Photos of your amps

pjpjpaul

I want to push the tubes on the 40 watt setting and attenuate that sound plus I will be utilizing the headphone feature, the cab and room simulator options... The OX is a great solution for silent recording and quiet practicing with good tone. Even with the power scaling on the amp already I can't crank the master volume without it getting too loud for the house. This will solve that too. My 97 and 95 year old grandparents who live with me will appreciate the purchase  

dudeman

Got ya. Thanks!

pjpjpaul

First impressions of Mesa California Tweed

1 The amp is aesthetically pleasing 

2. The power switching options are great for those who need the ability to lower or increase headroom and db's for different playing situations. So far my ear has taken to the 40 watt 20 watt and 2 watt settings as being the most sonically pleasing but again it all depends on the situation and what tone you want.

3. The knobs for gain, eq, presence, and master volume are all very touch sensitive. If you move them just a bit you can hear a big shift in tone. Some people will like this and some won't. I like the fact that there are a wide spectrum of tones available but I also hate having to tweak too much to find a sweet spot so I've recorded a few settings I like and keep flipping between them.l depending on how much gain or headroom I need. 

4. This amp is a great pedal platform. I have used delays, chorus, compression, boosts, overdrive, wah, and fuzz so far and they all sounded phenomenal. 

5. This amp really brings out the sound of your pickups and guitar without coloring the sound too much. Again some will and some won't like this aspect of the amp. Many ampa have a particular sound and eq curves  that add color or a particular"personality trait" to the sound of a guitar and its pickups. Marshall's have a distinct sound, as do vox's, and fenders... but this is a more neutral canvas. Pedals can get you almost any sound imaginable these days and having that neutral canvas helps in that respect too because your amp is not impacting the desired tones of the pedal as much either. 

I will have more to add to this review later. My Ox Box showed up this weekend and I have been using it with this amp so I will let you all know how that had been going.

dudeman

Sounds like it's going well! Lots to explore with those amps. Enjoy!

JH228

Here is one of my favorite amps...It is a combination of an Orange OR80 and Matamp GTO circuit. Thick distortion!

dudeman

I moved the Mesa/Boogie MK-IIb along and just picked up this Carvin on Friday.

Made in 1996, it has 4 x 12AX7s and 4 x EL84s, an Accutronics spring tank and 1 x 12" speaker. Makes 33 watts.

I bought it in as-is condition due to a non-functioning reverb and scratchy pots. All it needed was a good cleaning with Deoxit and about an hour of my time. It also came with a full spare tube compliment, both pre and power tubes.

The clean channel sounds really, really good but the drive channel needs modifications. There are clipping diodes in there that have got to go. I will probably experiment with this one a little. 

brianlux

Very happy with my latest set up:  '65 Fender Princeton Reverb, 80's Squire Strat with Humbucksers, Big Muff Ram's Head, PolyTune tuner.  Now I just need to find that "right-for-me" affordable Tele and maybe a wah pedal (possibly a Cry Baby like I had ages ago).

dudeman

BIGDaddyWil

dudeman said:

Looks amazing!!!!!

dudeman

BIGDaddyWil said:

dudeman said:

Looks amazing!!!!!

Thanks man! I am looking for a different stand but so far, this thing sounds pretty incredible. 

It is a '59 Bassman LTD. Planning out some mods for the future. Maybe speakers and tubes first and then ditching the PCBs and going PTP handwired on the amp.

BALLBOY

I have moved on from a fender 20 champion then Boss Kastana 50 to Marshall Origin 20 & a fender blues junior running them through a tonemaster pro. 

dudeman

BALLBOY said:

I have moved on from a fender 20 champion then Boss Kastana 50 to Marshall Origin 20 & a fender blues junior running them through a tonemaster pro. 

Very cool! That Tonemaster tech Fender rolled out is pretty impressive!

dudeman

Had to revise the stand situation. This is most of my amps with the covers off:

mace1229

Anyone here work on amps?
I’ve been getting back into guitar and found tinkering around with them for upgrades and fixes pretty easy. 

Then I found a used amp I liked at guitar center for pretty cheap. When I noticed one of the inputs didn’t work, they gave me half off that. It was cheap enough I thought I’d take a chance and see if I could tinker with it.

Opened it up and could see amps are far more going on to work with and that the jack was lose. Tried to fix tighten it but it kept coming loose and a couple uses. I couldn’t find a matching jack online (this is a 1999 champion 30) so I figured I’d switch it with the external speaker jack since I never use that and was the same. 

Tested everything before I put it all together, both inputs and all the knobs worked. Put it back together and then nothing worked. 

I’ve been fiddling with it for about 2 hours since this morning and can’t figure it out. I can use the external speaker jack and connect to another amp and it works, all the knobs, gain, etc works just fine (I don’t have another way to use the 1/4” output speaker to another speaker and it works along with all the knobs. Unplug the external speaker and nothing. I thought maybe the speaker blew, so I took it out and hooked it up to a cd player and the speaker works. The speaker wire in the amp isn’t loose and looks fine.

Any ideas? I would think if the electronics are fried or bad, the external speaker jack wouldn’t be working.

And I’ve read about the risks of charged shocks, I don’t touch anything I don’t know what it is, even when unplugged.

dudeman

mace1229 said:

Anyone here work on amps?
I’ve been getting back into guitar and found tinkering around with them for upgrades and fixes pretty easy. 

