Help with 50 watt OT choice

[Kassie]

I used Hammond Twin PT (291FEX) and OT (1760W) in my 100watt build as well. Sounds good as well. Also nice high end definition. Choke 194B.

But I would choose a different PT in the future. Since the 291FEX doesn't have multiple primary taps. So it's only set for 240. While I am often only measuring 220 from the wall.

[briane]

a better choice for tone is to NOT use a hammond.

hammonds are sterile and lifeless. I've had a ton of them - never again outside of keyboard amps for me.

top bore is a dynaco 470s from triode electronics - once you go 470 you never go back!

[jcsifu]

My current PT is Hammond 290dx (which I think is fine) choke is Hammond 194b. The low end when playing in the OD channel is sloppy and raspy for a better word. I have in no means mastered setting this amps controls, the changes are too vast but I'm starting to get a feel for a good basic setting for me at stage volume.

The board is actually very well put together with nice solder connections, it's the rats nest of dress that is frustrating to even look at...

As far as the component values as was asked earlier, I actually had insomnia last night and check values to the layout provided on the web and everything is normal for OTS.

I am thinking of the Classictone 18001, there seem to be a lot of holes on the chassis in the OT area that should line up with the pattern of the CT OT or any choice I wish. Seems like a well thought out chassis.

I will dig into this thursday as stated and update info as I progress, just in case someone else in the future has my same needs and searches the forum.

[jcsifu]

a better choice for tone is to NOT use a hammond.

hammonds are sterile and lifeless. I've had a ton of them - never again outside of keyboard amps for me.

top bore is a dynaco 470s from triode electronics - once you go 470 you never go back!

That might be what I am experiencing, I'm not as impressed as I would like to be with the tones I'm getting. I have been attributing it to the undersized (in my opinion) OT, but maybe you are pointing out the culprit.

How do you feel the Classictone 18001 compares to your fav dynaco 470 briane?

[eazilyled]

That might be what I am experiencing, I'm not as impressed as I would like to be with the tones I'm getting. I have been attributing it to the undersized (in my opinion) OT, but maybe you are pointing out the culprit.

If I was in your situation, I'd look at emulating the lead dress in the #124 pics (especially around the tube sockets) and perhaps the pics on the Ceriatone site for the OTS specific bits. That may well improve the tone. Then I'd make a call on the OT swap. I was satisfied with the 1760L, but of course that model has a different spec to your OT.

[eazilyled]

...then again, the OT does sit under the boards which would have to be lifted to install. So you may be best replacing the OT at the same time as tweaking the lead dress if you want to avoid undoing any work later.

[jcsifu]

That might be what I am experiencing, I'm not as impressed as I would like to be with the tones I'm getting. I have been attributing it to the undersized (in my opinion) OT, but maybe you are pointing out the culprit.

If I was in your situation, I'd look at emulating the lead dress in the #124 pics (especially around the tube sockets) and perhaps the pics on the Ceriatone site for the OTS specific bits. That may well improve the tone. Then I'd make a call on the OT swap. I was satisfied with the 1760L, but of course that model has a different spec to your OT.

Lead dresses a very big culprit in this amp. I am going to use Teflon 20 g wires and redo the heaters tomorrow but hang them high. I am going to pull the trigger on the CT ot also, it seems to match what I want and should bolt on happily with no fuss.

I will update my results as they are accomplished, I appreciate everyone's time on this.

[ToneMerc]

I will update my results as they are accomplished, I appreciate everyone's time on this.

I personally think you approaching this too hatefully. You can take all this advice on whats supposedly wrong and just "shotgun" it redoing everything at once, it may cure it's issues. However, at the end of the day can you honestly say that you learned anything other than maybe putting in some soldering iron time?
A better approach would be attack only one issue at a time and analyze and document that change, moving through each issue. This gives you a foundation to build your knowledge bank on.

TM

[jcsifu]

I will update my results as they are accomplished, I appreciate everyone's time on this.

