Variac a Super Lead instead of attenuating

[rockgod212]

how do the newer ones sound, those I can afford.

[Strat78]

Those are crap, just save up for the real deal, more square logo ones will come up now and then for half that price.

[jape88]

Yeah, that was a crazy price! The square logo one's were the first off the line and as far as I can gather only ran for a year or so, ('76/77 ish) but the more popular one's are quite common considering their age (watch out for the stove blue finish one's, these were a short run, later reissue (I think dunlop did them?).
As Strat said, the old one's sound the best, I have three and there all slightly different tonally, personally I'd shoot for a round corner and with the money saved between a sq corner, get an old mxr noise gate (for the hiss!, still think Ed used one of these in his chain ).

[rgorke]

still think Ed used one of these in his chain ).

Yep!!! me too!!

So, what in the circuit is different between the square and round logo? Different types of caps?

[rockgod212]

I just got one of the blue box ones.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131459335741

[rockgod212]

jhust got my variac, cant wait to try it 2morrow, too tired to right now

[Strat78]

stick a couple probes into the socket and Calibrate the knob to make sure it is dialing in the voltage that it says it's dialing in. If it shows 90v and the knob says 110, loosen the screw and move the knob to the right spot.

[rockgod212]

yeah I tested it, its about 3volts off, damn near perfect. I still havnt tried it yet, waiting for some more parts to come. probably try it 2morrow or the next day.

[dirtycooter]

Here is what I been doing
Use a Furman with a voltage meter readout Ofd course don't try to plug through the furman as its designed to shut down in voltage extremes of too low or too high. But the meter always works when its just plugged in and not turned on so you can foresee voltage issues before you turn on. Great way to scope and check it
Not that this is really THAT important-its how it sounds in the end where the dial goes as that's what Ed did.
But if you plug your turned off furman into the variac outlet the meter tells you wtf is really coming out as its supposed to be lab quality accurate-so they say anyway

The wall is gonna fluctuate. anywhere up to no more than 8 volts hopefully if your blessed to be in a place with decent power and not a lot of big surges and brown dips.

So you will have a margin of error if your wall voltage says 115 one day and you find 80 volts. The next day if the wall goes up to 123 or 124 your gonna be off 8-9 volts. This can and does happen where I live and I consider the power where I am at decently stable because I am near no big factories or crazy stuff like that that create huge demands on my leg of the service area. But 8 miles away a transformer did bite the weenie the other day and my alarm clock was blinking like a bastard when I woke up........ LATE You never know
Not sure if my analog meter stays true to actual incoming voltage vs the dial setting. But I really don't worry too much and mostly watch the analog meter built into the variac-that seems to correlate to what I am liking the amp to do. 71/72 on the built in meter and I am happy everytime.
I guess to nail it down solid would be to use a voltage regulator-but I heard it makes amps sound different and its preferred to just use a conditioner for emi/rfi and spike protection. But a regulator would straighten up fluctuations stiffer than a wedding cock. Constant 120 always.

[JimiJames]

...mentioned regulator several years now...

[dirtycooter]

I read it does something to an amps tone though. I researched it a week or so ago and someone that bradshaw or somebody was workin with said it did something to a boogie I think. They plugged the amp on a seperate unregulated line and he was happy again. It was changing the tone or feel of the amp. Probably due to less sag on demand?? It has that big instant reserve wattage thingy inside it. Plus I guess they very audibly click like a bitch with dentures ridin ya hard. (Don't ask)
So I dunno...
to regulate or not regulate seems to be the question.
Tripp Lite makes a decent priced one though compared to the standard furburger. Which is usually over $500.
The balanced isolator satch's tech swears buy.
So there are conditioners, regulators, then isolator balancers.
And I find furmans marketing sorta blurry as shit on all this. Which is weird. They make it sound like a conditioner is some major voodoo piece of equipment and put a price tag from hell on a glorified power strip these days. They are proud as hell of that lil standard sombitchen PLPlus..... but it has some decent things in there but not worth no damn $300 fat fricken dollars. I payed like $150 new for my top of the line 15amp pl plus DM with current and voltage meter and lights 15 years ago. And no it wasn't the economy sackrider version either. Same damn thing as a new one except they renamed its innard things as SMP, LIFT, and WTF and stuck LED bulbs in the rack lights instead of christmas nightlight bulbs and added a LED protection OK indicator. Woohoo big flippin whoop!
I believe in the conditioning yes-always running through my furman conditiiner. Proven true by analysts there is a lower noise floor on isolated balanced power. Regulation works to straighten up problem AC swings.
But I got better places to stick my money and I guess I will deal with it as it is. Others can fork out if they got it and feel better using the other stuff.

[rockgod212]

heres something ive been wondering, I have a 100volt tap on this CT power tranny, would I be better off to use the 100v tap and variac down the AC line to the 100v or do you guys think I would get the same plate voltage as I would at 120vac. right now im around 136vdc unbiased@120vac. just curious.

[rockgod212]

ok, so I started with 436vdc@123vac biased to 40mv, the amp was really clean sounding right out of the gate. by the way, im using 47k@4ohm tap, I have a ppimv- its full up, although I added a normal master vol. as well, as I feel that lends itself better to OD pedals and such. im using the amp with a g12-80 slant cab which is already kinda bright sounding.

I then dropped it down to 400vdc@115vac biased to 42mv, heaters are still at 3.1vac. man oh man it really opened up the amp, its starting to crunch up now, even with the normal master half up. I think I will drop it down to 110vac and see what I get, im real close to what im after though, eventually I will get down to 90vac. it just rocks.

[rockgod212]

i just bought one of these voltage meters, plug a power strip into the variac, plug the amp and meter into the strip. this is going to be great for live or rehearsal stuff to where you have to move your amp to a new AC source, now you don't have to carry your hand held meter where you go. nice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electric-Power- ... 3cf23f58a7

[dirtycooter]

Hell yeah
Hope you get it though-ships from china and has russian in the description. Wth?
Looks cool though.
I want one thats lit up like my furman is though. Sometimes you can feel around in the dark for stuff but voltage isn't one of those things