trinityamps.com

I too apologize...kinda let that VJ discussion get out of hand!

The prototype is looking good bro!

Hey, no issue emo/joey. Carry on backstage if you want - ahh, not what you might think ...

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

I would typically add another diode(or another LED) in parallel and series resistor as well if not a full bridge, etc. I like my LED's smokin' bright

Looking good Stephen!!

Joe G

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Some assembly required,
Brain sold separately...

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

I know it's early

But


WELL

is my kit ready yet? Pick it up next week when I see you again???

AJC

Tomorrow is TODAY! I'm fighting the urge to call Stephen as I type this. I can't wait to hear how you and Phil respond.

Be sure to number the and sign the first 25 or so chassis guys...

Got the amp fired up. Been adjusting resistor values to reduce power tube dissipation and preamp triodes biased to their correct operating points.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Yes siree. The Tramp is Alive!!

We played with a lot of power supply, cathode bias resistors etc. values to get close to design intent. We tried:
3 different V1 triode values;
a few ballast resistor values; and
3 power tube cathode bias values to get the tube dissipation into the safe zone.

Then, we plugged it into a 212 TRIWATT cab with Tone Tubby Alnicos. kurtlives proceeded to play it and poked at it.

The first thing you notice is that the Tramp is incredibly quiet for a SE amp. Almost no hum, no noise or hiss to speak of. A testament to a great job of wiring, judicious use of coax and clean layout!!

We proceed to try 3 guitars - Strat, Les Paul, Danelectric and a Holy Grail reverb pedal FWIW.
The all sounded very good. No problems or issues. They all retained their characteristic tone. It took the pedal no problem. We had some visitors picking up gear who were talking about how good the tone was before they even got into the shop.

In the Tramp, there are two settings Tweed & 'tude. The Tweed setting is clean. We thought that setting needed some more sparkle so we tried two values of bright cap on the Tweed setting alone and left the boost setting stock. Ended up liking a 500 pf value.

To better deal with Humbuckers, we tried two different bypass caps on the first Triode and decided we liked the 0.68uF marginally better than stock 1uf. .

The Tramp has a pull switch for boost [Tweed & 'tude]. Tweed setting is stock, 'tude is boost on. And that's a good kick in the butt boost too. When boosted it did not sound sloppy or loose control. It had a nice overdrive crunch to it at a decent volume level. Of course, you can dial up the Gain, pull the boost, crank the Volume then dial down the overall level with the VRM. Bedroom Amp Style - it's Very cool!!

The VRM worked flawlessly. You can dial in Blackface or Tweed Champ voltages. Max B+ is about 400V! The VRM does what its supposed to - lower the volume and pretty well retain the tone.

So a good day. I'll let kurtlives comment later, but he left with a smile on his face. Some more playing time is required and probably some more tweaking, but it will be a great platform for a little amp.

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

The Tramp is indeed a fine little amp! (small amp, big sound).

The first thing I noticed as well was the low floor noise. No DC heaters, or elevated heater winding, or other fancy stuff. The noise is extremely low, this is great for a SE amp as they are prone to hum. A push pull amp can often "cancel" out filament hum in the output stage, not SE. Anyways even with single coils (which is what I only play) the noise was really low. When everything is dimed than you get a bit of white noise but even then it was low.

I really liked the Tweed/Tude switch. In Tweed mode the amp is very clear and responsive. Very harmonically rich, SE! Solid note definition, things rang nicely. Tweed mod has a wee bit of top end sparkly with nice warm bass. Personally I would like to see a bit more top end to bring Tweed mod into more of a Blackface/Tweed evil child clean (add a small voltage divder style bright cap in Tweed mode!).

Tude mode is the complete opposite of Tweed mode (but in a good way). Tude was very thick with lots more gain. Reminded me a 5E3 cranked up but with better note definition and tighter. Lots of gain on tap using the Gain knob. I usually had the Gain set to 2 o'clock. This gave the Tweed mode a clean sound and the Tude mode a very ballsy distorted sound.

VRM seems like a good addition to the amp. You are able to dial in all the same tones you play at high volumes all the way around the VRM control for the most part. It's not till the very end of the control (when it's real quiet) do you hear a degradation on tone.

Only complaint is a bit less bass and a bit more treble. I found this apparently when using a neck humbucker. Stephen mentioned he might try different output tubes sometime. A big bottle EL34 or 6L6 might tighten things up a bit and give that extra punch.

No muffledness or fuzziness you often find on other small SE amps. I think this is probably because of the over-spec high quality OT and decent components all around. Most SE amps I find quite flat and boring stock, does not seem like this is the case at all here.


Anyways very fun amp. Can't wait to see the improvements Stephen and Phil make to it as it evolves. It sounds pretty damn good already!

Prototype Pics. Front panel is 'faux panel'


Inside - Note VRM, and 6.3 VCT derived ground with two 100 ohm resistors. Even that didnt add any noise. Wont be in the final design, just worked with what was available.


Front - Note Power - Level Control. Incorporates a Power, Standby (Idle) and VRM control. Prototype Panel is made from paper & tape!!
Temp toggle switch for 1uf & 0.68 uf V1A cathode cap comparison.



Rear - For those who like 'back ends'. .

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

And that's why the lady's a Tramp
Nice work Team Trinity!!!

Joe G

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Some assembly required,
Brain sold separately...

I think we can tighten up the bass a little by tweaking the value of the coupling caps. However, there's an inevitable compromise. Too much low end shaved off will make the amp sound less full when running clean, and leave Strats sounding thin. Not enough control of low end will leave Les Paul neck pickups sounding boomy. The tricky part is to get the tone somewhere between the two.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Caps just changed to .01 for a re-run trial. Trying various options on VRM too. Power Amp only or Pre Amp / Power Amp.

Still playin'

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

My son [andrew] played it today with the Les Paul & the Strat.

From a distortion perspective, the Tramp works pretty well how I want it to. The OD is about perfect with his playing. Three people played it today (teenager, 22 yr old, & 40 yr old) and all commented on how versatile it was being able to go from Clean to Dirty.

With my son playing, I found that the Volume control was extremely effective when used in conjunction with the gain control, as we were able to get real nice OD [albeit with a Les Paul] at bedroom levels. A lot like how you'd want a real Master Volume to behave.

From a clean perspective, we could get quite loud cleans with gain set at about half way. We got really 'Strat' clean to about 2/3 Volume, then clean with nice pick attack distortion on up to max.

It was impressive. Clean to Dirty - Loud to Bedroom levels. I was pretty happy.

And I'm always pleased when my son says - Pretty Impressive Little Tramp.

A Good Day!

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

When's this one coming to the Chapel??????!!!!!!!!??????

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Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Still a little more tweaking first, then she's "Goin' to the Chapel".

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

..after J-Rock tries it tho!! But pretty soon I'd think.

Update Today:

After trying the split VRM, I went back to the full amp VRM. Not scaling both tubes caused a tiny bit of hum and the tone benefits were not really there. As it now stands, you can dial in various eras of amps from High voltage (Blackface/JCM) to low voltage (Tweed/JTM) and still get it bedroom quiet working in conjunction with the Maser Volume.
It's pretty sweet.

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

Me be cravin' sound bytes...even of the crudest variety!

SO.... you know whats coming next....







(when do I get the kit? )