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Hey Folks,

well, the wife gave me clearance to get to ampfest tomorrow (sh*t, today I mean!)...

I was planning on bringing the sIII and that other clone....but the 6v6 Lightning deluxe was *still* not 100%...so I was going to leave that at the homestead. As much as I've curbed the buzz coming out of the preamp, it wasn't all the way gone and I decided to hold off on bringing...even though Greg (HeeBGB) said I should bring it since there'll be alot of guys there to help troubleshoot...

Regardless, I started thinking about my experiences with the coupling cap on the sIII earlier this morning...and decided to try one more thing....On the normall TMB schematic, there's a 470k resistor between the volume pot and v2 (the sIII doesn't have it)....Since I only had a 500pf cap couping v1 and the volume pot...I couldn't really go any smaller...but I decided to copy this 470K resistor and see if it helped limit the signal into v2.

So I dig into my parts bin and all I could find was a 330k resistor. So I pop that in instead....and fired up the amp!


HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS ROCK AND ROLL....

I finally licked the problem. The amp sounds phenominal!!! I mean, literally phenominal.....no more noise whatsoever!!!!

Even though I had been close to licking this problem and at times I thought i was there...It never fully went away...and in essence, it's been haunting me since I built this amp in the summer....finally...finally....

Anyway....I immediately brought back in the TH club deluxe tweaks (820R resistor on v2's cathode) which added a touch of gain....and wrapped the amp back up in it's cabinet...

I fired it up (albeit very low volume since it's 1:15am here!) and the amp sounded even better....alot more gain on tap....and even without the low input...I can still drop the volume down to about 4 and get sweet cleans.


Ironic that I lick this problem the night before ampfest....


Anyway, this amp is now officially making the trip to Union, NJ tomorrow morning. I'll gladly put this baby un against anyone elses amp!!!

Woohoo....

-Frank

You know you're really making me want to build one. Clips when you've got 'em, please.

Bear

Thats not a bad idea...I'll have to get some of Lawrence's jazzy backing tracks and make a mockery of myself by doing some recordings!

-F

Let us know how you fare with your amps. Sounds like a little late night tweaking works nicely for you! CLIPS!
We will need to know what the schematic is & see if we can duplicate your success!

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

You know, it's my opinion that ampfest was a little too 'big'...it could have been better if it were less than 15-20 people. Someone over on 18 counted 65 heads....That's too much.

As a result, my amps got very little play. I think Allyn got to play my 'clone' and that's about it....My buddy and I showed off both the sIII and the 6v6 Lightning...but no one actually plugged into besides us.

It was a fun day to say the least, but a more 'scientific' shootout would have required less people and more in-depth attention to each amp.

Hey Bits and Volts, I will send you a couple of clips from my stash. I would be good to hear you amp. BTW, what speakers are you using. I took an sIII to a wee ampfest. There were 8 people and about 20 amps. These guys were real pigs you know (hehe). There was everything from a Trainwreck to a real 18 watt marshall reissue and 4 (count em 4) different two rocks.

Anyway, as you mentioned, we took a more scientific approach so we just played the 18 watt amps that day. Recorded all of them with one guy play 3 different guitars through each amp recorded into pro tools. Some time in Feb we will get to the 30 watters. The 50 watters will come after that.

I must say though, the sIII compared quite favourably with (smoked) the Marshall 18 Watt Trem. I was using a Scumback 12-75 at the time and hearing someone else play the rig made hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It was definitly "the sound".

What is it with that? I have had the same thing, you don't hear the sound properly until someone else plays the amp. Must be concentrating on the guitar playing or something.

I'm actually tempted to get an 8k tranny and pop it in here...and save the 4k for a true lightning down the road...I dunno...

Lawrence, email on it's way to you...

Frank, you gonna have a crack at a Lightning again? I have just started one myself after which I have decided to build an AC30.

Well, I dunno what I'm going to do...I had a whacko idea of popping a chieftan reverb preamp onto a lightning power section...

either that or do something else (like that other clone I've been threatening to do)...but I'm desperate to build an amp with some real honest to god reverb...and not the foldback stuff...a real verb tranny and a spring verb in the chassis...

regardless either would probably be a good use for the 4k tranny.

-F

Frank,
Was this noise the same one you wrote about in another post, or is this a different amp? I seem to remember you moved the 68K resistors onto the tube socket to clear up that buzz.

I've got what sounds like the identical noise in my Lightning, except that I only get it when I engage the brite cap which I have wired on a push-pull volume knob. With the cap bypassed I don't get the buzz at all. I like the brighter sound when using humbuckers, but can't stand the buzz. Your thoughts?

MOid