rudi Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 I'm all tube crazed. I wish I had ten thousand bucks to spend on this stuff. Better yet, a gig where you get sent equipment from Matchless, THD, Boogie, et al...and write about it. I was reading about those new Egnater 1-20 watt variables that have a blend knob (6V6 to EL84 - all of one or the other or a blend). It'so hard to find a good, EL84 based amp that puts out a watt or less. What I want is genuine power tube overdrive at a tolerable level. I have a Boogie Lone Star Special with a quartet of EL84s which can be switched off to deliver 30-15-5 watts. Trouble is, even 5 honest-to-god RMS tube watts is a LOT of volume. Enough to vibrate my whole room. Yes, it sounds fabulous, but I have to peel my long-suffering wife off the ceiling. Plus, I live-in manage a 36 unit bulding, and I can hardly chastise others for noise if I'm rattlig the windows. Last night, though, I was ready to go to GC in Oxnard and swap my Boogie even for an Egnater 20 and 12" cab. Then I came to my senses. Of course GC was willing to swap even - they were getting one of the best US-made amps - and believe me, this thing is built like a tank - in exchange for a PCB based, Chinese made amp. A little digging revealed that even the 12" "Celestion" is made for Celestion by (who else) the Chinese. I've nothing against our Chinese bretheren, but gargantuous debt and ridiculous imbalance is going to lead to bigger trouble than you can even imagine. And it's WAY past the tipping point. Hedonism, my friends and neighbors. Eat, drink, and make merry, for tomorrow we die. So no thanks on the Chinese made stuff. USA, Japanese, German, Austrian, Italian. These are the ones to buy. It'll cost you more, but boycott Chinese made stuff whenever possible. I already own the last Acoustic I ever plan to buy (gibson Hummingbird) and will only make them to order. I will build one more acoustic to keep and to use with the D-28 I made for a portfolio of sorts: A 000 or OM size acoustic, short scale (24"), with Koa sides and back, mahogany neck, spruce top, and ebony bridge and fingerboard. Either LR Baggs or B-Band electronics. This model would run about $2850 with hard case...but this one I'm keeping. I've A lot of the time I use my POD - the latest version has s/pdif out, so I can keep the signal clean and at 24 bit word length until mixdown to crappy ol' 16/44.1 Red Book. The POD is truly amazing, but it lacks one thing: that moving air, and the feedback interplay between the amplified pulses from the speaker cones and the guitar pickups. I tried one of those amp isolation boxes once - same problem. No, to make a rig sound its best, it must be played open, in proximity to the guitar. Feedback is odd stuff, though - my experience has been that controlled feedback is frequency-sensitive as well. You might get a Bb note or even chord to do that awesome long tail-off into a smooth howl, but be unable to get F to feed back at all. Then there's the whole pinch harmonic thing, which BTW, my Elitist LP shines at doing. You'd swear the Reverend hisself was in the room with Pearly Gates. One of the coolest sounds I know is a pinch harmonic series on a Tele where, again, it tails into warm, even-order harmonics. While I truly love m Elitist LP - I've played leads faster and cleaner than I ever could before - a sure sign of a great guitar - I must admit that my Telecaster is my desert island go-to. Right now it's in pieces - I'm doing a refinish and once I saw the gorgeous swamp ash under the butterscotch, was glad I did it. But I didn't stop there; I bought a Seymour Duncan (my fave p'ups) mini-humbucker for the bridge. The humbucker has four leads coming off it, so I can set it up like I did with my old hot rails: I bought a 3-way (6 terminal) mini toggle switch that I will drill a 1/4" hole for between the volume and tone knobs. Wired properly, this will allow me three options for the humbucker: 1) straight 'bucker, 2) paralell SC, and linear SC. Combined with the (stock) bridge pickup, this will give me 5 different tonal combinations. Finally, I inlaid some thin strips of cherry like sunbeams across the front. Photos when I finish - promise.
