Metropoulos Forum

Hi Pete, greetings from Finland! I'm a fan of yours and really dig your playing, music and tones. I was just curious, how do you like the PPIMV in your amp? Feel and tonewise, do you prefer it over an attenuator?

Hi, I really like the PPIMV John uses, it's terrific. Enough that I haven't used an attenuator for awhile. That said, a good attenuator can still retain more of that "cranked" feel I think. Because obviously, you are still cranking the amp. At the cost of tubes, wear and tear, etc, of course.

The PPIMV is a great option and there's no downside- as you all know, when it's on 10, it's out of the circuit.

I agree Pete, nothing is like the amp on 10 but the master works very well. I think you really need to have the proper filtering for it to respond nicely. I changed the filtering in my Metro to "low but not too low" specs and the master works fantastic!

projectx102 wrote:I agree Pete, nothing is like the amp on 10 but the master works very well. I think you really need to have the proper filtering for it to respond nicely. I changed the filtering in my Metro to "low but not too low" specs and the master works fantastic!

What values did you go with? Ihave currently 32/32 preamp, 25 screens, 50 pi and 50 mains. I'm fightning it a bit, 2203 spec feels better even when using the same amount of gain. Guess I need a variac or an attenuator to get the plexi feel like I want to.

julkke wrote:

projectx102 wrote:I agree Pete, nothing is like the amp on 10 but the master works very well. I think you really need to have the proper filtering for it to respond nicely. I changed the filtering in my Metro to "low but not too low" specs and the master works fantastic!

What values did you go with? Ihave currently 32/32 preamp, 25 screens, 50 pi and 50 mains. I'm fightning it a bit, 2203 spec feels better even when using the same amount of gain. Guess I need a variac or an attenuator to get the plexi feel like I want to.

I have 32/32 preamp,32 screens,50 mains,100 PI. I have a 250uF 25v Sprague Atom cap paralelled with the .68 on V2 and 47k on the 8 ohm tap and I'm using the low voltage tap on George's 1203-80MS. With EH 6CA7's,this spec sounds amazing! I do have old glass in the preamp. V1 is an I63 Mullard, V2 is a Sylvania 12AX7A, and V3 is a Telefunken smooth plate. I'm getting the greatest tone I've ever had in my life and I've been playing for 31 years.

Anyone get a good look at the guts yet?

I second that, have we confirmed the values on this amp ?

So, anymore info on the SL68 ? With the fat cap over the .68uf on v2 along with the 820v1b cathode resistor (instead of the more standard 2.7k), I would surmise that the amp is hooked to either the 8 or 16ohm tap ? The power transformer is basically a stand up 1203-80-ml heyboer Dagnall clone, like the one's in the Metro kits (the 12xxx being the laydown version) ? The tone of that amp is (Sl68) is 'holding togather' and not woofing out into furry smear, so I doubt the 4ohm tap is being used ?

Tone Slinger wrote:So, anymore info on the SL68 ? With the fat cap over the .68uf on v2 along with the 820v1b cathode resistor (instead of the more standard 2.7k), I would surmise that the amp is hooked to either the 8 or 16ohm tap ? The power transformer is basically a stand up 1203-80-ml heyboer Dagnall clone, like the one's in the Metro kits (the 12xxx being the laydown version) ? The tone of that amp is (Sl68) is 'holding togather' and not woofing out into furry smear, so I doubt the 4ohm tap is being used ?

I think I can see 47k to speaker jack.

Did anyone else notice that the SL68 is running a jumper wire between solder lugs #3 (normally unused) and #2 (middle position) on the Bass pot?

Tazin wrote:Did anyone else notice that the SL68 is running a jumper wire between solder lugs #3 (normally unused) and #2 (middle position) on the Bass pot?

This doesn't make any electrical difference since that pot is simply used as a variable resistor, not a voltage divider. With both those lugs at the same potential, having the hot one soldered in or not is exactly the same. The only reason I can think of to do it is it might 'look' a little neater with something filling the hole.

Just looking at Suhr' SL68 chassis one more time. I'm going to say again that it is all based on stock specs from a 12 series Plexi. Only exception is the 10uf-25uf cap on V2a. Forget about the vintage caps and resistors. Anyone can get there with Mallory 150 caps and EL34 JJ tubes in a clone plexi. Any homemade build with parts from Mouser and Digikey as well as transformers from Classictone will bring you to brown nirvana. You don't need to dish out thousands of dollars in gear. If anyone tells you differently, they are just trying to get into your wallet. Just listen to Blix's recordings with his Bugera 1960.

Van Halen I's guitar tone can definitely be attributed to the eq'ing abilities of Ted Templeman as stated in the quote below. http://www.woodytone.com/2010/07/21/the ... lead-pt-2/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
“I was told by Michael Anthony personally that Ed’s tone in the studio for VH1 was not all of the glory we hear on the record. He said it was very shrill and trebly, and that is why Ted [Templeman, producer] and Don [Landee, engineer] had to pan him hard right on rhythm and hard left on leads, soak it in verb – and there is a ton of verb on there – along with some pretty damn creative EQing.”

See attached to prove my point. This VHI lick was recorded using my cheap amp and post eq'ed in Reaper. No need to travel to Sunset Studios unless you want to enjoy the sun. All you need is a laptop and a USB DI box. All this talk about recording with tape is purely nostalgic. After working with film for years before the computer revolution, I can say I appreciate the qualities of analog. But really, c'mon...digital media is better. Do any of you watch VHS movies or beta tapes? Does anyone listen to Grand Funk Railroad on an 8 track deck. I do from time to time. Old technology simply offers a high and low cut that furries the sound. Van Halen's piercing tone was a great fit for tape recording because the shrillness of a marshall was smoothed out with tape transfer.

"Enought talk. Let's play." Johnny Unitas

Awesome..!

That doesn't explain him getting almost the exact first album tone live on that last Pasadena Civic show in '77.

projectx102 wrote:That doesn't explain him getting almost the exact first album tone live on that last Pasadena Civic show in '77.

yep! and he did not sound bright and shrill at all - actually it sounded a tad warmer and fuller than VH1