I personally think you approaching this too hatefully. You can take all this advice on whats supposedly wrong and just "shotgun" it redoing everything at once, it may cure it's issues. However, at the end of the day can you honestly say that you learned anything other than maybe putting in some soldering iron time?
A better approach would be attack only one issue at a time and analyze and document that change, moving through each issue. This gives you a foundation to build your knowledge bank on.

TM

Although I don't feel hatred towards any component of the amp I do dislike the lead dress on the heaters as they are not as I would like to have them so that's the motivation for the re-dress. I would like to be able to use different speakers / cabs for different venues by building a head cab to take this chassis into. It is currently i a combo and wired with an OT that only has a 4ohm tap, which deletes the possibilities of a few of my favorite speaker cabs. That is the main reason for the ot swap, but I do think that the current 35watt Hammond is not what I am looking for.

If I am correct, I believe your point is to not chase too many variables as to hinder a methodical approach to problem solving. If this is your point, I agree. If not, I think I need more explanation of what you are aiming at helping me with, which is appreciated BTW.

I should come forth and say that I do like the amp as is, I am just not hearing what I bought the amp hoping to hear. The OD is raspier than what I was looking for, which has turned a few heads during rock songs and manifested some nice comments regarding my sound from audience members. As I stated earlier, I have not learned how to master setting this amp yet, so some of this could be attributed to user error. I believe this is again what you are bringing up ToneMerc. This is another point that I agree with.

My intentions are to change the two items that are bothering me, ( OT and ht wires) and then go from there. I will wait to see what these 2 changes bring and if that's where it ends then awesome, if not I will be right back on this forum looking to find more info and taking advice if it is given.

Just so everyone who I encounter knows more about me I would like to just add that I am ultimately looking to hang out, through the web, with people with the same interests as me and be a part of a collective knowledge base.

[jcsifu]

That might be what I am experiencing, I'm not as impressed as I would like to be with the tones I'm getting. I have been attributing it to the undersized (in my opinion) OT, but maybe you are pointing out the culprit.

If I was in your situation, I'd look at emulating the lead dress in the #124 pics (especially around the tube sockets) and perhaps the pics on the Ceriatone site for the OTS specific bits. That may well improve the tone. Then I'd make a call on the OT swap. I was satisfied with the 1760L, but of course that model has a different spec to your OT.

I will look for actual pics of the 124 guts, I only have schematics and layouts in my files at the moment. If you have any specifics you would be willing to share with me as to why you are targeting 124 as a reference, I would be very appreciative. If not, then I thank you for a direction to look in.

[eazilyled]

Sure, the #124 pics can be found here:
www.roblivesey.com/dumble
(you need to click on the 'Dumble #0124/' when you get there).

#124 is a good reference as it is well documented and I believe Nik used it as the basis for his OTS model (although there are differences such as high plate vs low plate etc).

The pics are very detailed and in particular show how HAD dressed the tube socket wiring.

In particular, check out how V1 / V2. You'll see that the wires going to pins 1 (plate 2), 3 (cathode 2) and 8 (cathode 1) are dressed close together, and many of the wires run against the floor of the chassis. I believe this introduces some built-in capacitance into the circuit in order to shunt undesirable high frequencies to ground, but someone with more knowledge might be able to explain that in more detail.

You'll also see that HAD ran his heaters in the air (a la Fender) as you mentioned, which ensures that the heater wiring doesn't affect the signal in any way.

I believe Nik dresses the heaters on the floor of the chassis in many cases (a la Marshall). You may have seen these, but here are the pics of the Ceriatone OTS 50W:
http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPage ... 0WPics.htm

But check out the pics of the FM model, which shows Nik does the heaters high as well on occasion:
http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPage ... 0WPics.htm

Hope this helps,
Rick

[jcsifu]

Sure, the #124 pics can be found here:
www.roblivesey.com/dumble
(you need to click on the 'Dumble #0124/' when you get there).

#124 is a good reference as it is well documented and I believe Nik used it as the basis for his OTS model (although there are differences such as high plate vs low plate etc).

The pics are very detailed and in particular show how HAD dressed the tube socket wiring.

