History behind the amp:
I bought it in 2005 (october I think), and got a Metroamp PTP board for it with Mallories. When I got chance I replaced those caps with Sozo's, and replaced the cr@ppy Output Transformer with a Metroamp Dagnall Clone (made to their spec by Heyboer). Along the way I've changed lots of things, added in extra tube mods, switches etc.
I finally got an old digital camera I had working, so I thought I'd use it to take some long-due pics of my amp and guitar. The custom Warmoth guitar isn't assembled at the moment (refinishing it), so I've only got my 2004 strat in the pictures.

Feel free to ask me about any of the modifications that I've done on it. The 4th preamp tube mod isn't connected at the moment, but you can see a row of parts in the middle of the extra circuit board - that's for the extra tube when I feel like hooking it up, to make it into a switchable 1959/2203.

The switch at the back of the amp is for a switchable V2a cathode bypass cap, selecting between a .68uF Sozo cap and a 330uF electrolytic. The capacitor and resistor near the far right hand upper corner of the chassis are substitutes for the presence control, as you can see theres a PPIMV in the presence hole instead.


All signal capacitors are Sozo Mustard+, the preamp used to be all CC but I replaced some of them that I didn't feel had any effect on the tone. My favourite mod is the 1k V2a cathode resistor (shown between the .68uf and 330uf capacitors) that's a (1/8w or 1/4w?) NOS carbon comp resistor I once found in a bag of old capacitors - the leads are mostly gone so I've had to wire it strangely but it sounds awesome. It's drifted up to about 1160 ohms.

Since this was the first amp I ever worked on, and I've changed so much in this amp so many times, it's pretty dirty/messy inside. I'd like to rewire everything again at some stage but it's hard finding the time these days.

The tubes are JJ E34L's for the power tubes, Sylvania 12AX7WA for V2 and V3, and Sylvania 12AX7 (later version) for V1. Sometimes I use a Mullard in V1.
When I use V0 (the extra gain stage tube) it's either a JJ ECC83S or an RFT ECC83. 

The empty hole in the back panel is from a pentode/triode switch that isn't fitted at the moment - I took it out temporarily while I was doing some work around that area, it was getting in the way and I don't use triode mode as much these days.

More gut shots:


