trinityamps.com

I built my first 5e3 from Stephen's excellent kit a couple of month's ago. The sound is wonderful, very rich, and not a difficult build. I did want to share, however, an easy mod to reduce the bass frequencies which I found to be overpowering even in the bright channel. This mod was suggested by Steve Aloha and can be found on the web, but some might not be familiar with it. Simply replace the two 0.1 uF caps between the volume pots and the first preamp tube (12AY7) with a lower value. These are the two 0.1 caps on the rightmost side of the board, looking toward the input jacks and control pots. 0.1 uF in that position, as I understand it, essentially passes all the bass frequencies, while lower values restrict some of the bass. I used 0.22 uF going to pin 1 of the 12AY7, and 0.047 uF going to pin 6. The result for me was a much more useful range of tones, using the tone control pot. The bass is still very full and rich, but no longer overpowering.

Thanks to Stephen for putting together a high quality kit. By the way, I built a second 5e3 after this one, using Hammond transformers instead of the Heyboers Stephen supplies in his kits. That second 5e3 sounds good also, but to my ears the first one I built has a richer sound. Since the circuit is otherwise identical, I attribute the difference to the Heyboer output tranny.

Regards to all,

Jim

Stephen has included these mods in the instructions. I can only assume he did this after you recieved your kit.

Still it's one thing to read about a mod and it's another to have somebody try it and recommend it. Thanks for that.

I still haven't built my second 5E3 so maybe I'll do these mods to have different sounding amps.

... descisions decisions....

We ship the stock circuit 5E3 design. The options are there and others as mentioned in the Tone Tweaking section of the manual.

Glad it all worked out for you and the feedback is appreciated.

Interesting observation on the Output Transformers as well. I would always recommend a Purpose design over a General Purpose design. They always sound better.

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

Yes, absolutely correct - subbing smaller values for the two 0.1 uF caps to lose some bassiness is suggested in Stephen's helpful tweaking section of the manual. But I wanted to share my results in doing that with the two particular subs I tried. I'm very happy with, IMHO, an improved sound and more versatile range of tone adjustment with the tone pot.

The Deluxe is a great sounding amp with a much wider spectrum of tones than it is famous for. I'm using the recommended Tone Tubby 12" alnico in an open back combo cabinet, and it sounds fabulous. However, I will now go broke putting TTs into a couple other cabs. Even my old Boogie Mark I sounds rich and scrumptuous with that speaker.

Until last night I had only played my Tele thru the Deluxe. It is a three p/u Strat wiring, so the neck/mid and mid/bridge have that famous Strat quack. The Deluxe is superb for reproducing the subtleties of those sounds, with lots of shimmer and overtones. They are not easily lost even at the higher gain settings of the amp. Full gain of course gives a substantial amount of midrange boost. I generally prefer to keep the volume under about 6 and use a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube when I want a little more distortion. That pedal interacts very sweetly with the Deluxe.

Last night I tried my old Les Paul, fitted with Harmonic Design Z-90s, and the Deluxe yields some gorgeous sounds!

I'll soon be building a TC-15, so probably looking for some good Forum Wisdom on that project. I appreciate the generosity of you guys in sharing what you know so freely!

This mod is definitely sounding like the solution to my Deluxe being too thick with my band. I want to control the woofiness, without neutering the amp.

Anyone else try this tweak out?
How are you liking the results?

I did it for Dan Dufour and he liked it. I also added a NFB loop/switch for him.

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

How did you add the NFB?

I dont know how to do it with the Deluxe's funky phase inverter.

Possibly put a switch on the cathode of the preamp stage before the PI, so that it either selects the bypass cap (no NFB) or a feedback resistor, connected to the OT secondary at the other end. Personally, I dislike any measures that make a famous dirty amp sound less dirty.


He may be using one of Hammond's new range of guitar amp replacement transformers, which are purpose designed for various popular Fender, Marshall and Vox amps. But it sounds like Heyboer still has the edge in the tone department.

You can also reduce the 0.1uF coupling caps between the PI and the power tubes from 0.1uF to 0.047uf or 0.022uF. This is another well-known 5E3 mod.

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Great tones come in small glass jars!

Has anyone tried DC biasing the PI?

I think I am going to try it when I build my 5E3. It is supposed to tighten up the low end and provide a tiny bit more headroom while also increasing gain a wee bit.

This is like what I did. I'll dig out the resistor value for you if you want.

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

I'm definitely not trying to minimize the dirt. I'd just like to get my tone control off of being permanently at 12 with nowhere to go when I want a better balance between my bass and treble.

Oops, I just realized my last post could have been very misleading. The reducing dirt comment was about the NFB mod, and not about reducing the size of the coupling caps between the PI and power amp. The coupling cap thing is to help reduce the 5E3's flubby bass.

I'll now go back and edit that post, so it's less misleading.

_________________
Great tones come in small glass jars!

Less Dirt = Feedback resistor you can try is a 56K from 8 ohm speaker output to Phase Inverter cathode where the 1500 ohm resistor is connected.

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

I thought the whole point of this thing was getting it dirty... :p

Hi:
When I first got my Deluxe I had concerns that it it was somewhat too bassy when playing my Tele through it. I had it on the floor on carpet against a wall. I changed my strings to fresh ones as I am terminally guilty of using old strings, and raised the amp off the floor onto a milk crate. Voila, the tone change was startling....simple cheap things to try before amp surgery.
Cheers

Couldn't we put a 50k pot to vary the NFB? We'd leave the 1k5 resistor on the PI cathode. Doable?

I always agree with doing the free changes before going more complex, but in this case, I had tried everything. The milkshake thick tone of the Trinity Tweed Deluxe was too thick in my 4-piece. Such a wonderful tone, but I needed the bass to be less dominant so that I could cut through.

Stephen sent me the caps to do the mod for dirt cheap. I popped them in at the start of the week and I'm impressed. Still sounds every bit as beautiful as it always has, but instead of preferreing the tone control on 12 and still wanting a little more treble/less bass. I can put it at about halfway and get the exact tone I want. The whole mod took about 5 minutes, cost about $2, and took the amp from one that I loved but found hard to use with my band into the exact tone I want from it,

With only a single tone control, the 5E3 forms something of a matched set with the speaker. If the driver has more bass than a 50's Jensen, then it will shift the whole tonal spectrum toward the low end. And without a separate bass knob, you can't simply dial it down to suit.

The nice thing about changing coupling capacitors, is you can shift the bass response to match your favourite speaker. Cheap and simple.

On the other hand, small speaker changes can make a similar difference, with interesting side effects.

I wanted the historic 5E3 experience, so I built mine with a BBQ 12A125, which is pretty much a 50's Jensen P12Q, one model up from the P12R that would have been in a Fender Deluxe. I asked for the 30 watt voice coil and light doping, thinking that it would improve the overdrive characteristics.

When the amp turned out to sound a little tubby with that speaker, I swapped in a 12A125-O with no doping on the coil surround. Essentially the same speaker, but with a lighter cone and a 20-watt voice coil.

The difference was magical. Not only did the bass tighten up nicely without losing richness, but the breakup was much earlier, and the amp lost a slight tendency to ice-pick in the treble.

After reading this post, and thinking I'd like to go this route in changing the values of the 2 caps to reduce bass response and also that I'm in need of ordering tweed material from Mojotone, and noticing they also carry the needed components....other then them being more money, are there any advantages or disadvantages in going with Vitamin T oil filled Caps ??

also how much Tweed material will I need to cover the cabinet??

Thank you all...Ernie

Is the manual posted on the site?