Inappropriate Amp gas

[WezV]

Well, less than a month to go till my wife gives birth.

Seems like the ideal time to buy a 50w non master volume vintage valve amp ;)

I put a cheeky low bid in on a Selmer TnB 50sv, should be picking it up in a few days.

Its the early 70's one like this:


it was described as having a bit of hiss and crackly pots, so it sounds like a service will be needed but that hopefully wont be any bother

[Transcend]

Sounds like it may need some very minimal work. Crackly pots are no biggie really and very easy to replace in older amps the hiss should also be easy to sort depending what type of hiss it is.

Nice score!

[Ian Price]

Congratulations Wez - that's a nice new arrival for you! Will be interesting to see which of your new arrivals wins the noise competition!

[WezV]

well, i have been after a new amp for a while and the wife was aware it was going to happen at some point.


there was another amp on ebay i was considering, but it was a bit far to drive so i talked myself out of bidding

cant believe a traynor YSR-1 including 4x12 speaker cab went for so little!!!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150739529171?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_500wt_1413

[Telerocker]

Congrats for both: the arriving baby and the amp. It's a nice piece of nostalgia.

[PhilKing]

Nice amp Wez.   I always liked T&B's.

[Roobubba]

And there was me thinking you might be gassing after some boutique amp called.. oh I don't know, Mr Rapey's Spunky Jizzler or something :D

[WezV]

where do i get one of them???  ;)

SO, what are my options for making this thing usable at home volumes.   I dont think i will be getting to crank it for power amp distortion very often so i am aware i wont always get to hear it at its best all the time, but i know it should be capable of nice cleans and should take pedals well :)

1) attenuator.  Price may be an issue, i also dont think they are really suitable for what i want as i would probably be asking it to do too much which may damage the amp

2) fit a master volume - should allow me to get a better range of tones and could be a genuinly useful mod. 

3) Fit a volume box in the effects(echo) loop.  i think this is similar to fitting a master volume, with the added advantage that its  not a permanant mod 

4) anything else???

[Dmoney]

how good are you at wiring? Frank JPF might be the man to talk to, I know he's working on something you might be interested it. power scaling.

volume control in the FX loop is like a standard MV depending on where the loop is in the circuit. It's an easy one. you could also try a PPIMV (post phase inverter master volume), of which there are a few options, some easier than others.

[WezV]

I think i am generally ok at wiring.   absolutely fine and occasionally quite inventive with guitars.  ok with pedals but not always successful.  and i have made a champ style amp before  which works well but it was largely just following instructions

i get a bit lost when i start looking at amp schematics, but when i start reading up it generally makes sense.   I have a big book on tube amps around here somewhere - will have to dig it out and see what i need to do

[dave_mc]

nice :lol:

[gordiji]

a mate of mine had a selmer when i was a teenager, a bit like this one but with 1 input and 1 vol/1 tone. i think it was 30w.it was a combo 2x12 ,tall one and was an absolute tone monster.v.loud.
hope yours' sounds as good.

[HTH AMPS]

if you're not afraid of putting in a small transformer and another valve socket, you could add another output stage - single ended, class A using an ECC81, around 1w.

tap the signal from one of the EL34 grids and feed it to the 1w output stage, could even have a master volume in there too.  just add a switch to lift the cathodes on the EL34s to mute the normal part of the amp.

If you're local to Frank at JPF, he'll know how to do this - give him a shout.

[horsehead]

That Traynor was a deal and a half! & congrats mate, top notch buy

[WezV]

i would have loved to try the traynor - i didnt think for a second it would stay that low.

the selmer is a lot closer, a fair bit cheaper and i know a bit about what to expect from them

i am currently leaning towards getting power scaling fitted.. but i still need to pick it up and see what other work it needs before any decisions are made