Your content is spot on. I like how much teaching you do. As a novice builder, I feel like I learn a lot, especially in this video regarding the the inductance information on those transformer spec sheets. I didn't know what that was for before this video. I appreciate the time you take to do "jump cuts" to cut out the dead air time and deliver us content. If that's not your intention and your just doing it for style... well.. I guess just keep doing them! I'm kicking off a Dumble ODS build and your content related to transformers is helping me make a decision on which way to go. I wish more brands (Mercury Magnetics, Heyboer, Pacific Audio Magnetics) offered better spec sheets with more data like Hammond. Thanks for your content!
Hey Thanks. I figure as I make the vids I might as well spew out what I know about it. Jump cuts. I call is spitfire editing. Yeah, I can't stand long pauses or the sounds of deep breaths, so I cut them out. I can pause for quite a while while I put together what I'm going to say next. If I didn't edit this way the vids would be 3x longer and I don't think anyone would want that. Just got to kind of keep it flowing. I like Hammond, they are cheap and easy to find, and in many cases, Canadian made. They have a whole line of replacement xformers for name amps, which, if you know how to interpret specs, you can find one to fit your project. I'm also of the mind that no one needs an expensive high end xformer for a dirty "rock amp", esp if you are new to building. Start with common affordable parts, look into the posh stuff later if you actually thing you can improve things and have developed the skills to get the best use of them.
This series is killer, man! I had a 100HDM that I had planned on modding but I ended up scaling down to the Custom 22. You’re giving me a lot of great ideas and info to go on. Keep the amp shenanigans coming!
@@DATT I agree, the jet city sounded a little dull and the marshall seemed to "bloom" in the bottom end a fair amount whereas the fender stayed tight. Would really love to see how this test holds up to some much lower tunings.
Nice vid...both sounded better than the stock transformer...Marshall was leaner and more percussive while the Hammond had those nice low mids and I'd probably go with that...this is timely for me as I just bought a Heyboer Partridge clone for my Ceriatone Hiwatt DR 504 build...unfortunately the local Craigslist amp 'tech' couldn't even do the swap...hard to find a reliable person where I am in North Carolina
Part of the Brightness comes from the fact that the Hammond Marshall OT uses an symmetrical interleave winding over a plastic bobbin compared to the Twin’s paper layer winding.
I know right. Funny thing is, in my opinion, those genres can sound good on many amps. Extreme metal, you need to tight and tuned rig to really get it right, so I find it's a better test of what gear can do. When all these other guys just noodle their licks, I just can't get anything from it. The irony being, sometimes the better a player you are, the better you can make bad gear sound.
Happy new year! I discovered your channel merely days ago and I'm loving your videos. So in-depth and informative. Please protect your ears! There are tuned earplugs that stay neutral, frequency-wise.
@@DATT Very nice video. Amazing actually. Between the marshall style and the stock JCA the stock is definitely tighter and brighter even if you think otherwise in the way it tracks and I can guarantee you that it sounds closer to my real soldano (no shock there I guess) where as the 1750N brings a cloudy sort of compression the JCM 800 50 watt I have in the studio has, sweeter actually. Very small difference though. Mine is an avenger and I don't know I think it's mercury magnetics. I also had a red knob twin lol that fucker can go so hi gain it would surprise you. To be honest, I find that the sound is much more cab dependent that transformer or whatever. Make or break actually. Subscribed, great video.
Oh yeah, that's possible, my commentary was based on what I was hearing form the cab, not the recording. And yeah, the cab def has some of the biggest effect on tone. That's what I tend to tell people. I'm sure we both know a guy we jammed with back in the day, that went from head to head to head trying to find his sound, but each time he was dropping it on the same cab, haha.
Both the Marshall and the Twin sound really solid. I kind of prefer the bite of the Marshall. Though I think that the mids from the Twin xfrmr are more suited to the Soldano sound. Flip a coin. Both will do well.
You've got a great channel bud! I've started building in the last months. 5e3 5f6a/jmp hybrid 18 watt 1974 and a bunch more planned. I have the bug ! A slo clone would be a welcome addition to the family!!
Yeah, it's def a lot of fun. The only reason I don't do more build is cause I think, what am I going to do with all these heads, esp when I get the sounds I want out of what I already have. I have enough heads that give me one or 2 sounds. If anything, I'd want to build something multi channel, but that's super complex.
