ilovefuzz.com

Man you guys are all pointing me at getting that amp, but I really don't have the spare cash. It might only be worth it to flip it on ebay like you said skip. I just couldn't find any prices anywhere to see if it is a good deal. I just have the extra cost right now of starting an unpaid internship and I am building an orange/matamp style amp anyway. I just need the final caps and then I can start putting the amp together.

dazedbyday wrote:Man you guys are all pointing me at getting that amp, but I really don't have the spare cash. It might only be worth it to flip it on ebay like you said skip. I just couldn't find any prices anywhere to see if it is a good deal. I just have the extra cost right now of starting an unpaid internship and I am building an orange/matamp style amp anyway. I just need the final caps and then I can start putting the amp together.

If your about to build one then pass my friend, since your building and can plan out everything exactly as you want it why bother with a prebuilt? Plus you get the satisfaction of telling people you built it when they ask what amp it is. Flipping it on ebay would be a huge hassle, yes you might net a few hundred bucks on it IF everything goes smoothly, but shipping an amp is always a gamble.

Ancient Astronaught wrote:
I'm gonna sound like a douche here, but I still think that Nick's internal wiring is neater / superior. Not saying this amp is bad by any stretch of the means, I love every bit of my Verellen gear, but I've never had anything from him that I didn't have to go in and fix something. When I got my brand new big spider his helper soldered the 9v barrel connections backwards, and when I got my skyhammer preamp I had to go in and replace the on/off switch (which was not his fault at all!) and also tidy up and reflow some of the connections on the bypass footswitch as out of the 20 strands in the wire only 3 or 4 were actually soldered onto the lugs. So it would cut in and out randomly, but since reflowing the connections its rock solid. I also found out that he doesn't even do alot of the basic soldering himself anymore, he mainly does design and over sight which is what allows him to still tour and mass produce amps / pedals. All that being said, the tone of his amps and pedals is superb / top notch / flat out amazing and the aesthetic is museum quality. I will continue to buy stuff from him in the future, but my first choice will always go to Dunwich.

Nick's wiring is definitely a work of art. My guts of my verellen look pretty similar to this one, but i know i bought mine early enough that The company was still pretty much just Ben and the guy that built enclosures with him. Same with my bug spider, they were all purchased in 09. I really need to look at my serial number, i forget what it is at the moment. I'd be interested to see what he is up to now.



I wonder the same with emperor, but my cabs have no serial numbers, so i can't get too OG about that one.

AxAxSxS wrote:Sorry to hear that man. I have no idea about what type. My wife works in health care and tends to get crazy with the jargon. I get lost. She was saying that the tumor was walnut sized, was at the base o his brain stem and that the surgeons had determined that it had not been there long. Big issues are if the cancer origionated somewhere else, and if there was any permanent damage. Last we heard was the surgery went well, and that he had woken up and was lucid. Makes one think about life, and how you want to live it.

Yeah, thats the scary part, the spread. That thing happened with my grandad. Prostate cancer, spread like fucking wildfire, too much to treat by the time they'd found it all. I hope it turns around for him dude. And fuck yes, it makes you think.

dub wrote:The cheap yellow label Four Roses is really nice actually, got this buttery finish on it, I always force it on folks who don't think they like bourbon. aha. Runs about the same price as Jim Beam too.
The selection downunder is pretty shit though, and the import duties make the prices insane. A bottle of Eagle Rare is ninety bucks over here!

Cunt of a government we have here. Greedy fuckers.

Also, just saw BLACK FUCKING SABBATH!!!
Far exceeded expectations. Ozzy was actually quite good. Only gripes were: he started way too low and fucked up the first half of Electric Funeral, and Symptom of the Universe was a shirt instrumental, then everyone left the stage and Tommy whats his named pulled a John 5 and played some bullshit drum solo for WAY too fucking long.
Other than that !!!

Hahaha, thanks for the voice of reason. Yeah, the shipping fees with amps has kinda daunted me. I have read on message boards about people getting cheap shipping but then anytime I try and talk to any of the shipping centers around me they always want to charge a lot either due to weight or for the amount of padding etc.