cGil Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Yup. The smoker ya get, tha player ya drink. So anyway, seems to me the 20w Eggbeater's got just the right mix of real nice tricks. Power scaling is just the ticket for cliff dwellers and all denizens of the bedroom confines, and mixable power tubes has something for folks on both sides of the tracks. And it'd probably sound even better with a mix of Heritage G12M and G12H in the cabs. Or one of 'em an Alnico Blue. It'd be a little expensive to get one just to gut and rebuilt P2P, but if you don't sand the chassis, or drill (or lick) the cab during the process, then those nasty chinese supertoxins built into everything shouldn't cause too much trouble. It'll probably even last a few years as is, but hey, when it does start growing tin whiskers on the solder joints, or the board just plain disintegrates into flying traces, then at least the pot holes and tube socket holes are right where ya need 'em. The rest can be fixed. Probably won't be too long before even Mercury Magnetics starts offering replacement iron for it. Till then, a Heyboer 36w set should do nicely. Gil...
rudi Posted February 20, 2009 Author Posted February 20, 2009 Drinking tonight' date=' are we? [/quote']Not a drop in years...all natural
m-theory Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Not a drop in years...all natural You're kidding, right? Are you saying that there was an actual thought-out point to your previous comments? I don't mean to sound harsh, but man, that was some mighty convoluted thinking that you put into words there.
rudi Posted February 20, 2009 Author Posted February 20, 2009 You're kidding' date=' right? Are you saying that there was an actual thought-out point to your previous comments? I don't mean to sound harsh, but man, that was some mighty convoluted thinking that you put into words there. [/quote'] It was just a stream-of-consciousness update on what I've been thinking about. Sorry if I caused you any confusion or offense. None intended. Next time I'll do an outline, a couple of drafts, and follow Robert's Rules of Order.
cGil Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Sure ya will. Meanwhile, don't buy nothin' yet. The mythical VSenior may actually be about to make it's long awaited debut. Way less expensive than the Eggbeater, and way more ripe for gutting. :D Gil...
m-theory Posted February 20, 2009 Posted February 20, 2009 Next time I'll do an outline, a couple of drafts, and follow Robert's Rules of Order. Ok, that'll work. Thanks!
rudi Posted February 26, 2009 Author Posted February 26, 2009 Ok' date=' that'll work. Thanks! [/quote'] Kool. BTW - I'm a fairly disjointed guy, but I'll admit it - that post was even more so than usual. As Kramer said (pointing to his head) "Up here, I'm already gone..."
rudi Posted February 26, 2009 Author Posted February 26, 2009 Sure ya will. Meanwhile' date=' don't buy nothin' yet. The mythical VSenior may actually be about to make it's long awaited debut. Way less expensive than the Eggbeater, and way more ripe for gutting. :- Gil...[/quote'] Indeed. In the meantime, I was browsing a little store in Santa Barbara and found a consigned Blackheart - the combo with 1-12" and a 3/5 watt amp (triode/pentode modes)...el84 powered. I don't know how to describe the "Vox sound"...maybe sort of "boxy"...regardless, I love the sound of an old el84-powered amp like a nice old AC, and I see there are lots of performance mods available to make the Blackheart more Vox-y. I'm planning to strip this out of the tolex cabinet and use just the amp, in a self-designed, solid wood head, to drive an old 12" Celestion/Boogie speaker I have (also with a home-built cab - 1X12). I'm just starting to learn a tiny bit about tube amp construction and performance, and I'm looking forward to heating up the ol' solder gun.
brianh Posted February 26, 2009 Posted February 26, 2009 Forget about the Valve Senior for awhile. It looks like Epiphone used NAMM and this forum to judge demand before they actually made anything. Sweetwater now says July, but who really knows? Certainly not them, they're just a pawn in Epi's overall business model: http://forums.epiphone.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=7573&p=4
m-theory Posted February 26, 2009 Posted February 26, 2009 It looks like Epiphone used NAMM and this forum to judge demand before they actually made anything. Sweetwater now says July, but who really knows? Same story as last year. If this thing ever does actually appear, it had better be one very special amp, because they've pretty much destroyed market anticipation. I'll admit it - that post was even more so than usual. I've been known to do it myself at times. Sometimes, the ol' bean works faster than the digits can type!
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