Tube Amp Archive

How do you normally mount your reverb tank in fender style builds? Having never actually purchased a Fender amp, only built clones, I don't really know the proper way to install one. Is a bag necessary? I have been putting grommets in the screw holes and loosely screwing them to the bottom of the ca...

I'll try the looping trick. Disconnecting the reverb transformer still has the same issue.

This one is a real puzzler. Can anyone tell me what kind of signal level I should see coming back from the reverb tank compared to the tank input? Also, shouldn't the signal out of the reverb recovery tube be in phase with the signal out of the 2nd preamp tube (input of 3.3 meg resistor)? Mine appea...

Hoping you gurus can help. I did a "retro" build of a princeton reverb. Everything works perfectly unless I try turning the reverb up. When I do, the volume decreases quite a bit (more than half). Reverb does work, just lose a lot of volume. I have checked and rechecked wiring and components. Replac...

I have a princeton build based on the Hoffman circuit. Amp sounds good but there is a lot of white noise (his) in the amp. No hum. What normally contributes to this type of noise?

Thanks for the replies. Do you know if there is a low wattage dumble build? Say a 20 watt version?

I stumbled upon this site many years ago and decided to build an ODS (I want to say it was from 102 or 105 schematics maybe. Memory not that great any more :) ). It sounded great, with humbuckers, but I was much less than thrilled with single coils (i.e. strats). Just wondering if there is a particu...

I was poking through the Dumble files and found a schematic that featured a normal D style circuit along with a Fender style preamp. It was channel switching so you could choose between which preamp you wanted. I've since been back and can't seem to locate it. Can anyone point me to that and do you ...

I built the PR based on the schematics at Hoffman Amps. It works well with two exceptions: 1. The amp has a lot of hiss when turned up. Not hum but hiss. Is this normal? 2. The reverb control needs more range. A setting above 2-3 is way more reverb than most people would normally use. I exchanged th...

Having never owned or played and original Fender deluxe or princeton, I'm curious if they were particularly noisy amps (hum or hiss when idle). If not, I'm wondering why we don't use the original layout and wiring schemes that they did on those when we build clones. Was the brass ground plate partic...

Reversing the OT wires fixed the issue. Sounds great now and very quiet. Thanks for the help.

I built the Hoffman Amps Princeton Reverb circuit and have a issue where it has a really loud low frequency tone coming from it. Doesn't sound like typical 60 cycle hum. I can put an attenuator between the amp and speaker, set it to 50%, and the tone goes away and my guitar sounds really nice throug...

My DR build needs a little taming of the reverb circuit. About 2 on the dial is plenty of reverb for me. Is there a better way to had some more control to the reverb pot?

Gave it a try. Guess my ears are too old to notice any difference. Waste of time.

I saw a youtube video of a guy that repairs amps for a living and he suggested that the blackface amps just sounded better with carbon comp resistors. I built a DR recently but used metal film throughout. Nice and quiet. just wondering if replacing some with some carbon comps would produce different...