The Steel Guitar Forum

Decided to explore a new amp and after seeing the $ 1400 and up price of admission, I began thinking about pushing a bit on something I already own. I have a Peavey 1000 that is OK and a Nashville 112. When I bought the 112 it didn’t take long to swap the op amps out for some faster ones to get a little better tone. And it is very passable sounding.
I had read about some of the new speaker options thes days and decided on the Emminence PF 350 as a likely candidate. Yeah I know it is heavy. Took the weight from forty two pounds up to fifty two pounds. Tone good. Then I got thinking ......what if I swapped the analogue amp out for digital? So here goes. When complete the amp will weigh 48 pounds. Deliver 220 Watts into the 8 ohm PF 350 and with another 8 ohm cab parallel will hit 400 watts. (4 ohm load). Not that you would need to. If you need help for the twelve inch speaker run it through the PA. It will also have external 9VDC . Or maybe I will build some of my old stomps into the cabinet for digital delay and a touch of plate reverb. Make sense? Don’t know . Don’t care. But all done I’ll have 600 bucks parts in it along with the stuff I already own. Should streamline gigging. Still working on it but here is a pre and in progress picture.

Please keep us posted. Sounds interesting.

Is it done yet, Tim?:) Poking around on the internet, I found your amp module and power supply. I'm curious as to what the other two boards are in the middle of your 4 new pc boards. The one next to your SMPS looks like it might be a low voltage power supply for the opamps.

Directly to the left of the power supply for the amp is Hypex’s dlcp-SMPS . As you surmised it provides 15 VDC +\- for the pre amp. @ 10A it has power to spare so the tan board is a couple of regulators to provide 9VDC for effects. ( hard wiring an EQD Dispatch master that can be velcro’d To the exterior and inside (back) of the amp.

here is the hypex shopping list and a finished pic.

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All together and ready for real test. Playing tomorrow.
Here is the effects box. Powered by the amp and wired direct. Velcro on the exterior and inside the amp to travel.

This has me thinking about making some other heavy amps lighter with that little class D kit. Looking forward to hearing how it holds up on the gig

Playing at the jam last night it was great. Loud . Clear. And no appreciable heat. Turned on my poor mans humbucker (front and back neck). And with the Wallace true tone hum gone? It was the quietest I ever heard my amp. Guess a humbucker is in my future at least for the commercial neck. Any suggestions?

That aside full gig tomorrow. Will take my trusty laser thermometer and monitor some temps.

Thoughts at this point: the largest tone change seems to be the switch to the PF 350. Certainly warmed it up and cleaned up the highs. A close second is the hypex amp. It is virtually transparent in the tonal range of the instrument. It is a favorite of audiophiles and as amp for studio monitors. It has none of the sterile brittle qualities of the class D in my Peavey 1000.

My next experiment will be to drive the 1000’s 15 BW with the 112 they do share a preamp board after all. Cheers. Tim

Took a while to get this posted. At the end of the third set I measured 121 F through the vent at the top of the amp. Less than 50 C. I don't think a fan will be needed although I left space for one.

Almost a year in. The Hypex update has performed flawlessly. Outside[High temperature] jobs no problem.

Never a a hiccup. PF 350 broken in and sounds great. Just a little too heavy.
Next consideration is turning it into a head only and building a seperate speaker cab with a 15". We'll see.
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