Reverb tone

[Stevem]

So I have been looking at the Valve Wizard pages on driving reverb tanks and I have a question.

Would a 3 spring tank with its shorter springs have better high frequency output then the normal 14” 2 spring tank?

[lonote]

I will be interested to see what info turns up. I expect this could be a real deep rabbit hole in the end.

I have A/B/C'd various tanks; vintage, new, 2 spring, 3 spring, long, short, folded, etc. & all I can offer is that they all sound different. Not too much help with your question.

I DID build a stock Fender 2-tube circuit into a Champ & used a 3-spring short tank (size limitations) & it sounds quite different than the Pro & Twin that I have, even though the circuit is identical. I had not really considered the frequency response of the tank being partly responsible but you may be onto something.

I will have to sit with the Champ & try to analyze it a little when it come home (currently out on loan).

[xtian]

I recently got a 6" Accutronics reverb tank for testing. Sounds very similar to large tanks.

https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/r ... y-2-spring

[solderhead]

TLDR:
They do sound different. The old American tanks used a different method of constructing the transducer compared to the modern Korean tanks. If you obsess over this you can end up listening to a lot of tanks. Even if you don't obsess over it, sometimes you can hear it if you have to change tanks, and you may or may not like the difference in tone between one tank and another. IMO the new Koren tanks don't sound quite as deep as a vintage Hammond.

Here's a YouTube comparison of the 4 common tanks available today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pxtH_hxwI4

Long Version:
I have a disease -- I collect old Twin Reverbs. I bought a 70s 180-watt Fender Super Twin Reverb that had a dead reverb circuit. The amps are heavy mothers -- IIRC they weigh ~85 lb. (Even worse if you're running EVs.) Weight is part of the reason that Twins tend to kill their reverb tanks.

Tanks tend to fail due to abuse that's caused by the weight of the amp. The amps are so heavy that people tend to fatigue when lifting them and when the user gets close to setting them down on the ground they tend to set them down hard, or to even drop them the last few inches. That, and rolling them over rough pavement, over door thresholds, lifting up stairways, etc. is rough on the amps. We know it's rough on tubes but it's rough on the reverb tanks too.

Because the reverb springs are on a subchassis that's suspended inside of the reverb tank by springs, that entire subchassis will oscillate when the amp gets banged around. Slam the amp hard enough and the subchassis can travel far enough to rip the wires off of the transducer:

reverb-tank-1.JPG

reverb-tank-2.JPG

Damage during transport is a common problem with the Fender reverb amps. Normally, I'd just replace the tank. But the problem is that the reverb tanks of today aren't the same as the reverb tanks of yesteryear and they do sound different. The old tanks, for whatever reason, seem to have more depth to them. To me, the tone of a vintage amp loses it's charm when it gets a modern tank, but I'm fussy that way.

I tried replacing the tank with a MOD and it sounded different. So I swapped in a new Accutronics unit and it sounded different too. I didn't particularly like either of the new tanks (I had a vintage tank sound in my mind.) I wasn't even going to consider a digital reverb unit... so I bit the bullet and did microsurgery on the transducer to free up enough wire to fix the connection. The restored tank ended up having that vintage reverb tank tone that I was looking for.

I can't make any recommendations re: which of the modern tanks sound best, so I'm here to read what others may have to say. I would agree that reverb tanks can lead you down a deep rabbit hole if you're willing to experiment.

[nuke]

Some of the older tanks used wire with a filament in it, similar to the wire that is used to connect terminals to the speaker cone. This high flex wire handled the constant motion better.

A lot of the newer tanks just use regular stranded hook up wire. If they're restrained at the insulation, the copper may last a while. Otherwise, the metal conductor will break.

But this has been cost-reduced out of most (all) newer tanks.

[Colossal]

I have a disease -- I collect old Twin Reverbs.

That's nothing to be ashamed of, buddy. I'd love to plug into four of them running stereo, two left and two right, and one dry one in the middle.

As for the neighbors, well....

cash.jpeg

[Stevem]

My question was more geared to how the springs themselves act as a low pass filter since it’s said that low frequency’s traverse the length of the springs faster then higher frequency’s do.
My impression is to related it to wave action on water, because we all know that high frequency’s have more inherent energy to them but when pumped into a spring that fact is overwhelmed by the low’s

So my thought is if a shorter spring is used that also has more tension to it then that will favor the transmission of high frequency’s better.

Or maybe a shorter spring will allow the use of a spring made of the bigger gauge wire which would then in turn be stuffer and might make for a high pass filter effect, or at least far less lows.