Info on Fender Twins needed.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:06 pm

Egads! That's formidable...

DC4 · Post by **DC4** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:50 pm

Hot Grits - my CVR is relatiively recent of about 5 years ago, dark covering white knobs thing, you can sort of see it in the avatar.
It has a pc board for most of the components, but the valve sockets are all hard wired.
Funnily enough, I decided to do some tests last week, I had a wee bit of spare time, and I've been just a bit unhappy with it for a while.

So...
I did the bias mod (put a variable pot in), increased the reverb a heap by changing a capacitor, and cut the Fender added diodes off the output tube plates.
The Groove Tube 6L6s I had put in a while back were terribly over biased - reducing the bias and setting using a scope, 4 ohm load, generator and meter I set it up for best power and cross-over distortion, keeping the current well within normal.
(Yes, I do have all that stuff!)

Well, I gigged with it on Saturday, and boy, it just responded so well, best it's ever gone! Should have tweaked it years ago.
I didn't want to put in a NFB mod - tends to strangle it a bit I have heard...
I picked up all this mod. info offa the Fender Forum, there's quite a thread there of people who have Vibrolux.
Still, if I could pick a Twin cheap enough, be an interesting project to get it running nicely...

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:20 pm

That's very interesting, mate - good job!

The huge majority of Twin Reverbs I've heard have hummed excessively, made objectionable farting noises whenever they're moved and generally been run-down and certainly sub-optimal.

I think most of them could do with a decent service as you've just described.

philipnz · Post by **philipnz** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:23 pm

Rog wrote:
The huge majority of Twin Reverbs I've heard have hummed excessively, made objectionable farting noises whenever they're moved and generally been run-down and certainly sub-optimal.

I think most of them could do with a decent service .....

I think that applies to most of us

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:59 pm

LOL - I think I need a rebore...

Hot_Grits · Post by **Hot_Grits** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:04 pm

DC4 wrote:Hot Grits - my CVR is relatiively recent of about 5 years ago, dark covering white knobs thing, you can sort of see it in the avatar.
It has a pc board for most of the components, but the valve sockets are all hard wired.
Funnily enough, I decided to do some tests last week, I had a wee bit of spare time, and I've been just a bit unhappy with it for a while.

So...
I did the bias mod (put a variable pot in), increased the reverb a heap by changing a capacitor, and cut the Fender added diodes off the output tube plates.
The Groove Tube 6L6s I had put in a while back were terribly over biased - reducing the bias and setting using a scope, 4 ohm load, generator and meter I set it up for best power and cross-over distortion, keeping the current well within normal.
(Yes, I do have all that stuff!)

Well, I gigged with it on Saturday, and boy, it just responded so well, best it's ever gone! Should have tweaked it years ago.
I didn't want to put in a NFB mod - tends to strangle it a bit I have heard...
I picked up all this mod. info offa the Fender Forum, there's quite a thread there of people who have Vibrolux.
Still, if I could pick a Twin cheap enough, be an interesting project to get it running nicely...

Yeah, the NFB mod does 'tame' the amp's tone a small amount. That's why I made it switchable, so I could retain the original character of the amp as well as get the higher headroom the nfb mod provides. I'm going to make it footswichable sometime in the future, as switching the loop out makes for a really nice volume/gain boost and more aggressive tone.

Red Fred · Post by **Red Fred** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:16 pm

philipnz wrote:It will be seriously loud especially if you ever hook it up to an extension cab. Looks like you are getting yourself an Orange. I was the guy that requested he relist it. Thats going to be a great amp for you.

Are you not goin for it now? I hope not!

Yeah I went into the rockshop on the weekend to try out their AD30TC combo. I wanted to see how the AD15 would sound considering they are really similar amps just the AD30 has two channels and more watts. Holy crap, it was the nicest sounding amp I have ever played.

The guy who helped me out was a huge Mesa fan so he got me to try an F50, a single Rectifier and a Fender Deville.

