Epiphone Valve Jr Amp Head

[25%moreCOWBELL]

Epiphone Valve Jr Amp Head

I’m thinking about getting one of these things because it’s super cheap new or used and I’ve got zippy cash right now. My problem is if I get it I don’t have the cash to buy/make a cool cab for it at the same time.

Now what I’m thinking is I’ve got a Traynor Reverb Mate40 solid state amp that I kind of like the sound of, is their a some Rick James Ghetto fabulous way to run the Epi Amp Head through the Traynor’s amps speakers?

[ELVIS]

Sure...

But that don't sound like Zippy Cash to me...


:elvis:

[25%moreCOWBELL]

Well by zippy cash I would say 50 to 70 bucks for a used epi head. Running the head into the speakers of the Traynor I was hoping I could do myself

[ELVIS]

Sure you can...

What ohm are they and how many speakers are there...

[25%moreCOWBELL]

It has two 8 inch speakers.... the ohm part is what I'm not sure about.

[ELVIS]

It should say on the speakers...

If not, connect a cheap ohm meter and tell me what it says...

A tube amp absolutely requires the correct ohm speaker load...

[BrownSound1]

A lot of guys are buying these amps and popping new output trannies in them, as well as adding some tone shaping. Heck for 100 bucks you can't really go wrong with it.

[twonabomber]

GC was out of them when i stopped today...so i've got an Eminence Red Coat sittin' here with no amp to power it.

[jhale667]

Originally posted by BrownSound1
A lot of guys are buying these amps and popping new output trannies in them, as well as adding some tone shaping. Heck for 100 bucks you can't really go wrong with it.

Have you HEARD one with a Mercury Magnetics transformer mod? Holy shit, dude. I want one. :cool:

[ELVIS]

Hmmm...

[ELVIS]

Seems the earlier models all have a (very fixable) hum problem, possibly due to part of the circuit being poorley grounded...

It's been fixed in the new model, so I hear...

This sucks though, now I want one of these babies...:D

Oh well, less than 100 bucks...

At least it's not $1000...


:elvis:

[BrownSound1]

Originally posted by jhale667
Have you HEARD one with a Mercury Magnetics transformer mod? Holy shit, dude. I want one. :cool:

That's 'zactly what I was talking about. :D

[ELVIS]

Give me a link to this particular mod...

I'm quite sure I'm gonna end up with one of these amps...

[Nitro Express]

I just hope the Chinese and Russians continue to make cheap tubes and cheap tube gizmos. I hope to hell they don't modernize completely and nix the vaccume tube like we did in North America. It was a sad sad day when General Electric, Tung Sol, and Syvania stopped making magic in a bottle and only wine cork sniffing amp snobs could afford them.

Tottal cool when you can buy a cheap piece of shit and tweek it into a little tone monster. God, that's what classic Van Halen was.

[BrownSound1]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Give me a link to this particular mod...

I'm quite sure I'm gonna end up with one of these amps...

Here you go Mr. Elvis.

http://www.mercurymagnetics.com/pages/specials/ValveJrPjt/EVJ-01.htm

[Panamark]

Man... I gotta stop visiting this forum, I keep seeing shit that is way too fucking cool for words....

This looks awesome, what a great little amp...
Ive always wanted a luggable little amp with a
big tube sound. This looks like the baby !!

(Especially with the new transformer fitted !)

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by Panamark
Man... I gotta stop visiting this forum, I keep seeing shit that is way too fucking cool for words....

This looks awesome, what a great little amp...
Ive always wanted a luggable little amp with a
big tube sound. This looks like the baby !!

(Especially with the new transformer fitted !)

I just wrestled two 4x12 cabinets up a narrow stairway and I hear ya. After catching my breath from the experience I was seriousely asking myself why. Shit, a little 30 Watt combo probably would do it but I just like the thump of a good 4x12 getting spanked by a good amp.

[BrownSound1]

I agree Nitro...nothing beats the thump of a 4x12.

[ELVIS]

One of these heads might respectably push a good 4x12...

[BrownSound1]

Originally posted by ELVIS
One of these heads might respectably push a good 4x12...

