all the bells and whistles

[YMI5150?]

I was thinking the similar. we'll see how it goes. The 790 is on my board. I'd have to get another one. I need to hunt down 2 slotted switch nuts if anyone has a set I get nab from them.

What's the required voltage rating for the v2a electrolytic?

Here you go Phil. Dont drool on the keyboard

The choke is MM (toneclone) 3.8H.

BE V1 board.JPG (71.57 KiB) Viewed 3856 times

[YMI5150?]

board's complete (minus 2 resistors that I have to go grab at lunch today).

a few hours from seeing power. I'll post pics and data for your review to get a few sets of eyes on it before tubes go in, just for added security.

main board net.jpg (204.49 KiB) Viewed 3826 times

[emmjaydubya]

Nice! The board looks great!

[Strat78]

82k plate resistor and the 47k trim pot resistor of course, but it all looks pretty nice. Is that Valvestorm's pink wire!?!?

[YMI5150?]

Well done. Sort of a Where's Waldo quiz...

Yep, the pink wire is courtesy of Robert at Valvestorm, as are most of the goodies under the hood.

Amps finished. Just need to attach the power cord. I intentionally stopped there at 11 last night to be fresh for the first power up. Need to look it over real well prior to flicking the switch.

After taking initial readings, I plan on forming the caps, even though Robert formed the old Eries. Seems like a good way to get things to settle out. Thoughts?

I wanted to post a shot attaching all the wires prior to laying the board down for future builders but its sort of a free for all. I'll list the important references that I used for the build:

Georges 100w instructions - great for ~ 3/4 the build. Good for heater and tranny wiring, most of the power tube wiring and attaching tone stack and preamp tube lines from the main board. Filters are different and I chose Larry Grounding scheme.

Robert (Valvestorm)s Larry Grounding thread - http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=34425" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
awesome first page to spell things out with great pics.

George's 67-68 complete layout. Awesome detail - http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=11948" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

D Friedman for unique specs - gets you in the EVH ball park. Customize to taste and as the individual amp requires.

Cheers

[YMI5150?]

amp is powered up and is close. the voltages are good, formed the setup for about 30 minutes, then biased her and there's a surprising amount of gain above 2. having an issue with noise (squeal) on the volume I pot above 4 and gets louder when i roll the volume pot off on the guitar. seems like a shielding issues but need some input here.
normal volume is good up to about 9 then gets ugly too. even not jumped they interact a lot. the total combined volumes reach a point of unstability and noise. I saw Valvestorm make a nice shielded cable with internal resistors directly to v1. might be the right solution but i didnt have this on my last amp. I did use the pink wire. not sure if the jacket has to have specific shielding requirements or if proximity is an issue. i'll look the solder joints over on the input jacks because the lower hole is worse than the upper one. I also dont have shields on the preamp tubes yet, and its obviously still out of the case.
I was going to change the normal channel cap/resistor combo to make it less muddy but i discovered even though its not jumpered, it adds some nice warmth to the bright channel when dimed.

[YMI5150?]

thing's a beast!! can't believe the low end is so beefy and not flubby. great mids and the variac really makes it creamy. wasnt sure it was needed but i think it is. down to 105, 400 at the plates, and 44ma.

baseline w variac.mp3

(1013.37 KiB) Downloaded 424 times

[efraser68]

What speaker are you recording? Now I want to hear the higher strings too.

[Strat78]

Sick! That o100 jm vz is magic, now perhaps we can get a group order organized.

[YMI5150?]

its all magic! the compressed files are not quite giving the true experience. it doesnt sound closed mic'd on that attachment but I'm glad you guys can see through that and the fact that I spent 2 minutes learning a few riffs from that record and improvised my way through to get the point across.

Eric, i mic'd the upper right prerola cone. didnt spend much time with it. angled the Audix mic a bit and pointed it on the cone side of the seam between cone and dust cover, about 3 inches away from the cone. figured it needed to be a bit off center and angled to get a darker effect. could possibly be moved a bit more off center to dull the highs a bit more. the wet side is a 609silver hanging off center in front of a chinese back.

my power amp is giving me some grief. noisy pot or something. had some random static. hit the top of it and it would go away for a while

I'm not sure I'd change a thing on this one for what its targeting. The CC does a fine job for that album.

Strat, it does seem that George's stock kit does a better job at the early tone though, agree? or maybe the lack of fat cap, EP3(s), and SuperD type pup, and recording style are the major differences.

[YMI5150?]

I'm really on the fence to post this. I just ran "tape" while I was dialing things in. But there is a lot of good information here for you guys to reference.

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... 69248&q=hi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's been an interesting few days. I was pleased with the first clips posted above but we wanted to try dropping the variac down to 90 volts to see how much more smear we could get out of it. in the process for some reason, things were muddy to my ear. not sure why it seemed different than the first "high five, we're done" clip. i think with everything settling in, its taking its shape.

Not being able to stand it, I took the fat cap off and bumped v1b up to 2.7k, thinking i could get rid of the flub and remove some excess gain since there are comments that the bump in resistor there does that. a couple observations:

bumping the resistor from 820 to 2.7k did not remove gain. it got deeper (warmer but not less), which validates the rolloff charts posted in the debate thread. well, i have plenty of bass up front with the CC pup so that just got switched back to 820. Its perfect for getting the pronounced mids.

My ear tells me that the .68 on v2 is a better match with the CC pup. the fat cap works much better with my DSD to keep as much bass in play as possible. These two stages should definitely go hand in hand with whatever pickup you're working with.

so the board is locked in and the clip is variac'd at 90volts. I didnt take any measurements, just went by ear and maxed the bias with the 27k resistor.

I recorded 3 speakers. you'll hear the transition as they go from one ear to the other. again, dont cringe too much on the mistakes. some day i'll pull my head of from under the hood and get behind the wheel

First speaker - pulsonic cone 25w greenback
second - chinese 25w greenback
third - v30

i know as a majority, the V30 is not well liked for EVH. I have to say there's a quality of it that I hear on the first record. its scooped but has more range, clearer high end, and sizzle. not sure what it has in common with the JBLs but I would easily buy something like this blended in on that first record. I cant get the top end lid off the pulsonic for first record tone.

cheers

[rgorke]

Kevin,

Wow, I think that sounds fantastic. Loved reading through your build. Where did you get the turret board? I really like the way that looks.

Makes we want to get busy building my own. I have one that I have tweaked to death but I did not do the original build.

Roger

[vanhalen5150]

I think those boards are from Brian H. He's a member here.

[rgorke]

Kevin,

Any updates on this build?

My amp came alive, gain wise, but adding the chicklet .68 on V1b and the 0.022 Mica caps on V2A and the PI.

[YMI5150?]

this build is complete and with Brian, its new owner. it was an amazing build and one I plan on replicating!