@DATT yeah, I can see me running out of space pretty quick, and the multi channel stuff does sound quite complex. It's cool to know I can build all the famous vintage amps I've always felt were out of reach, though. I've got enough parts to build a few more, and I guess I'll have to decide which ones to sell or trade for if they are hard to sell. I've got some transformers from old radios that I'm going to try and figure out how to use in some low wattage builds
@@soapboxearth2 Funny thing is, lots of the vintage amps, they didn't even really know what they were doing. Some of them can be improved by using modern electrical ground bussing techniques, and in a way that won't kill the tone.
Good stuff you got over here. Built my own sloclone last year and it sounds awesome. Perhaps you can do caps shootout on another video. Mallory vs Orange Drop should be good.
Ahh, unlikely, I'm kind of one of those guys who doesn't buy into the cap voodoo. Like I do but I don't. I know what features to look for and if certian things match, then it should be good. I might fuss in hifi audio applications, but grindy guitar amps ? Not so much. Half of the differences you'd hear are in the stacked tolerances. You could probably buy several of the same cap and hear as much a diff between them as you would a cap from a diff make but same value. Tbh, I typically stock the 150 type caps, those are the Mallory, tho I don't think mine are made by mallory. Polyester Film. Orange drops are polypropylene film. That said, big name amp makers might use cheaper components than the ones you might choose, so yeah, you could hear a difference changing those one. The caps I use are 5% tolerance and high temp rated, so I figure that's good enough. Also, some of my philosophy is doing these things on a budget, which is why I'm using these Hammonds, where as other cloners might opt for something more fancy, thinking that they have to.
I "accidentally" got a 1750D to replace the "broken" OT in my jca100h and it seems to handle a 100w config pretty dam well, Im happily surprised! I havent had the chance to turn the master more than half way yet these things are so loud! Even at 3 on the volume I need earplugs or Ill go deaf Im afraid to turn it up any louder yet lol but Im loving the hammond over the stock ot its more crisp and clear and a tad less mushy/grungy than the stock, lets hope it holds up to 100W!
Accidentally ? How's that? Did you mean to order the 100w model ? Yeah I wonder how it'll hold up. IN thoery, if you're running the output taps in a 1 to 1, you are "overloading" the tube, not the bad kind of overloading tho, it's a long story. But you are causing them to not run as hot and top out at their max wattage. It'll will def sound different, and maybe even gain you some clean headroom in the power section. In order to get proper 100w operation, you've had to compensate you output taps. So, plug a 16 ohm cab into the 8 ohm output, or an 8 ohm cab into the 4 ohm output. Then you'll proper 100 watt operation out of that transformer. However, this is where you might risk damaging things. I think as long as you keep running it as you are, you should be ok. The funny thing about this miss match, is the Jet wantes a 2200k transformer for the 100w amp, and the 1750D was what, 2350k ? So the amp is actually seeing the correct transformer for it. Marshall and SLO spec'd different transformers for their designs. Half because marshall intends for the power section to break up and add to the distortion, so they run things looser, where as SLO/JET want's a cleaner power section just to make loud what the preamp is doing so they run things tighter.
@@DATT Oh just among my insanity fixing this amp everything else checked out perfectly fine I thought it might be the OT going bad and I saw your video on the 1750D so I ordered one. It was such a good price and spot on to soldanos specs, its only about 1/4in smaller in size than the stock jca100 transformer I bet it can take 100w. The stock jca100 ot lable says 1.4k-0-1.4k that would be 2.8K/2800k? but i didnt really test that. I have a jca50 around that says 2.2k-0-2.2k that would match soldanos 4.4k for 50w, im not sure why the stock jca100 would be 2.8k instead of 2.2k that soldano used, Im sure theres a range that could be used safely, the 1750D's 2350k spec more closely matched the slo100 I thought. I wired the secondaries 1:1 since it should be in 100w but i forgot to mention I also accidentally wired the primaries backwards despite seeing your videos beforehand lol made quite a Loud sound, luckily got it on video. Your videos may have made me second guess myself haha Im also curious to see if you ever use that extra feedback winding thats on the 1750d for antything in the future and what that might be , i may be tempted to fiddle with it myself its a nice option that other ots dont have.
