12/17/16 3:34 PM

Recently had a Tweed Deluxe hand made to the 1955 Schematic, hand wired turret construction like in the old days. Something I just never managed in 20 years of wanting to do this.

I had a hand made Pine Tweed Deluxe Cabinet and empty chassis since 2010. When I saw what it was going to cost to do a period correct chassis with all the moving/life/shit etc., just never happened. If you look at the top pic you can see no chassis in that cab. Just used it as a speaker cab.

Went on a speaker swapping fest, as I have quite the collection. A 1959 Oxford Alnico 12" does the Tweed Trick!

12/17/16 5:13 PM

I'll always be attracted to tube type stuff. I'd like to have a home stereo with a tube preamp and power amps. The high maintenance and expense are the main attractions.

At least I have a tube type Hammond and Leslie.

12/18/16 7:19 PM

I had a Fischer 500C Integrated Amp and tuner for a long time. Wish I still did. I traded off my 1963 Fender Pro Amp this season. But it needed some attention and the cabinet was trashed by the guy before me, so I never got it. So just the working chassis I put in a ply head cabinet.

But cool having a Brownface 1963 point to point Fender amp, just no use for 40 tube watts without some attenuation or master volume of some type.

12/20/16 6:48 AM

I fought the tube v. transistor battle in the '70s--first as a ham operator, and later as a musician, and I finally came down on the side of solid state. It's not perfect, but it's predictable in ways that tube circuitry isn't, and it's more likely to survive rough treatment.

That being said, when a tube amp is properly set up, it is a joy to belisten.

12/21/16 7:35 AM

For many years I had tube equipment, a pair of Dynaco Mark III's and a pair of tube pre-amps in series that allowed various tape and audio processing. I gave it all up some years ago when the tubes became very hard to find. In recent years they've become easier and cheaper again, but I'm in the transistor world now. I had one of the old Mono Fisher receivers in the shop, with an enormous Heathkit speaker system, a bookshelf unit on top of an 'extender' that included a horn tweeter and an enormous woofer in a corner horn case. It sounded wonderful and was crazily efficient - a pocket transistor radio would drive it to room filling volume. All done now. Lightning came one night there, and just before it hit the overhead wires and fried half the electronics in the house, melted a bunch of breakers, and blew two pumps, the Fisher glowed with St. Elmo's fire. When it hit, the woofer woofed one mighty blast that tore the cone off the voice coil, and the receiver never received again.

I also had a 500C stereo receiver, which worked nicely but I did not need, so i loaned it to a friend. His house burned down. Fortunately it was not the Fisher that did it, but that was the end of that one.

With age my golden ears have tarnished anyway, but at its best that tube stuff was lovely to listen to.

12/21/16 8:19 AM

"but at its best that tube stuff was lovely to listen to."

Truly

For shiets and giggles, me at 16, 500C on the shelf, corner of Marshal tube amp lower right, and my 1st Les Paul. ;) And hair, I once had hair...

12/21/16 3:04 PM

quote:

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It's not perfect, but it's predictable in ways that tube circuitry isn't

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12/21/16 5:51 PM

Back in the way back dream time, I started my Hi fi career with a single Dynaco Mark III, only later getting another to make stereo, and eventually a third as a spare. A couple of times, I roasted chestnuts on the top of it.

I was in the KLH rather than AR camp, with a set of three KLH 6 speakers, using a pair for front, and a single one for back channel. The KLH's weren't very great for stereo imaging, but had lots of power, and a pair of horn tweeters on the front channel gave it a little more directional zing.

Crank up Verdi's Requiem or Saint Saens' organ symphony or the like on this baby, and lie on the floor. Better than drugs.

12/21/16 6:13 PM

I had some cool Wharfedale speakers for my Fischer. Then we started making Bose 901 copies with CTS drivers, bass augmented with some 12" bottoms sitting under them with chokes. ;)

I had AR9s I sold with the HT in NJ, did NOT wanna move them ever again. Prior to that DCM Time Windows, I miss these most.

My HT fronts to this day are DCM Time Frames. And the rest more modern Swiss Piega, the Piega front as rears, the rear in boxes. ;) I got the Piegas in a trade for some Radia X3s. I miss the ribbons. ;)

All my cars had Visonic subs and speakers in the day. I still have some f that stuff from late 80s still working...

12/21/16 6:27 PM

I bought a set of DCM Time Windows some time in the early 1980's and still use them, though now with an NAD receiver. Not, perhaps, the top performers for rock and roll, but they sound just wonderful for many things, and almost everything else sounds like headphones by comparison.