And with it being 5 watts it wouldn't render you sterile or have the police beating down your door. :D

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by ELVIS
One of these heads might respectably push a good 4x12...

I had the smallest Peavy classic combo which was like 12 watts and pushed a pair of EL-84 tubes. I ran that through a Marshall 1960B cab with 25 watt Celesians and it sounded great! Like a fool I got rid of that little amp for some reason and it was really peddle friendly and versitile.

My little toy head is a Sovtek Mig 50H and I have found it very versitile. It's EQ sensative and speaker sensative. It loves Peavey 5150 cabinets as well as Marshall 1960 cabinets. Small cabinets tend to sound thin and colorless. This little amp likes 4x12's and the hi gain channel is loud as shit once you go past 2 on the master volume. The clean channel is glassy nice.

Yup I'm a 4x12 man, in fact I have a 5150 cab in my little dressing room and I practice in my bedroom around the corner. the top of the cabinet doubles as extra counter space. LOL!

[Nitro Express]

Actually I have found 1x12 and 2x12 cabinets to be actually louder than 4x12 cabinets at low volumes. A 1x12 can rip your fucking head off!

Because Jim Marshall and Ken Bran went with a 4x12 cabinet with low wattage speakers with the first JTM 45 amp they made, that really shows they understood how to make an efficient speaker system.

The 4x12 can sound great at low practicing volumes and still do the job at high stage volumes. Combos or small speaker cabinets are actually louder at lower volumes and tottaly fart out when pushed. A 4x12 is the best of both worlds and I don't care if you have a 8 watt amp or a 200 watt monster. It's going to work.

The only drawback is moving the damn things up narrow stairs. LOL!

[Nitro Express]

I personally think a lot of the famouse Marshall tone is the excellent Marshall speaker cabinets. Marshall always had good cabinets. They have changed suprisingly little from the 1960's.

[Panamark]

Yup, Marshall CABS RULE !

And any of their heads up until about 88..
Well thats my humble opinion anyways...

Have to admit Ive heard some of the later
model solid state Marshalls that sounded good.

You need a good head job too though !

(its gotta be tubes 4 me..)

Besides, who doesnt feel all warm and fuzzy
when you look into the ventilation grill and
see those little suckers all glowing !!

[Nitro Express]

A lot of the solid state and digital moddeling stuff sounds good now but since tubes are still available, I'm playing the fire bottles still.

In a funny way, digital technology have brought the need for tube power amps back. It's been found that running a cold sounding digital recorded CD through a tube power amp warms the sound up because tubes are inneficient and cause a natural delay.

I'm running my home theater with Golden tube SE-40 amps and whoah does it make a difference! Those amps are a real bargain on Ebay. I'm running two of them into four JBL speakers and using a solid state amp to pump the subwoofers.

So when I'm watching a movie I see a tottal of 16 tubes glowing!

[BrownSound1]

Originally posted by Panamark
Yup, Marshall CABS RULE !

And any of their heads up until about 88..
Well thats my humble opinion anyways...

Have to admit Ive heard some of the later
model solid state Marshalls that sounded good.

You need a good head job too though !

(its gotta be tubes 4 me..)

Besides, who doesnt feel all warm and fuzzy
when you look into the ventilation grill and
see those little suckers all glowing !!

I agree...pretty much anything from the JCM 800 on back to the original JTM 45s are the shit. I just can't get into anything after that...just too fuzzy and buzzy.


My biggest bitch with modelling amps are the way they respond. They just don't FEEL like tube amps. I'm sure they'll eventually get it close enough, but they still don't have it nailed down. Plus, the demand for vacuum tubes is still here...perhaps greater than it has in 30 years. Western Electric is making tubes in the States again...right here in Huntsville, AL. They're mainly geared for the hi-fi market, but they will produce some guitar tubes in the future.

I have it on good authority too that if you want a very Mullard sounding EL-34 then try the new Chinese tubes. Shuguang brand. The early ones wouldn't hold up, but now they're on like their 4th generation and seem to have worked many of the problems out.

[ELVIS]

Hmmm...

I don't know about that...

A buzzy tube amp is a pain in the ass, especially when it doesn't work properly or even POWER UP...

