trinityamps.com

Go ahead and use it if you want! I thought it was pretty cool that you guys, who I've always admired, came up with the same thing I did.

Mine is pretty much a straight Hiwatt SAP copy, with some minor changes.

Wow TP455!! You have a ton of filtering in there eh?!
Stew

It's your basic Hiwatt setup. Even with not so milspec wiring, they are dead quiet, even when cranked. Until you start playing, of course!

My favorite amps bar none!

Hey Tripower, great to see you again. It's been a while since you were last on 18watt.com Do you still have your Marwatt? How do you compare the Marwatt with your "real" Hiwatt now?

So you're using the same switching setup like the Jimmy Page model, with the extra cathode follower?

I've been looking for some time for someone who could do a direct comparison of the Hiwatt tone with and without a choke. So you say it sounds more Marshally with the choke in - meaning like... does it break up sooner... have more grind... or....??? Is it more/less punchy with the choke? I'd love to know.

Thanks Tri! I appreciate your magnanimity! In this case the name comes both from Trinity Amps, as well as the fact that we use three inputs, like with Dave Gilmour's amps.

I think you've done a really fantastic job, reproducing the traditional Hiwatt layout. For our Triwatt, we're using a more compact, single-board layout, and the prototype board I'm using has the components looking a little squashed together in some places. But that's what prototypes are for, anyway, and the next rev will correct these minor issues.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Phil,

Yeah, I've been around.... I still have my Marwatt that you and the others on 18 Watt.com helped me with years ago....

I've got 3 hiwatts to compare it to, a real '78 2 hole DR504, a 4 hole DR504 clone i built last year and now this one.

The Marwatt is closest to the 4 hole DR504 IMHO. It doesn't have the THUNK of the EL34s, but does a great job at getting the Hiwatt vibe.




Exactly. Not the most efficient way but it does work pretty well. I am still getting used to the thing.

[

It breaks up a little sooner and has a noticeably softer attack. It is overall a much looser feel than the using the 100R resistor. I like it, but it really isn't my cup of tea for everything or my style of playing. I prefer the tighter, punchier Hiwatt type output section. It's neat to have both!




Very cool and appropriate!

I am looking forward to seeing how yours works out. Mine is just a hacked copy of a Hiwatt.



You're just being nice! It looked a LOT better before I spent about 8 hours troubleshooting a truly bonehead mistake and had to tear it apart!



Again, VERY cool..... It'd be nice to have the sound without the size!


I'll be checking it out often!

Thanks for your kind comments.

Fascinating. We're going with 6V6s so we can get that solid thunk in a lower power (but still fairly loud) amp.

Thanks for that really useful information!

Well our prototype build isn't going to be that pretty inside either. There's some things you only find out about the layout when you build the first one, as you can't completely spatially visualise inside the amp on a computer screen or layout drawing.

To help give more British amp mojo, I'm using some NOS solder I brought with me from the UK, and also soldering with a 240V soldering iron. The flux smoke from that old solder smells so sweet, I'd swear there must be hash oil mixed in it.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

It's funny that you mention the 6V6s. I've run the JJ 6V6's in my DR504s (480 on the plates), and they sound great. IMHO, as good as EL34s. They are not a whole lot quieter, but definitely have that THUNK like an EL34. I wonder how much the big Partridge iron contributes to that?

I've been thinking of redoing my Marwatt with 6V6s.

Possibly that's part of it, plus the fact the entire amp design stays pretty much standard with the 6V6s, and they're also known for having a good strong low end response. According to the Hiwatt cogniscenti, later amps built by Biacrown after Dave Reeves died, which didn't use Partridge iron, sounded "every bit as good as the earlier Hylight ones". Make of that what you will....

Still it's really good to know that we're on the right track here with the 6V6s.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

When I started planning out my Triwatt build, I was initially gonna use 4 JJ 6V6s and have the ability to switch 2 of them off, essentially halving the wattage. I still might do this....

The only problem is that even with 2 6V6s, it is still loud enough to need an attenuator for some of the gigs I do, so in since I use the attenuator anyway, why not just leave the EL34s in there?
Not to mention that even with the JJS, I am running them far beyond design voltage, although I have over 100 hours on one pair of them and they are like new......

JJ 6V6's in a DR504s (480 on the plates), yikes! and they took it.

Phil, I guess we'll see if we need PSU voltage control on the prototype.

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

Stephen.
Perhaps you've seen this on the Eurotube site re:jj 6v6Ss
Quote.
6V6S
Factory description: Gold plated control grid for improved fidelity. Special plate alloy improves performance over any 6V6. This tube has the ability to handle 450 plate volts in triode mode and 500 plate volts in pentode mode.
Unquote.
Stew

Yeah, they aren't "real" 6V6s. Lots of guys have been using them in EL34 applications.

I had them in my "real" DR504 for over a year, and never an issue. All it took was a rebias.

Unfortunately, our filter caps are only rated at 450V, and I'm trying to keep slightly below that for some safety margin. But yes, those JJs will handle up to 500V. At 480V, I would imagine they're putting out over 25W.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

I'll go along with that! They are definitely louder than I thought they'd be in that application......

Phil has been working on the Triwatt for two weeks and I went over today to help and try to fire it up. Phil was still working on a few connections.

Hands of a Surgeon! Dr. Phil at work!


When all connections were made and double checked, in went the power tubes. We installed a VRM to be able to test the amp at various voltages. At full voltage, things seemd to be fine.

Inside View - Power is On!



We installed one pre-amp tube at a time to see what happend at each installation.



All the tubes now fire up. That's the good news. Not so good news is that we were getting very little signal through. Just some faint distorted guitar sound with the overdrive stage switched on. So Phil plans to do a little fault finding.

All in all, it's still pretty good progress.

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

Looks good
Been wondering how things have been progressing.
Hope the issue is minor, looking forward to a tone report

The wiring's not as tidy as I'd normally like to do it, but this is a prototype, and we've been ironing out a few wrinkles along the way - plus a couple of my own stupid mistakes. Now I'm going to cheack all the voltages and then inject a signal into the front of the amp and follow it through, to find out where the sound is getting lost....

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Well, I noticed it didn't have the Reeves Mil-Spec rectilinear wiring

It will probably wind up being something simple, one of those "gads, I did what! Doh!" moments

Sure you'll find it soon, but engineer types like to keep things methodical, it's ingrained in us

Really looking forward to this one

It's always a good idea to start by checking all the voltages. That often provides valuable clues.

In this case while checking the voltages, I suddenly noticed that I had forgotten to make two connections. Gads, I did what?? Doh!!!

Now suddenly I have a really loud Hiwatt-ish amp in front of me! The tone has a lot of clarity and really sparkles. Low end is big and solid. Just how a Hiwatt should sound. Engaging the OL boost stage gives some great distortion, with a nice grind to it, and not fizzy at all, although you do get some hiss when it's on. I can play those crunchy Townshend power chords, without totally killing my eardrums. Being a distortion kind of guy, I would probably run this amp most of the time with the OL stage engaged.

There is a little background hum at the moment, which seems to be getting in at the PI, so I'll need to play around with that a little. Still not a bad start at all, especially considering the complexity of this amp.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Hurray! Considering the discussion we had on the complexity of this amp - 2 connections - bah humbug!! I'll bet I missed them on the layout.

Turned up, Troubleshoot, Working Hiwatt'ish amp working = Well done.

Can't wait to make a return trip and hear it. I should bring the 212 bomb.

How do you think the OT is managing? I know we talked a lot about that. With a lot of clarity, sparkle and solid low end, it does sound promising.

Wondering how clean it is without the boost engaged. And what of the Link jack.

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