Hey T-Rey...quick question for you mate. You have the Ampeg GVT right...do you have the 15 or the 5?

From memory, i thought i saw a pic of your rig and you have Blackstar HT5 as well right?

so, i wanted to get an idea of volume difference, I've had the Blackstar, and at 5w it was still really loud, is the Ampeg on par with that or louder/quieter? and how would compare the clean tone between the ampeg and the blackstar?

deathmonkey wrote:Nick's wiring is definitely a work of art. My guts of my verellen look pretty similar to this one, but i know i bought mine early enough that The company was still pretty much just Ben and the guy that built enclosures with him. Same with my bug spider, they were all purchased in 09. I really need to look at my serial number, i forget what it is at the moment. I'd be interested to see what he is up to now.



I wonder the same with emperor, but my cabs have no serial numbers, so i can't get too OG about that one.

My big spider which is only a few months old is around the 250# serial number. The stuff that Ben built himself I've heard is much better quality as far as the wiring, design and everything else has stayed constant. I'd still like to get a verellen amp at some point but all ready having 2 200+ watt amps puts it far far down on the list. (especially when one of them is basically a 225w SkyHammer that cost me a total of 800$).

Some of my Emperors have had Serial Numbers, the lowest I had was in the 070's.

dazedbyday wrote:Hahaha, thanks for the voice of reason. Yeah, the shipping fees with amps has kinda daunted me. I have read on message boards about people getting cheap shipping but then anytime I try and talk to any of the shipping centers around me they always want to charge a lot either due to weight or for the amount of padding etc.

No problem! Shipping fees for me have always been atleast 80$ even for somewhere close, most of the people who get cheap shipping have a business account with a shipper.

I do indeed have a GVT15 and an HT5.

The Ampeg can actually be quieter than the Blackstar and remain usable on the cleans. I generally keep the Blackstar volume at 9oclock and gain at around noon - which comes out somewhere between speaking and yelling volume. But I can get the Blackstar down to a whisper on the dirty channel and it still sounds good - the Ampeg sounds kinda lifeless at ultra low volumes, but at 'speaking/tv' volumes and above it sounds great imo. TV volume with the Ampeg is noon on volume and gain on half power mode (which I am assuming is way less than half power). There is no comparison between the cleans. The Blackstars cleans are serviceable, but the Ampeg has a good clean tone. Not super sparkly or chimey or anything, but good cleans that stay clean with humbuckers. I've never played an old Ampeg or Sunn, but I imagine the cleans are somewhat similar - thick, heavy tone that doesn't really fuck around with being 'pretty.' That is a good thing in my opinion, but it's also why I'm still intrigued with the Fender Superchamp x2 - so I can have some pretty Fender cleans at mah disposal is necessary.

Of course, take everything I said with a pretty sizeable grain of salt because the Ampeg is the first tube amp I've purchased with any regard to the cleans at all.

Guys, check this out. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d81_1366853584. It is a bunch of guys from Texas trying to eat some canned fish thing from Finland.

deathmonkey wrote:

Ancient Astronaught wrote:
I'm gonna sound like a douche here, but I still think that Nick's internal wiring is neater / superior. Not saying this amp is bad by any stretch of the means, I love every bit of my Verellen gear, but I've never had anything from him that I didn't have to go in and fix something. When I got my brand new big spider his helper soldered the 9v barrel connections backwards, and when I got my skyhammer preamp I had to go in and replace the on/off switch (which was not his fault at all!) and also tidy up and reflow some of the connections on the bypass footswitch as out of the 20 strands in the wire only 3 or 4 were actually soldered onto the lugs. So it would cut in and out randomly, but since reflowing the connections its rock solid. I also found out that he doesn't even do alot of the basic soldering himself anymore, he mainly does design and over sight which is what allows him to still tour and mass produce amps / pedals. All that being said, the tone of his amps and pedals is superb / top notch / flat out amazing and the aesthetic is museum quality. I will continue to buy stuff from him in the future, but my first choice will always go to Dunwich.

