Well those amps were the first Marshalls and they are essentially Marshall's version of the tweed era 5F6 Fender Bassman. It's not designed to break up easily. It's technically a bass amp. And fun fact! As local british guitarists demanded more and more in those early days, and Marshall amps progressed and got tweaked and turned into Super Leads, those original "Bluesbreaker" circuits stayed in production, virtually unchanged, under the name....Super Bass.rayc wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 7:43 pm I look forward to following the build. I was watching the Guitaristas last night - he was trying to dial in a "Bluesbreaker" 2003 re-issue. To get close to Clapton's Beano tone he had to use an attenuator as they beast had to be loud to get the breakup - he was still hovering around 97dBs when he was close. 2x12 40w combo at 30Kg/70lb and it needs the two channels to be on 8 & 5 to break up.
Not a great option really.
Lol it wasn't easy buying those caps. I've been very pleased with the cheaper-yet-same Mallory 150s in my other Marshalls. But in the grand scheme of things they're not that expensive and I figured what the hell. A few extra bucks to try them out. If ever there was an amp to use them on, I think it's this one.
Dude when I pulled that thing out the box...I was like wow this is awesome. It's pretty elegant looking. A nice juxtaposition to the horrible racket that will come out of it.
no doubt .... that cab is spectacular!
I expect this white box to get some scuffs pretty quick and that's okay. I don't mistreat my equipment but I do use it and using it means things happen. All of my heads and cabs have scuffs and rips on them.
No the Tender Assman and the "spite build" JCM 800 2204 were both done by sourcing all the bits and just figuring it out. They were not kits either.WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 3:02 pm This is cool as hell. That head box is friggin beautiful. Love that.
So is this your first piece meal attempt amp where you figure it all out yourself sort of thing. Or have you done another one with the sourcing all the bits?!
Looking forward to following this one.
you really should .... that thing's pretty man ....and it's doesn't take that long to throw a cover on plus you make up the time cause you don't have to be quite as careful.
No I haven't. For one...I don't have a breadboard. The amp is the breadboard. And I don't think there are too many things that you could or would want to do without the amp actually being mostly assembled. The voltages in a functioning guitar amp are pretty big and very little of it could be isolated on a breadboard. Secondly, I'm not reinventing the wheel here. Most of the stuff I mess with is scientifically and functionally already proven. But to your point I do often "temp" in parts and pieces with jumper wires to test them out before final soldering. Lots of alligator clips and jumper wires makes it pretty easy to do some experimenting. And if necessary a quick tack-solder can hold something in place just for testing and then get a proper solder later.
That's probably what breadboards are best suited to. You can pretty easily lay out a pedal design on a breadboard and play with different values...and not electrocute yourself in the process. Win/win. If I was a pedal guy I'd be breadboarding all day long.I've often thought of getting a breadboard to try and fiddle with the much safer low voltages of stomp box circuits. It'd be cool to learn the classic circuits and experiment with them.
Gerk, that just LOOKS awesome man. It is one thing to have a good working knowledge of this shit, but you even make it look good. Good stuff buddy. I veyr much hope one day i can own a Greg™ amp.Greg_L wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 3:52 pm Back at this thing...been waiting on a few extra parts and getting done with other shit.
Anyway, the worst is over. All the fitting, bolting, securing, and wiring the heaters is done.
Monster transformers. This thing is heavy already. Stainless hardware and lots of loc-tite holding it all together.
You've seen this before. It never gets easier. The heater wiring.
This is something that's pretty common on other amps (like Fenders) but you don't often see it in Marshalls. This is a little artificial balanced center tap I created for the heater wiring. It's got a 100 ohm resistor to ground on each leg of the filament wiring. Usually the center tap is a separate wire halfway between the heater winding and it goes directly to ground. That's fine, no problem. When it is a problem is if the heaters short to a plate or cathode in a tube then you nuke the power transformer with a short to ground through the filament winding. These little 100 ohm resistors will act as makeshift fuses while also providing the perfect balance between the two halves of the heater winding. Necessary? No. But a little insurance and maybe a slight improvement in heater noise potential. I'll cap off the normal center tap wire and leave it disconnected.
Next will be stuff around the tube sockets and rear panel.
Well if she can't sell them for huge prices they can always come back here with me.
WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2023 8:13 pm
Gerk, that just LOOKS awesome man. It is one thing to have a good working knowledge of this shit, but you even make it look good. Good stuff buddy. I veyr much hope one day i can own a Greg™ amp.