I was a little dissapointed with the Fender actually, well the clean was very nice but the gain channel was almost modern high-gain, disgusting. Plus it hummed like....well some things

The Mesa F50 was quite nice, very, very loud though and the dist channel was that typical mesa high gain. The weird thing was the clean channel was as good if not better than the Fender Deville.

The Single Rectfier was an absolute dream with the vintage switches on it sounded really nice, like a warmer Twin I suppose. The gain was really nice and thick too, I deffinalty agree with those who say Mesas are versitile.

Anyway after playing all of these amps the first one I tried was still the best, the Orange. It was soo warm and thick a really vintage sort of sound. Also the gain wasn't modern sounding even when cranked. So assuming the AD15 is very similar then I am going to be one happy chappy!

So will it get more headroom if hooked up to an extension cab? I hear it's hard to play small venues with it clean, i.e it breaks up early.

angry_young_poet · Post by **angry_young_poet** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:31 pm

Red Fred wrote: So will it get more headroom if hooked up to an extension cab? I hear it's hard to play small venues with it clean, i.e it breaks up early.

that's wonderful then.. like glass breaking

Red Fred · Post by **Red Fred** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:52 pm

Eh? I'm confused....

philipnz · Post by **philipnz** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:05 pm

Re the Orange, nope, its yours mate. You HAVE to bring it along to the next get together.

Red Fred · Post by **Red Fred** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:09 pm

Done and done. As long as you don't laugh, I'm not very good only been playing for 2 and a bit years.

ant · Post by **ant** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:40 am

The orange ad15/30 are nice amps for sure

, somewhat similar to an 18watt marshall but they have an extra gain stage to make up for tone stack losses and dont drive the powertubes as hard.

With the 15 watter it will be pretty loud if you crank it at home (I assume it has the vintage30 speaker), and should work for most gig situations.

With the clean headroom thing I think people who have a single channel amp that distorts on '2' think it has no clean headroom which is simply not the case it will generally still be pumping out its rated wattage, it simply enables you to get more shades of overdrive. With tube amps when you first hit notes, when overdriven, produce volumes sometimes in excess of double the rated output, which is why they sound so much louder.

Use your volume knob on your guitar it works wonders on vintage style tube amps.

The ad15 is exactly the same as the ad30Reverb minus reverb obviously. I'm not sure what the ad30 TC (two channel?) schem looks like. Surely the AD15 has the best channel of the ad30 TC

I can play my 5watter against a rock drummer and it keeps up well and it will put a mesa/marshall to shame at similar volumes but I think the speakers I have are more effecient than celestion blues by a shade. Just an interesting note I put on my auction - a vox ac15 with 2 blues (or vintage30's) will be as loud as an ac30 with greens (reissue). Which holds true for the ORange ad15 as well. HTH

philipnz · Post by **philipnz** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:56 pm

As far as i'm aware the two channels of the AD30 are identical with 2 gains and 2 masters so yeah, the ad15 will be exactly the same with 1 channel and 2 less power tubes.

I tried the AD30 once it rocks.

Have a listen to it here
http://www.proguitar.de/AudioDemo/Compa ... eAmps.html

ant · Post by **ant** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:15 pm

Wouldn't be much point in them being identical

, check harmony-central

The first channel has a more rough sounding tone to it while the second channel is a bit smoother and bassier.

pretty vauge at best

I think the recording on that site definately isn't good but the orange is IMO one of the better sounding amps on there!! I think the guy selling on trademe upgraded to the 30watt model?

philipnz · Post by **philipnz** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 6:38 pm

There may be some but there isnt a lot of difference between the two channels. You can just run higher preamp gain and less master on one or the other. I read the reviews which suggested as much and went in to try it and see for myself. Plugged a guitar into both channels and decided that there wasnt enough difference to warrant actually having 2 channels. Went out and bought a one channel amp. (Well 2 different one channel amps in one box actually)