Nick's wiring is definitely a work of art. My guts of my verellen look pretty similar to this one, but i know i bought mine early enough that The company was still pretty much just Ben and the guy that built enclosures with him. Same with my bug spider, they were all purchased in 09. I really need to look at my serial number, i forget what it is at the moment. I'd be interested to see what he is up to now.



I wonder the same with emperor, but my cabs have no serial numbers, so i can't get too OG about that one.

As far as I know Verellen is still just Ben and the dude that makes enclosures. Is he technically mass producing? My amp is still only BV#343(not sure if that number includes pedals or not). I think there might be something similar going on in my footswitch as your big spider...when plugged all the way in only the channel button is working not the boost...at first if I wiggled the cable just right both switches would work, but now just the one. Opened it up and made sure both pieces on the stereo jack were contacting the cable and they were indeed.

Oh well though, i'm prepared for this kind of shit...literally every single nice thing I have ever owned there is always a 1-2 month buffer period where something bad WILL DEFINITELY happen to it...

I will agree however, Nick's wiring is so damn clean and neat...although I don't have enough information to judge whether or not superior as the same thing probably would have happened in one of his heads with a 1/3 switch of similar design...it wasn't so much a wiring issue as it was me failing to understand the gravity of the option I was having put in, while he assumed that I did and forgot to inform me of how the ohms triple when switched to 100w. Really don't know what is going on in the foot switch though...but then again i've never had a footswitch that is 100% reliable.

ridingeternity wrote:As far as I know Verellen is still just Ben and the dude that makes enclosures. Is he technically mass producing? My amp is still only BV#343(not sure if that number includes pedals or not). I think there might be something similar going on in my footswitch as your big spider...when plugged all the way in only the channel button is working not the boost...at first if I wiggled the cable just right both switches would work, but now just the one. Opened it up and made sure both pieces on the stereo jack were contacting the cable and they were indeed.

Oh well though, i'm prepared for this kind of shit...literally every single nice thing I have ever owned there is always a 1-2 month buffer period where something bad WILL DEFINITELY happen to it...

I will agree however, Nick's wiring is so damn clean and neat...although I don't have enough information to judge whether or not superior as the same thing probably would have happened in one of his heads with a 1/3 switch of similar design...it wasn't so much a wiring issue as it was me failing to understand the gravity of the option I was having put in, while he assumed that I did and forgot to inform me of how the ohms triple when switched to 100w. Really don't know what is going on in the foot switch though...but then again i've never had a footswitch that is 100% reliable.

From what I've gathered in talking to him he has at least 1 more worker doing all the wiring on his pedals and some of his amps. My footswitch problem was actually in my skyhammer preamp pedal not the big spider, the big spider wouldn't work with a 9v plug from a power supply. Is your problem with the MeatHammers footswitch or do you have one of the preamp pedals as well? If its the MH's footswitch its probably more in making sure the connections are good on the actual DPDT switch then the stereo cable connector, thats where my issue was and was as simple as reflowing the solder to make sure it was really secure.

Yeah not understanding certain options when ordering them has bit me in the butt as well as a few others, like Darren and the stonehenge. Custom gear gets tricky and I try to do my best to understand everything before I put in an order. Like you said most likely the same thing would have happened to a Dunwich as happened to yours, theres no fail safe for that kind of setup unfortunately. I also can't think of a way that it would work at all, tripling any impedance (2, 4, 8, or 16) will not net any other standard impedance, it may come within tolerable numbers but it most definitely wouldn't match. When working with things designed in multiples of 2, multiples or divisions of 3 will never net a workable number. As far as the footswitch, I've had very few that worked 100% as well and like I said look at the actual footswitches not the stereo connector.

Side Note:

My band just released a new single and video, and its premiering on EARMILK!!!!!

http://www.earmilk.com/2013/04/25/drop-electric-little-sister-video-premiere/

This is actually one of our heaviest songs, and there is lots and lots of fuzz on my bass!

Ancient Astronaught wrote:

ridingeternity wrote:As far as I know Verellen is still just Ben and the dude that makes enclosures. Is he technically mass producing? My amp is still only BV#343(not sure if that number includes pedals or not). I think there might be something similar going on in my footswitch as your big spider...when plugged all the way in only the channel button is working not the boost...at first if I wiggled the cable just right both switches would work, but now just the one. Opened it up and made sure both pieces on the stereo jack were contacting the cable and they were indeed.