12/21/16 6:31 PM

"still use them"

One of those 'Got Aways' for me. And the 1976 Telecaster, the 60s Guild Thunderbird and F48 Acoustic... I am going to go cry now...

Love to still have that 50 Watt Marshall you see the corner of in the picture there as well...

To the right of the Marshall out of view is an Ampeg V4 Head and one 412 Cabinet. ;)

12/21/16 6:41 PM

Unfortunately, the durability/quality of the Russian and Chinese tubes available today is often very poor.

The youngest Hammond tonewheel organs are more than 40 years old (and the oldest are more than 80 years old), but it's not uncommon to see them still equipped with their original USA-made Hammond-branded tubes. Many of the modern replacements fail in a couple of years.

Alan

12/21/16 7:19 PM

Agree tube quality. If I was gigging I would have to decide on having multiple sets or crazy investment in NOS stuff.

I have a small stash of NOS tubes for a few amps in my possession.

One has some 1968 Mullard power tubes I would not want to have to procure again.

I find especially pre amp tubes have much less glass and metal as to not be so great in the wear and tear dept for the riggers of playing out. I have tossed lots of microphonic [or relegated to non front end use] tubes.

I'd probably take one of two Solid State amps. ;)

12/22/16 6:56 AM

For more shits & giggles, me at 20 or 21:



That's a Peavey Pacer, IIRC, 50 watts of solid-state power that was really quite good. The distortion was so-so, but I used a Gibson fuzz pedal. The other thing that the Pacer had was a real reverb tank. A good whack to the side of the amp lead to fun special effects.

The guitar, long, long, long gone, was an Ibanez MC200. These photos were taken before I built a little preamp into it that gave me lots of gain, as well as treble or bass boost controls. I had three pots to control the preamp, and I left the individual volume controls for the pickups.

Yeah, like a lot of people back then, I really wanted an Alembic.

12/22/16 12:14 PM

Dead Head?? Still have the Alembic? I was not one that wanted one, although hard not to appreciate the sweet laminnated woods used in them. Strictly a Les Paul guy myself.

I Still have one Peavey amp, and was using a Peavey PA CS800 for my dual folded horn Home Theater Sub for years. I also had a LTD-400 for a few years that actually was owned by Jerry Reed. My neighbor in TN was his niece and the cousins brought a bunch of amps to one of their yard sales. All Peavey Freebees to Jerry.

And a few other Peavey guitar amps like Delta Blues and a few early one like your Pacer went through while in TN for almost 10 years.

12/22/16 1:21 PM

The irony is that an Alembic Model I would have cost $1,800 in those days, and that Ibanez hippie sandwich model that I'm playing cost $550, and then I built the electronics myself. These days, an Alembic will run you $10,000 easily.

So I suppose that I should have invested, though where in the freaking world I would have got that kind of $, I do not know.

Yeah, Dead Head. I built a pedal board with a nice little regulated power supply to run the board (Small Stone, Fuzz Face (IIRC), Wah Pedal, Peavy footswitch) and put it in a nice little aluminum box with a SYF sticker on top.

12/22/16 2:09 PM

"Yeah, Dead Head"

Not much of a stretch, every friend that wanted that type guitar was. I was solidly in the Jimmy Page camp. Then some Humble Pie, Bee Bob Deluxe, Beck etc etc.


On the hardware front, USPS just delivered a 12" Speaker with new Tech to it called FDM [Flux Density Modulation]. Has means via a mechanical dial which I presume moves the magnet in/out, end result up to a -9db attenuation.



In the hopes yet another 50 watt amp won't outlive it's usefulness from being too loud.

12/23/16 10:39 AM

Interesting knob. Does it go to 11?

12/23/16 11:48 AM

" Does it go to 11?"

More importantly, it goes to -9. ;)

12/24/16 2:54 PM

I played for the food pantry where I work Saturdays. Guitar, piano, sax. And 200+ appreciative guests. I had forgotten how much fun performance can be!

12/25/16 9:56 AM

quote:

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Flux Density Modulation

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12/25/16 10:38 AM

You made a guitar amp...

Out OF A DELOREAN???

Speaker workd well, the tone only changes slightly when atten is on full. This speaker and the master volume being in the Traynor YCV50 seems like a multi window volume solution that still has what you get a tube amp for. Like to get it out with a drummer et al.

12/25/16 4:26 PM

My amp has an oscillation overthruster, buckaroos.

12/29/16 4:39 PM

how about soundcloud some licks for us?

12/29/16 4:54 PM

You don't wanna hear me or watch me climb on a bike.

This is on the bench getting assembled today. Have an Amp Cabinet in the planning stage with same pattern.

Thought I'd share