.68 bypass caps, solen mkp very sweet!

[azatplayer]

I used a generic yellow AES .68 cap in V1a cathode bypass spot of my Komet build. The amp is amazing, just discovered it recently, and itr has all my tones, not surprisingly MK is one of the top three fave players for me.
Any, i had a slight , ever so slight harshness to the top end.
I added a 470pf feedback cap on V1a to try and knock the top off, and it was sounding nearly there.
Well i remembered today that i got some solen MKP .68's ages ago to try and never did. Found where they were hidden, and threw one on.
Well it was straight away VERY noticeably darker. Maybe actually missing sparkle is a better way of putting it. It was definitely nicer on the ears, and lost any harshness that it had. But i had to run the treb and cut up to get the same sparkle as before.
Then i recalled the feedback cap, so desoldered it and fired up again.
I had this same response with a Maz Invasion some time back. It had a factory 500pf feedback cap, that i snipped out, made the wprld of difference.
And it did again. Amp has all the brights you would expect from a .68uf frontend, zero harshness, chimey and sparkly too. Phew! I was so close to giving this amp a perfect score, and now i can!
So, even in bypass duty theres such an audible difference between cap brands, and ive loved those little yellow caps many times, black ones are staying in there from now on tho!

[M Fowler]

Don was that a straight up komet 60 circuit?

You removed the feed back cap or changed it out?

I want to experiment with caps in my last komet 60 to get a little more darker tone to my ears but a guy interested in buying it likes it just the way it is. So I quess he can have this one and I will just have to build another one darker.


Mark

[JamesHealey]

I've always really liked the mkt1813 250v 0.68uf for that position

[Colossal]

Azatplayer,

I used a couple of Solens in the 2nd stage 820R/0.68uF position for a Marshall build and the result was excellent. I actually added a little more capacitance for a bit more low frequency gain. The mid response is very smooth and there isn't that harsh trebly mid/high residue. I like polypropylene cathode bypass caps in high gain builds as well.

[azatplayer]

Hey Mark, its my express modded to K60, so its SS rectified and lower B+ and using a Pool OT at 5200.
I also recently tried the Knopfler mods that Allynmey put up. Pretty sweet.
Yeah sorry for the way i wrote that, i snipped the feedback cap off.
It bought the amp back to around the same as it was with the yellow cap and feedback cap in, as far as where you have the pots set, but sweeter and no harshness.
In fact the 470pf cap, i dont recall the diff being that audible with the yellow cap, but dulled it way down with the black fella.
I have all PVC caps and PRP resistors in this build, i was worried i was gonna have to try other caps, that the PVC's were the culprit.
Glad to say they were not.
I still gotta do a proper K60, but i have a couple of builds to get thru and enjoy first

[Lonely Raven]

Did you use 1/2 watt or 1 watt PRP Resistors?

I just ordered some 1/2 watt, and I'm wondering if maybe I should have gone with 1 watt.

Sorry, I don't mean to derail, it's just fortuitous you mentioned them when I was thinking about them.

[Structo]

Us guitar amp guys tend to feel the larger resistors are less noisy than smaller ones so usually 1 watt are desirable unless too big to fit where they are going.

[azatplayer]

I did use the one watts. Very impressed with the quietness.

[M Fowler]

Thanks Don I figured it was the Express hot rodded

I may need to do some tweaking on mine.