A good modeling amp lets you actually play your guitar...

[BrownSound1]

...and sound like shit. :D

Whenever you dial a "Plexi" up on one of those modelling amps it doesn't sound like a Plexi. More of an approximation. Now sure, you can fool most people on a recording with some eq and what not, but to me it ain't nothing like playing one. Maybe it is the whole volume thing, I don't know. I just know it is different.

I'll be honest, I've never had much trouble with tube amps. So either I'm extremely lucky, or I just do my maintenance. ;)

[ELVIS]

Fair enough...

My Behringer Bass V-Amp Pro that I use as a "Marshall" might fool you though...

IF I plug it into a tube amp, which is actually my current set up...:D

But you are 100% correct...

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea...


:elvis:

[Nitro Express]

Tube heads and 4x12's get damn HEAVY! I never really had reliability problems. But I let my amp cool down before moving it and a lot of guys don't.

The problem with modeling amps is they run the pre amp into a standard HiFi solid state power amp. They sound much better if you run them through a tube power amp so the tube and transformer saturation smoothes the digital sample out and you still get the feel of the tube amp. The moddeling becomes like a peddle.

I would love to see a digital preamp ran into a EL-34 powered power amp with a tube and solid state rectifier in the power supply. I don't know if someone makes that in one box yet.

[BrownSound1]

Well see, therein lies another problem for me. With that setup you have basically have a master volume amp. The distortion signal is coming from the preamp, whereas I like it to be all power amp. Just a different animal when you've got the power amp section busting balls as opposed to a preamp of some type.

With a non-master Super Lead for instance, when you crank it, the signal doesn't start distorting until after the phase inverter section (V3 on a Marshall). No distorted signal goes through the tone controls, except for the presence. Plus, since a Super Lead has a negative feedback loop, then some of that distorted signal actually gets injected back into the beginning of the power section at V3. This signal is out of phase, and does cancel some of the frequencies out...which helps give Marshalls that cutting midrange. Of course many are saying, well V3 is a 12AX7 and not a power tube...which is true, but V3 is part of the power section and not part of the preamp.

So while running a digital preamp into a tube power amp will warm up the signal, it isn't quite the same thing as distorting the power section.

[Panamark]

Originally posted by BrownSound1
Well see, therein lies another problem for me. With that setup you have basically have a master volume amp. The distortion signal is coming from the preamp, whereas I like it to be all power amp. Just a different animal when you've got the power amp section busting balls as opposed to a preamp of some type.

With a non-master Super Lead for instance, when you crank it, the signal doesn't start distorting until after the phase inverter section (V3 on a Marshall). No distorted signal goes through the tone controls, except for the presence. Plus, since a Super Lead has a negative feedback loop, then some of that distorted signal actually gets injected back into the beginning of the power section at V3. This signal is out of phase, and does cancel some of the frequencies out...which helps give Marshalls that cutting midrange. Of course many are saying, well V3 is a 12AX7 and not a power tube...which is true, but V3 is part of the power section and not part of the preamp.

So while running a digital preamp into a tube power amp will warm up the signal, it isn't quite the same thing as distorting the power section.

WOW ! That was cool BS1 !

I like all these new POD's /Modellers etc, but they just dont
feel the same when you play. Its like something is missing..
I always describe it like these modellers shutdown that
feedback communication from the power amp to
the guitar.. You totally lose that.. I love that connection, gives
you a more responsive experience when playing.
Thats something they will never be able to model.....

[Nitro Express]

I have a 5150 II head I like to fool around with. If you look at the schematic the pre-amp is a series of preamp tubes cascading the gain. Without the tube power amp, this preamp gain sounds thin an lifeless.

You have to get the power amp going and it starts to round the sound out and fill it up.

Now the sound of a tube power amp has a lot to do with the output transformer. Guitars amps traditionaly have always used cheap output transformers that start to saturate and can't pass more current without clipping the signal and that is the sound we all dig. Put in an expensive McIntosh transformer and the guitar sound will sound like shit because it can handle the power without losing headroom.

