“People who regularly watch your channel are showing less interest in watching this video.” It’s always the videos with stuff people need to know that get fewer views. Still I resist the clickbait titles…
How can RU-vid, more specifically its bot, make such a determination on a Sunday morning when a video has only been available a few hours? I swear, those messages are meant to instill anxiety and encourage grinding rather than help.
Re the spare KT66, he should make a Champ-style, single-ended ear destroyer for it. Single-ended KT66 in a 5F1 style circuit, driving a 12" speaker. Not only would it be a great little thrasher, it'd be a home for bereaved singleton KT66s that've lost their partner. They could live out their twilight years in glory.
oh hey, thanks for posting this. I'm on my third Route 66 first one I got I didn't really even know how to adjust the base and treble on it to get what I wanted lol what a noob I was I have one with the exact prescribed tube complement by Mike zaite. it is too loud for most people but an air brake works pretty well thank you so much for posting
Beautiful work! I once had 2 50watt Sovtek Bassov midget heads, one sounded excellent and the other very meh. I found a local tech and asked him to examine the good one and help the meh-amp. Turns out, he used to live in NYC and work for EHX-Sovtek. He was one of 2-3 amp designers for them and his name was on some of the sovtek schematics, which he had (small world moment). He couldn’t help me with the meh-amp. The transformers were of different manufacture, and obviously, the good sounding amp had the higher quality transformers. I sold the meh-amp and still use the good one to this day.
Sano, Excelsior, Valco, and even some Dan Electro amps had 180 out wiring twisted together, and they also liked to twist the LFO wires together. Heaters? That was kind of a crapshoot. Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why Sovtek, JJ & China cannot make a good rectifier tube. I have about a dozen good old GZ34s left. Mullard, Philips, Telefunken, Matsushita, GE, and the fat bottle Sylvania GZ34s are all about the same. 5U4s, 5SA4s and 5DJ4s are also the basically same tube and old western European/USA/Japanese made tubes are consistent & decent.
Hey Lyle. Greetings from Germany. Does the 65 DRRI circuit need the standby switch. I’m turning my whole rig (pedalboard and amp) on and off with a switchable power outlet without ever touching the amp switches. Until now it works great. Should I change this behavior? Thx for your great content. Much appreciated here! Keep up your good work! Cheers
I am wondering if using radial caps, even with the leads bent to 90 degrees, is going to cause stress on the leads which might cause the caps to start leaking? Wouldn't aial caps be a better choice here?
Well, they would, but it’s almost a theoretical issue. The coupling caps in Zs tend to hold up fine in my experience. But yes, axials would be best practice.
Hey Lyle, can a mismatched pair of output tubes really provide a more interesting and complex guitar tone, or is this yoost another fairy tale? edit: Soon after commenting of course you address this but my question is "in your opinion" (Thanx Teach, for another great vid)
Just go find audio samples of symmetrical vs. asymmetrical clipping, and decide for yourself. A lot of distortion pedals offer both options via a switch.
Well, distortion pedals are much more extreme examples. You won’t hear anything approaching that in output tubes. There are a lot of other variables involved too. I’d say that with a healthy pair of tubes, any slight mismatch is still less important to the sound than the humidity of the air being listened through.
Recently purchased a Dr. Z. Apart from picking up more ground hum than any amp I've used, it gets worryingly hot to the touch. My power cables feel physically hot too after use. Not burning, but hotter than warm. Is this normal?
No, the power cable should never be warm to the touch. Confirm the amp has the correct fuse values per Dr Z. If someone put in a 20A fuse things can be very bad inside the amp without blowing a fuse. You should have a tech confirm safe operation before using the amp again.
@PsionicAudio It's a Carmen Ghia. Super small, and made from a Hammond chassis. That and the El84s I assumed it was normal. Thank you for the safety advice. MJ
Orange Drops? Ewwwww. All that money and Dr Z can't even spring for an axial cap? There's a lot of metallized polypropylene axial caps out there that are as good or better. I don't like the high mass and bent leads when they're used like this. It's almost a Mesa move! Besides, it looks like 💩.
Where I come from, the orange drops count as axial capacitors, besides - they worked for Dumble (and few myriads of other builders), so they should kinda work and they do, in fact. …And not all orange drops are polypropylene (not that there’s anything wrong with it) - there are different series …
It’s fine, if anything, the bent wires provide strain relief and protection against the board/components expansion/contraction with heat and cooling. NASA standards for turret boards actually insist on a bend in component leads for this exact reason. Going straight between turrets isn’t best practice.