Oh well though, i'm prepared for this kind of shit...literally every single nice thing I have ever owned there is always a 1-2 month buffer period where something bad WILL DEFINITELY happen to it...

I will agree however, Nick's wiring is so damn clean and neat...although I don't have enough information to judge whether or not superior as the same thing probably would have happened in one of his heads with a 1/3 switch of similar design...it wasn't so much a wiring issue as it was me failing to understand the gravity of the option I was having put in, while he assumed that I did and forgot to inform me of how the ohms triple when switched to 100w. Really don't know what is going on in the foot switch though...but then again i've never had a footswitch that is 100% reliable.

From what I've gathered in talking to him he has at least 1 more worker doing all the wiring on his pedals and some of his amps. My footswitch problem was actually in my skyhammer preamp pedal not the big spider, the big spider wouldn't work with a 9v plug from a power supply. Is your problem with the MeatHammers footswitch or do you have one of the preamp pedals as well? If its the MH's footswitch its probably more in making sure the connections are good on the actual DPDT switch then the stereo cable connector, thats where my issue was and was as simple as reflowing the solder to make sure it was really secure.

Yeah not understanding certain options when ordering them has bit me in the butt as well as a few others, like Darren and the stonehenge. Custom gear gets tricky and I try to do my best to understand everything before I put in an order. Like you said most likely the same thing would have happened to a Dunwich as happened to yours, theres no fail safe for that kind of setup unfortunately. I also can't think of a way that it would work at all, tripling any impedance (2, 4, 8, or 16) will not net any other standard impedance, it may come within tolerable numbers but it most definitely wouldn't match. When working with things designed in multiples of 2, multiples or divisions of 3 will never net a workable number. As far as the footswitch, I've had very few that worked 100% as well and like I said look at the actual footswitches not the stereo connector.

Yeah now that you mention it it does sound like the switch...the switch works when the cable is halfway plugged in and the other one doesn't...then when in all the way it switches and the one works but not the other. I'll take a look at it again with that in mind.

Basically it works since I use 8 ohm cabs, can just plug those into the 4 ohm outputs which will effectively be 12 ohms. Since it's nowhere near the sometimes detrimental double amount(ie: 8 ohm cab 16 output) im not too worried about it...hahaha just as long as im not plugging a 24 out into a 8 ohm cab

the impedance multiplication problem is why i generally recommend against putting them into builds. There are other ways of doing power scaling (albiet not in 200-300W amps) which do not result in impedance multiplications.

t-rey wrote:I do indeed have a GVT15 and an HT5.

The Ampeg can actually be quieter than the Blackstar and remain usable on the cleans. I generally keep the Blackstar volume at 9oclock and gain at around noon - which comes out somewhere between speaking and yelling volume. But I can get the Blackstar down to a whisper on the dirty channel and it still sounds good - the Ampeg sounds kinda lifeless at ultra low volumes, but at 'speaking/tv' volumes and above it sounds great imo. TV volume with the Ampeg is noon on volume and gain on half power mode (which I am assuming is way less than half power). There is no comparison between the cleans. The Blackstars cleans are serviceable, but the Ampeg has a good clean tone. Not super sparkly or chimey or anything, but good cleans that stay clean with humbuckers. I've never played an old Ampeg or Sunn, but I imagine the cleans are somewhat similar - thick, heavy tone that doesn't really fuck around with being 'pretty.' That is a good thing in my opinion, but it's also why I'm still intrigued with the Fender Superchamp x2 - so I can have some pretty Fender cleans at mah disposal is necessary.

Of course, take everything I said with a pretty sizeable grain of salt because the Ampeg is the first tube amp I've purchased with any regard to the cleans at all.

mate that's perfect. To be honest i never likes the Blackstar clean, and when i started to get into fuzz and pedals, the Blackstar became obsolete to me...the main thing i want is an amp that will do cleans well, because i get all my dirt from pedals, so the Ampeg seems like its going to be the one! I just have to work out if i get the 5w or 15w.

thanks for your help.