ComeReadThisDiary.co.uk

[marklester1980]

Recent Purchase of a Hayden Essex Blonde 8

8 watts into 6v6/6L6/6CA7/KT88 etc Single ended

2 Preamp valves and a third for the spring reverb

All hand wired with a choke.

Cabinet is MDF with a ply baffle.

22kg so it’s not that light!

Fitted with a celestion G12H30 70th anniversary speaker

Bit of a impulse buy, but so glad I did.  Lounge volumes you don’t get much breakup, and the tone is a little boring sounding.  Get it into a bigger room where you can crank it and it comes alive!  The bark on this thing is wonderful.  Has quite a mid focused sound, and seems to cut through a band mix absolutely fine.  

There is an attack control which I’m still a little unsure what it does - feels like a reverse wired volume control.  All the way to max and the sound is fairly quiet for home use, and turn it all the way to the minimum for a much louder up front sound.  I set the master volume to the level of crunch I want and then reduce the attack control until I’m at the desired volume.

Reverb is a short studio type of spring sound.  Not very splashy sounding.  Can run it up to half way and it sounds great, any more and it started sounding a bit grainy and overdriven sounding, but that might be this particular amp, not sure.  Still half way is plenty (bordering on too much anyway!)

It sure is a keeper for sure!  This is number 49 and I’ve heard lots of stories about the first 50 being made by matamp or similar.  The construction of the boards and soldering are wonderful, I’ve never seen anything so tidy, lots of care and attention has gone into this amp!!!

[marklester1980]

70's or 80's ProAmp Viper 100. Solid state preamp, 2x6L6 power amp = 100 watts of tuby greatness. Warmth.

[marklester1980]

Insides of a 1994 Trace Elliot GP7SM 130 watt bass amp. Tidy and good quality.

[marklester1980]

1988 vox venue lead 50. 50 watt solid state 2 spring reverb Eminence 8 ohm speaker 12" Sounds wonderful. Jazzy tones, warm clean and nice breakup. Closed back configuration.

[marklester1980]

1950's Vidor battery powered tube amp

[marklester1980]

1950's Phillips Tube Radio

[marklester1980]

Stagg 60BA 60 watt solid state 12" speaker

[marklester1980]

Carlsbro colt 30 journeyman amp. SS 30 watt with bass treble controls and inputs for keyboard, guitar and mic.

[marklester1980]

Bye bye nano valve! Had a chance to hook it up to a 12" 8 ohm speaker in cab (eminence from 90's from vox) and again, I can't emphasise enough how much of an improvement this is to plug into a proper cab. It sounds like a real amp! It needs an eq, a pedal would suffice I'm sure. Never got round to trying that. But, the big flaw, for me, is the lack of headroom when cranking. It's not a little bit overdriven, it's tons!!!! Fine if you were doing solo's, but other than that, no good at high volumes. I tried rolling back the volume and it did clean up but then lost some volume, so no help for me. So I think that's it, no more 5 watt amp testing for me. They're a great idea, I love it, but I need something that I could use at home and take to a studio if I'm feeling lazy. This isn't it sadly. Would be interested to try a zt lunchbox, but one thing is more apparent than anything.......small speakers just don't reproduce the lows a full size speaker does (at loud volumes) Oh well, onwards and upwards!! :-)

[marklester1980]

[marklester1980]

Mullard 6v6gt. British made

[marklester1980]

Wem AX40. 40 watt solid state.

[marklester1980]

Vox night train and bell and howell

[marklester1980]

What’s the point in a 5 watt tube amp???

I finally got my first class A 5 watter. I like it. Sounds like a tube amp just not as loud as a big one!

But what’s the point? I’m struggling to work it out. I had a little jam on my own with the amp on the table. Was good fun. However with everyone in the house I had the amp on 1 and it was barely breaking up, so a clean boring tone was had. Hmm.

I hooked it up to a nice big 12” speaker, the on board 8” is a bit thin and nasal sounding. I’ll change that later but doubt it’ll ever sound chunky! With the big speaker it’s got a much bigger sound, nice sounding. Still have to crank to get some lovely tones. Too loud for a normal house.

Can you gig with it? Well from what I’ve tried, get the volume to half way and above and it’s quite overdriven sounding. Yes rolling off the volume cleans things up but the volume drops a bit. So where you could stick it on full, you probably could use it with a drummer and external cab 8 don’t think it’ll have the volume I need for a gig.

So what’s the point? Too loud for home and not loud enough to gig with…..

Confused?!?’

[marklester1980]

Peavey Nano Valve modding Right, well, after my initial test of the NV, I wasn't terribly impressed. It sounds like a tube amp, but a cheap average one at best. Disappointment setting in a little. Thought I'd add a speaker out jack on the back so I can test it with other cabinets. If you look at the pic, you can see the socket I've wired up. Haven't wired the stock speaker back up yet. Hooked up the NV to my 60's rola greenback G12M.....turned on and ......... Tone!! The nasal horrible noise had gone and the top end wasn't shrill and piercing. It actually sounds quite nice. I'm actually a little surprised to be honest. The sound is 'boxy' if that's the right word, but in a good way. It's got a vintage old school sound to it, so it's okay for a little boxy sound. Full bass sounding, top not too shrill. I did roll off the tone a bit on the guitar, it's not a dark amp. I only briefly for a moment cranked it up to see what happens. With my Seymour Duncan jazz pickup (humbucker), its quite a loud signal to start with and usually overdrives tube amps early on. This started breaking up about a quarter volume. Cranked it to half way and we're getting quite overdriven tones, almost on the limit of a rhythm guitarist's area (unless you're doing classic heavy rock). However, rolling back guitars volume cleaned things up a bit. Not overly convinced this will be able to cope with a band, even with big speaker stacks. I'll have to try it! Probably won't mod any further until that test is done. Just in case it's really a home jamming amp. If it is, not sure it'll be something I need (already have a few other projects on the go!)

[marklester1980]

The Peavey Nano Valve. Class A. 5 watts using a 12ax7 and EL84. First off, it's tiny!!! Wasn't expecting that when it turned up! Still, good things come in small packages?? It's light, looks quite well built and is quite sweet looking. Plugged it in and turned it on......took ten seconds for valves to heat and sound to come through..... Went for a nice D open ring strum. Eugh! Ummmm, it doesn't sound the greatest. It's honky middy sounding with a painful edge to it, kinda like stabbing breadsticks in your ears. Still, sounded tube like. Going to do some tinkering with it. Can something like this sound good and more importantly how much headroom is there really in a band environment? I'm curious, have been for years but too scared to try it. Now is time for some fun!

[marklester1980]

Reducing gain

In an attempt to reduce some of the gain, I changed the input resistor back to the stock 68k, when tested it seemed to tame things a tiny bit. Something else to blame. Then after research, I thought I'd lower the gain by playing with the cathode resistor. I changed the first cathode resistor from 1.5k to 10k. Extreme I know but wanted to see the effects. To my surprise it worked, the horrible clipping noise has gone. It's starting to sound good. Still high gain though, not really my taste. I like light crunch not mental distortion....