@@MkMc-o1y Ah yeah, so you considered the transformer impedance, good. 2.2 and 2.7 aren't too far off really. And I mis read you . . . For some reason I thought you were talking about the marshall transformer, the 1750N, when you mentioned the 1750D. So all that talk of compensating impedance, forget about all that. The 1750D is a 100watt fender transformer, so yeah, you're good. The JCA I feel is just meant to be a clone of the SLO with maybe one less feature, but a few changes. Might be they wanted to tighten things up a touch. OK so, the extra feedback winding, it's not even an FB winding. In the amp it's designed for, the schematic shows it as a balances DI out output. I have it hooked up to a jack in the back of my amp, and it works, but, sounds bad ? Very bright and "industrial" sounded like if you plug a distortion pedal directly into a PA or recording interface. I tried using it for FB before and it didn't work well, too little output or something, did not actually work the way FB was suppose to. I can't filming a video that talks about that feature.
@@DATT Ha ya its easy to get all these numbers mixed up, I read so many different specs my head starts spinning lol. If my memory serves the jca is an exact clone of the soldano hot rods which were cheaper pcb tuned down model of the slo. The boards are even nearly identical except the hot rod used a separate board for the power tubes. Theres only about 7 components that are slightly different values from the slo, mostly res/caps in the od channel, attenuator, crunch and bright caps and treble cap. Circuit paths are the same. Ill have to hook that whatever winding di output into something to try it out, it had such a weird impedance i didnt know what its good for. Its an interesting feature that other ot dont usually have.
@@MkMc-o1y Ah, I'm not familiar with the Hot Rods. Look up a schematic for the Fender "The Twin" or sometimes called the Red Knob Twin, or even "94 Twin". You'll see in there what they use that transformer output for.
People don't seem to realise that music is all about the purity of the sound. It seems like you are getting pretty close. LOL love the **** metal. Marshall is as you say, a lot higher and crunchy but it also has more "impact". Not to my taste tho. The third transformer rocks. Deep deep sounds man. and the I love the stock JCA. You need to join a band. Oh final edit....and get ear plugs. Your tone and nuance observations will exceeed anyone elses, I am sure.
1. How's your AVE shirt? I got the NE555 one and it's piss quality unfortunately. 2. The power transformer definitely does affect the sound, HIFI guys know transient recovery is all about the power supply. Boogie figured it out. Coming from the preamp is almost a square wave for this genre, matters less 3. 4:52 I've only ever seen core area referred to, not individual dimensions. That's only the center of the E shape, not the whole core. These will have very similar areas. You could pop the bell off to measure but you might disturb the potting. 4. Why not test the output feedback path impedance match effects? could be interesting. It seems to me on the low end of the OT any connection would be heavily mismatched anyway. 5. Regarding the primary's inductance and bass, I've not heard that. Inductors do react to low frequencies, that much is true. But more windings also can also be used to increase the high frequency response, so there's a counteracting theory there. DCR can tell you the relative windings between models, should indicate if one model is using a different core material to achieve a difference in inductance-vs-frequency. 6. You could use a higher power clean signal to saturate the transformers and see what that sounded like. It just sounds like power amp distortion to me, compounded in all the preamp distortion... Plus there's no actual level measurement, just meh 6 o clock. Seems I'm not the target audience for a soldano!
1. Ah, I don't mind my shirt, it's a bit tighter than other shirts in the same size, but I don't mind it. 2. The Transformer? Or the PSU circuit as a whole. Some oh what you mention, I figure, it more a issue in older amps and older designs that were "just enough", if you put says a stronger or weaker transformer in there, oh yeah, you'd hear a big diff, especially in dynamics. A design like that SLO and a lot of modern amps, the transformer is over rated to begin with, and it has a hideously over build PSU. It'll be stiff af. YOu'd have a wide margin in which you could choose a transformer and get identical results. So yeah, you're right for the most part, but my video is more specifically directed at those looking to clone an SLO. 3. Yeah, it was jsut a rough comparison. More to show it's an aesthetic match. 4. I'm not sure I understand this one. 5. If more winding add highs, I guess that explains why the guitar transformers are smaller than the HiFi units. I forget where I read the LF info. 6. Yeah, the SLO, at least used the way I use it, the power section stays clean. I did get Power distortion at that point, and yeah, not a real metric I suppose. Some of what I do in these videos it just off the cuff.
1750D all the way, is that the config I played? Pretty sure that sounds like what I heard. Needs the good ole boost but it can work for live riggage or jamming and of course recording
Well yeah. Check out my Project Jubilee. And I'm currently posting vids of an SLO build. Just, I really have to be in the mood for projects that involved. I've never really offered my services openly cause of the liability involved.
