sounded pretty much like the tone on the first Van Halen album all on its own – just spectacular. We made a new circuit board based on what we learned and observed with that amp and sold the hell out of them. Over the next 5 years we built and sold 700 or so of those.

TQR: Can you describe what was so special about the sound of that amp you used for
your prototype?

It had more musical character, and the harmonic overtones sounded like they just
belonged with the note you were playing. You know, with some amps you can really
hear minor and major thirds within the harmonic texture that’s created. This one was like that, it just did it a little bit better, and I think we succeeded in accomplishing what we set out to do very well."

"One of the things I did was take the variation out of it – the variation in manufacturing. Maybe you feel that the 1970 small-box JMP 50 is the best sounding amp for you. Fine, go get 6 of them. Put the same identically rated, matched tubes in them and you’ll still have six dramatically different sounding amps."

".....The amp has multiple primaries on the transformer so it can be switched to the voltages of many different countries, and because of the way the switches work out, there is also a setting on the switch for 140 volts. Now, if you set the amp to “see” 140 volts but you only give it 120, it’s very similar to setting it at 120 and giving it 105, so it’s very similar to running a Variac. Some people claim that Variacs are dangerous to amplifiers, but it isn’t the Variac that’s dangerous, it’s the hand on the Variac. An actual Variac is an adjustable transformer that, when it sees 120V it can be adjusted anywhere from zero to about 145V. In his first interview – the first big on I guess he did for Guitar Player, Eddie Van Halen said that to get that sound he ran his amp on a Variac and he turned it up to 140V. He later corrected himself and said that he set it at 95V. But by then a whole lot of people had already blown up their amps because what they did increases the voltage to the tubes, the filter caps – everything, and that usually results in something getting fried. Turning the voltage down just a bit – down to 105V – 95V, even down to 90V won’t hurt anything, but it will reduce the power of the amp and it changes the bias setting a little bit. As the tubes cool down with lower voltages it gives the amp a little different sound. It’s an educated guess that what the majority of what one is hearing using a Variac is the result of the output transformer not saturating. If you take a 100W amp and Variac it down, you’re only going to get about 60W out of it, meaning you’ll get somewhat more subtle harmonics out of it because when the tubes distort, they’ll create much more complex harmonics than the output
transformer would be capable of passing if it were distorting instead. Once again, this is educated guess, not gospel, and it’s very subtle.

TQR: But why is this potentially important to me as a guitarist?

It must be important, and significantly so, or you wouldn’t have done it.
It’s a different feel as much as a different sound. The amp can become more bouncy, more dynamic, and harmonics that don’t quite catch at full voltage suddenly become more discernible because the output transformer isn’t squishing them. Tubes are generating those harmonics all the time, but because you’ve lowered the amount of power you’re putting into the transformer, more of the harmonics are getting through. Also, you’re reducing speaker distortion to some extent, and speaker distortion tends to smear the notes and subtle harmonics."

Sorry about the long post .... usually I keep them much shorter...

[Bon Hoga]

Here is some of them ....

Thunderin' Jayzus

[AngryGoldfish]

Here is some of them ....

*collection of awesome*

I use the THD's & Fryette's the most...

I've seen you on TGP a few times, specifically in the VHT/Fryette threads. Awesome collection of gear, mate.

Here is my beloved Fryette and my much-missed Soldano:

[stephen sawall]

Hello AngryGoldfish .... I remember having a few conversations with you. Good to see you. I see a few cool pedals there....

[AngryGoldfish]

I only have a few of those pedals still.

[terminator]

here's a newer picture, and the reason I pay the most at our storage unit. my guitar rig is the yba1a and jcm800. the svt cl is fresh from the tech. I sold the 8x10 to Donovan's roommate, and the rest is my live bass rig.

the rust booster is still the best sounding pedal I've played through any of this. it has the best attack and sounds the most organic.

[Grrface]

here's a newer picture, and the reason I pay the most at our storage unit. my guitar rig is the yba1a and jcm800. the svt cl is fresh from the tech. I sold the 8x10 to Donovan's roommate, and the rest is my live bass rig.

the rust booster is still the best sounding pedal I've played through any of this. it has the best attack and sounds the most organic.

Oh shit, you're the dude from T2. I saw you guys when you played last year with Eccotone at the house show with the trash bag dude in the yard. You guys kill.