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Topic: Another 5E3 Project Amp |
Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 7 Nov 2008 1:16 pm |
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This one began as a 5E3 preamp section into a 5F2 Tweed Princeton (or Champ) power section. Sounded great at home, but just couldn't gig with the 5 watts very easily. So I got an output transformer and an extra 6V6 and socket, so now it's pretty true to an original 5E3 Tweed Deluxe. I did shrink the values of some of the coupling cap's to tame some excessive bass response. Now it's a bit tighter and less mushy and muddy than the stock design.
The orange drops are the 225p series which are the same caps as the old molded blue Fenders still made today by Sprague. Cathode bypass caps are the new Silmic II that many audiophiles are raving about. They use silk and hemp as the dielectric, and the cap's have a very smooth and un-harsh tone with low ESR and generally pretty high performance for an electrolytic. The plate resistors are 1W Allen Bradleys. I didn't go nuts trying to make it all pretty and photogenic inside. It's more of a functional playing amp. Sounds killer. I'm liking that Weber Alnico speaker too. The amp is probably kicking out about 12 watts or so. All pine cabinet. Pretty light amp.
Brad
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Marc Jenkins
From:
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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Posted 7 Nov 2008 1:51 pm
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| Nice one Brad! Which Weber speaker is that? I don't recognize it... |
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James Quackenbush
From:
Pomona, New York, USA
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Posted 7 Nov 2008 3:13 pm
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| Love them tweeds !!!.......Jim |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 7 Nov 2008 4:09 pm
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Marc,
I'm really not sure about the speaker. I got it used from a local shop for $50.
Brad |
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Paul Arntson
From:
Washington, USA
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Posted 7 Nov 2008 10:03 pm
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Brad - that is gorgeous!
I bet it sounds as good as it looks.
Nice job. |
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Steve Feldman
From:
Central MA USA
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Posted 8 Nov 2008 8:50 am
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| Brad Sarno wrote: |
Marc,
I'm really not sure about the speaker. I got it used from a local shop for $50.
Brad |
No marking on the frame? Something like 12A150, or 12F150, or 12F125 or something?
_________________
"...An admission of interest in protracted commentary is certainly no reason to capitalize on surmised aberations that do not exist." - BH |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 8 Nov 2008 9:00 am
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Aha!
There's a little sticker on it.
12A125 - 30w
So that's the one.
Thanks,
Brad |
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Steve Feldman
From:
Central MA USA
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Posted 8 Nov 2008 9:07 am
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| Brad Sarno wrote: |
Aha!
There's a little sticker on it.
12A125 - 30w
So that's the one.
Thanks,
Brad |
Alnico Weber with a 1-1/4 magnet. Supposed to a break up a little earlier than the 12A150. Supposed to be very nice, but they are known for long break-in periods. Sweet!
_________________
"...An admission of interest in protracted commentary is certainly no reason to capitalize on surmised aberations that do not exist." - BH |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 8 Nov 2008 9:45 am
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I sometimes like to hook up a new speaker to a stereo in the basement and run music thru it for a bunch of nights to help break it it. Speaker break-in is such a huge factor. A friend of mine is a major tube amp junkie, and was also chief tube amp designer for Ampeg. He's a tone god. He was bragging about an amazing, holy-grail sounding Tweed Deluxe that he recently serviced. I asked him what makes the old and especially good ones so much better than new boutique clones or other Tweed Deluxes, what's the magic factor. He said everything matters, like tubes and transformers and resistors and caps and the cabinet wood, but by far, most of all with those old "magic" Tweed Deluxes, it's the extremely broken-in, decades old, softened up speaker that makes all the difference.
It's so funny to read all these speaker shootouts and hear comments on people's opinions when they get a new speaker. A new speaker really sounds worlds away from what it will become after a few dozen or hundred hours of break-in. Fortunately this speaker I got for my amp here had already been semi well used in an amp for a year or so. But I still may give it a few weeks of the break-in treatment.
Brad |
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