In particular, check out how V1 / V2. You'll see that the wires going to pins 1 (plate 2), 3 (cathode 2) and 8 (cathode 1) are dressed close together, and many of the wires run against the floor of the chassis. I believe this introduces some built-in capacitance into the circuit in order to shunt undesirable high frequencies to ground, but someone with more knowledge might be able to explain that in more detail.

You'll also see that HAD ran his heaters in the air (a la Fender) as you mentioned, which ensures that the heater wiring doesn't affect the signal in any way.

I believe Nik dresses the heaters on the floor of the chassis in many cases (a la Marshall). You may have seen these, but here are the pics of the Ceriatone OTS 50W:
http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPage ... 0WPics.htm

But check out the pics of the FM model, which shows Nik does the heaters high as well on occasion:
http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPage ... 0WPics.htm

Hope this helps,
Rick

Well.....I believe that it's safe to say that was a bit of a helping post. I think you gave me a "new toy" that I'll be playing with for awhile as that's quite a few pics to compare values and dress with. Nice time saver gift from you. Maybe if I dig into this now, by the time I receive my OT I will have a plan of attack if the new OT and ht dress doesn't get me where I want to be.

I am familiar with Ceriatone's docs, which is how I concluded that Nik prob didn't wire this amp. It looks more like a struggle went on in my chassis.

[eazilyled]

Glad to be of help . Good luck!

[Kassie]

a better choice for tone is to NOT use a hammond.

hammonds are sterile and lifeless. I've had a ton of them - never again outside of keyboard amps for me.

top bore is a dynaco 470s from triode electronics - once you go 470 you never go back!

That might be what I am experiencing, I'm not as impressed as I would like to be with the tones I'm getting. I have been attributing it to the undersized (in my opinion) OT, but maybe you are pointing out the culprit.

Hmmm I don't experience any of that troubles with my Hammond OT. How is the clean channel? If that low end is tight, then it's not the OT's fault. Actually I am satisfied with the OT... I cannot compare with different brands, and perhaps indeed there are better choices. But my amp has a lot of note seperation.. good even pronounciation between treble/mid and bass registers... and above any it maybe sound a bit too woofy at times. But the OT sure is capable of delivering the low end. Especially when I compare it to my other amps. I deleted the bass cap, but now going to solder it back on to tighten the sound up. I built the OTS kit and made sure I did it clean and per dumble lay out. All in all the amp took a while to break in and sounded a bit harsh at the beginning, but that is starting to fade away, the dumble tone is absolutely coming through no doubt.

[jcsifu]

Well, the clean channel is too clean for my taste. It might be that I am used to the Fender clean from my '67super reverb or vibroking which are WELL broken in and have very broken in speakers as well and have some hair on them. I can not say that I have a clue as too how long this OTS has been alive or as to how many hours are on it for break in.

The note separation is there, even in OD mode, I just don't like the raspy lower tones that I cant seem to get rid of no matter how I set od trim, norm vol, level, etc...this is why I am thinking ht wires or OT. But the clean lows are fine. It just seems like the transition from clean to OD is a large step and I'm not sure how to use that for songs that require both. I have been back and forth from the pedal board camp to the just the amp camp and I am now looking to just carry the amp 2-3 guitars and gig bag when I do shows. As we all know, there is a mathematical equation of how much heavier your equipment gets the longer your gig is!


I have put a switch in for V1b LNF and although I have not taken it to high volume, I believe I like the sound of no FB, it has notably more fullness when absent.

I aslo did some tube rolling and ended up with RCA grey short 7025 in V1, Telekunken smooth plate in V2, and a new Tung-Sol gold (reading 74/76) in the pi. I have winged C in power, they have about 8-10 hours of play on them. Speakers are WGS et65 in a 2x12 combo. I do not know the amount of play on these speakers as well.

I am going to pull the heaters in an hour or so and rewire them high and re-route some of the k p wires and see what happens.

I am replacing the OT anyway, mainly to accommodate diff speaker cabs as I stated earlier, but i am curious as to which model OT did you have?