trinityamps.com

And...???

ALMOST!... I can't wait to hear her sing.

Since this is my first time building, soldering, and most importantly working with high voltages, I'm going to have a local amp technician fire it up for the first time as I look over their shoulder while they test voltages. Looking like Tuesday. Almost, woohoo!

Now on to tube decisions.

The wiring looks great! Really neat, which is half the battle to a successful build. The other half is good solder joints and having all the wires and components in the right places.

You can't be too cautious when high voltages are concerned. It's good that you are having a pro check it over at first power-up. You can do it on your own, though, if you are careful and have a multimeter. Paul Ruby has some good information on first-time power-up procedures on his website. Lots of other good information, too.

http://paulrubyamplifiers.com/info.html

His procedures are safe and methodical. A bit tedious, but as I said you can't be too careful where high voltages are present. I don't follow all of them, but I do check my wiring and recheck it several times. I refer to the schematic and check visually and with an ohm meter to make sure all the connections are good. And I power the amp up in stages as Paul suggests.

Good luck. Hope it fires up the first time!

Looks like a great site, great info and lots of other useful links as well. Thanks Mitch!

I'm still planning on going through my first fire up with a professional. Plus its always good to give back to the community of techs and musicians when you can.

Made some final touches on the back of the cabinet tonight...while I wait

Wrapped up the front panel and plexiglass

WoW again! What a gorgeous amp. Nice work!

Thanks 6L6!


Any recommendations out there for tubes? Completely open to any suggestions if anyone is willing to share. Thanks!

EF86(V1): NOS Tesla (not JJ)/NOS RFT/Reissue?
12AX7(V2): Mullards or JJs? Something warm but still sparkles...
12AX7(V3): Mullards/JJs
12AX7(PI): ?
EL84s: NOS Russian Reflectors/NOS Tesla/Reissue?
GZ34: Ruby/Mullard/NOS?

Forgot to mention I did a TON of reading, research and designing my cabinet around vibrations and tube microphonics. My search lead me to this stuff called sorbothane...

Sorbothane is a proprietary, visco-elastic polymer. Sorbothane® is a thermoset, polyether-based, polyurethane material. In addition to being visco-elastic, Sorbothane® also has a very high damping coefficient. Sorbothane® combines shock absorption, good memory, vibration isolation and vibration damping characteristics. While many materials exhibit one of these characteristics, Sorbothane® combines all of them in a stable material with a long fatigue life. Sorbothane® has a low creep rate compared to other polymers (rubber, neoprene, silicone, etc.)

Turns out engineers use this to dampen the vibrations on highly sensitive electronics and (so they say) is way better than any rubber, neoprene, silicone etc.

I'm using a four part system; I've decoupled the wood "shelf" that the chassis is resting on so the only physical connection on all sides is sorbothane. The chassis screws are using a sorbothane washer. The chassis has two strips of sorbothane and V1 is mounted on two mini sorbothane washers. Its extremely stable but you can definitely feel the play in the material.

Maybe this is way over board... But who cares, I'm having fun

Interesting! I was wondering what you were going to do about vibrations with the combo.

WOOHOO!!!! ITS ALIVE!!!

We had to redo 3 solider joints and had to swap a few output tubes to get it just right (she runs hot). Also put in a heavier crunch munch switch. Very glad I took this to a tech for the first time. I also ended up putting the 180pfs back on the volume pots after switching to 100pfs - the bigger caps (to me) just sound better with the hempcone alnico.

Now she's solid as a rock and sounds AMAZING!! She's also nice and quiet, even the tech said a few times "man, your amp is super quiet"

AND the FX loop works beautifully! Super transparent and quiet, doesn't add anything or take anything away. Had some fun last night playing with my tremolo, delay and reverb in the loop.

I'll report back soon with some additional feedback and hopefully soon some clips.

Congratulations! Have fun with it. You did a fantastic job.

Thanks Mitch!

Can't say how much I'm enjoying this amp! Played it till 2am last night...Struggle at work today was worth it haha

Looks great. Bet that shines nicely at night in a club!! Cool idea!!!

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Thanks Stephen! And thanks for the help and all the responsive answers! It is greatly appreciated!


One thing I've noticed, and I think its normal and I just need to "break in" the speaker, but I'm getting a light raspy, paper ripping-ish type of sound when I use my klon clone to overdrive her a bit - this even happens with the master volume set at bedroom levels. This also happens when a lot gain is added at a louder master volume level and no OD pedal. When I back the gain down and crank it as loud as it can playing clean and sparkly, I do not get the raspy sound. Do new speakers need to break in to make distortion/overdrive sound creamier/silkier?

I've double checked my speaker hole measurements to tone tubby specifications and confirmed that the speaker is not rubbing. I was extremely careful mounting the speaker using the correct pattern to tighten the bolts. I did not over tighten.

I've read in multiple places that TTs and hempcones in general can sometimes produce this exact sound and will go away with playing hours (40ish hrs?).

Anyone out there "break in" a tone tubby alinco and can share any insight?

As always, thanks to anyone willing to share!!

Very cool - congratulations!

The speakers sound good out of the box and cant say I ever heard them make that sound. The only thing you can really do is plug into another speaker temporarily (if you have one) and see if it goes away. Of course, if it sounds good with no pedal, it Could be the pedal. Keep breaking it in tho .

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Tried a few different pedals last night and they all sound fantastic. For some reason my homebrew silver pony (BYOC Klon clone) isn't quite vibing with the TC15 and its tubes.

But WOW, I can't say enough about the complexity in tone that this circuit and speaker create. Loving it!

Thanks again everyone!

Try both inputs and both channels as well.

_________________
Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried all of my different boost/overdrive pedals, including my Silver Pony, in every channel input as well as every combination using the crunch/munch switch. The fizziness was only prevalent using the silver pony. It was in both channels and was more pronounced in the higher gain inputs and high gain OT windings (regardless of db). The rest of the pedals did not have the fizziness in any combination or channel.

I've read on a few sites that this can happen with certain distortions/boosts and will smooth out over time. I've also read that certain types of clipping diodes can cause fizziness as well. I'm building another Klon clone, this time from Aion, with multiple socketed components so I can swap parts in and out, such as diodes. Total nerd fun.

Thinking I might get a guitar pedal breadboard and start learning about pedal circuits

I've certainly found over the years that some pedals just bond better with some amps. My Timmy sounds phenomenal with my Vibrolux Reverb but is fizzy and weak with my Deluxe Reverb. The Timmy sounds really great with my TC15; other Tube Screamer derivatives I've tried also sound great with the TC15. I've tried a handful of other (non-TS) overdrives that also sound excellent, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to find one or two that weren't as amazing.

And I sure agree with your comment about the complexity in tone this amp produces. Quite dimensional.