Then I found a used amp I liked at guitar center for pretty cheap. When I noticed one of the inputs didn’t work, they gave me half off that. It was cheap enough I thought I’d take a chance and see if I could tinker with it.

Opened it up and could see amps are far more going on to work with and that the jack was lose. Tried to fix tighten it but it kept coming loose and a couple uses. I couldn’t find a matching jack online (this is a 1999 champion 30) so I figured I’d switch it with the external speaker jack since I never use that and was the same. 

Tested everything before I put it all together, both inputs and all the knobs worked. Put it back together and then nothing worked. 

I’ve been fiddling with it for about 2 hours since this morning and can’t figure it out. I can use the external speaker jack and connect to another amp and it works, all the knobs, gain, etc works just fine (I don’t have another way to use the 1/4” output speaker to another speaker and it works along with all the knobs. Unplug the external speaker and nothing. I thought maybe the speaker blew, so I took it out and hooked it up to a cd player and the speaker works. The speaker wire in the amp isn’t loose and looks fine.

Any ideas? I would think if the electronics are fried or bad, the external speaker jack wouldn’t be working.

And I’ve read about the risks of charged shocks, I don’t touch anything I don’t know what it is, even when unplugged.

Double check to make sure no wires or bare metal parts of the jack are touching the chassis when it's reassembled. 

Chances are something is shorting the guitar signal to ground when everything is back together. A piece of electrical tape is sometimes all it takes to solve these issues. 

Also, Fender uses a lot of ribbon connectors and plugs in their more modern amps. Make sure all of those are tight. Sometimes I'll add a dab of hot glue to the connector when I am sure it's seated correctly. I find that helps to keep them from loosening up from vibrations while playing. 

Good luck!

mace1229

dudeman said:

mace1229 said:

Anyone here work on amps?
I’ve been getting back into guitar and found tinkering around with them for upgrades and fixes pretty easy. 

Then I found a used amp I liked at guitar center for pretty cheap. When I noticed one of the inputs didn’t work, they gave me half off that. It was cheap enough I thought I’d take a chance and see if I could tinker with it.

Opened it up and could see amps are far more going on to work with and that the jack was lose. Tried to fix tighten it but it kept coming loose and a couple uses. I couldn’t find a matching jack online (this is a 1999 champion 30) so I figured I’d switch it with the external speaker jack since I never use that and was the same. 

Tested everything before I put it all together, both inputs and all the knobs worked. Put it back together and then nothing worked. 

I’ve been fiddling with it for about 2 hours since this morning and can’t figure it out. I can use the external speaker jack and connect to another amp and it works, all the knobs, gain, etc works just fine (I don’t have another way to use the 1/4” output speaker to another speaker and it works along with all the knobs. Unplug the external speaker and nothing. I thought maybe the speaker blew, so I took it out and hooked it up to a cd player and the speaker works. The speaker wire in the amp isn’t loose and looks fine.

Any ideas? I would think if the electronics are fried or bad, the external speaker jack wouldn’t be working.

And I’ve read about the risks of charged shocks, I don’t touch anything I don’t know what it is, even when unplugged.

Double check to make sure no wires or bare metal parts of the jack are touching the chassis when it's reassembled. 

Chances are something is shorting the guitar signal to ground when everything is back together. A piece of electrical tape is sometimes all it takes to solve these issues. 

Also, Fender uses a lot of ribbon connectors and plugs in their more modern amps. Make sure all of those are tight. Sometimes I'll add a dab of hot glue to the connector when I am sure it's seated correctly. I find that helps to keep them from loosening up from vibrations while playing. 

Good luck!

Thanks for the help. I think I figured it out.
The pins were coming loose as an input jack just like you said. I’d open it up, snap it back in and it would work for maybe 5-10 uses before it wiggled loose again. It’s in there tight enough to where it doesn’t come loose if I don’t use it, but plugging in and out several times would. So that’s why I figured I could switch it with the external speaker jack since I don’t use that one.

Now I figured out when I wiggle the external speaker jack just right, it all works. I looked closer at it and what’s  happening is it’s not making a connection even when nothing is plugged in, so it thinks I’m using it and bypasses the speaker. 

Two metal tabs in the jack look to be designed to be touching (and complete the circuit when nothing is plugged in I guess?) but separate and bypass the speaker when in use. It doesn’t want to touch on its own, and when I do get it to make contact, it separates with any movement. I guess the jack just got worn.

 Should be an easy fix, if I can find a replacement jack. Haven’t been able to find a matching one yet though. Until then I might tape the connectors together or swap it back and just use the input 2 only if that doesn’t work.

mace1229

Got it working this morning! Used a piece of cardboard to hold down the metal tab and make it contact.

And it’s better than before. This is the first amp I’ve had with dual input jacks, and I’ve read they’re supposed to have different impedance and sound. They were both the same before, now one is clearly a high and low. Guess it was always “plugged in” before and made them equal.

dudeman

That's awesome! Glad you got it sorted out. 

Abe Froman

New amp!

mcgruff10

dudeman said:

Had to revise the stand situation. This is most of my amps with the covers off:

@dudeman this is a sick set up!  I'm guessing you don't live in an apartment complex.