Why Eddie went with cascading gains in the preamp is he wanted the huge distortion of a dimed 100 watt Marshall without the breakdown problems like blown transformers, overworked tubes.

So some of the balls were created in the preamp and the power amp added to the color without having to be dimed all the way.

Now the key to getting a 5150 to sound way better is to increase the bias grid voltage in the power tubes. Peavey's fixed bias is cold on purpose so the amp will be more reliable but this reliability comes at the cost of tone. Warm up the bias and these amps come to life and a tone very close to early Van Halen is in there if you use a good Marshall cab.

[Nitro Express]

For some reason, Eddie seems to dig the colder bias sound and he loves to squeal in the lead channel with the pregain around 7. This is what you mostly hear.

Warm the tube bias up with some good tubes and a good Marshall cabinet and you are going to find some good early VH tones in the crunch channel. 5150 amps are very control sensative. You have to adjust everyting including the presence and resonance knobs! These aren't like an old Fender or Marshall where you could get the general sound with the EQ turned to 12:00. I think the amps get a bad rap because they are underbiased, ran through poor speakers, and the person didn't play around with the knobs much.

You can warm the amp up by replacing some resistor and capacitor values. Theres a guy in Syracuse, New York that mods 5150 II amps and the result is a do everything amp. The cleans are clean and shimery, the crunch tone is round and full, and the lead is balls to the wall.

The amp plus the modification is still a bargain in my book.

[Nitro Express]

The V3 tube on a Marshall or an old Fender is part of the signal splitting circut. On a A/B push-pull amp the sine wave has to be split down the middle with half going to one power tube set and the other half going to another power tube set. That's why A/B amps always have power tubes in pairs. What this allows is more amplification power per tube.

The basic tube splitting design Marshall, Fender, and other amp manufactures use is basically out of the RCA tube engineering book from the 1930's-40's. It was a technological breakthough at the time because for that splitting the signal involved a very complicated affair. RCA used a preamp tube and some capacitors and resistors to do it.

So V1 and V2 produce most of the preamp gain and V3 splits the siganl.

A big part of the Marshall sound is the original splitter circut was done wrong and there is some crossover distortion on the sine wave. Fenders don't have this problem.

The particualar fuckup adds to the character of an old Marshall amp's tone.

[Nitro Express]

Maybe it still makes sense to have the digital moddeling in a rack unit or in some sort of peddle. That way you can always upgrade that part and keep the same amp. I bet a non-master volume Super Lead will warm that cold ditigal signal just fine having it come into the preamp input.

I don't care what people say the good old Marshall Super Lead 100 is still a valuable tone machine.

[ELVIS]

Hmmm...

Maybe just too much detail with no room for an actual song...

Maybe not...;)

[BrownSound1]

HAHAHA. You might be right Elvis.

Phase inverter/signal splitter...same thing and is the beginning of the power amp section/end of the preamp amp section. In fact there are master volume designs that are placed Post-phase Inverter and they sound a hell of a lot more like a cranked amp than does the master volume of a 2203/2204 Marshall circuit. If I were to use a master volume it would be one of these.

On the 5150...I'm guessing that one of the reasons Ed wanted a cascading preamp like that is because it makes things a bit easier to play. We've all done it...ton of distortion and you don't have to work that hard when you play. I'm sure with his old Super Lead he had to dig to get that tone.

On the bias thing, I have heard of guys modding it so you can adjust the bias...that's what I would do. I have never understood how you can not have a bias control on an amp. No set of power tubes are ever the same...regardless of what Groove Tubes or your amp manufacturer says. The reason amp manufacturers make amps without bias controls is that it is one less step they have to pay someone to do at the factory.

Nitro, have you ever thought about dropping some EL-34s in that amp? wouldn't be hard to do, maybe have to swap some components out in the bias circuit. I'm curious as to how it would sound. Not sure if you'd have to change any wiring on the sockets...for some reason I'm thinking not.

[ELVIS]

That's right, there is a variable bias conversion available that allows you to adjust the bias for whichever power tube you are using...

I'd imagine some EL-34s would warm that thing up quite a bit...

[Nitro Express]

Someone ran a simular queston by Mike Soldano when he was doing a Q&A forum about EL-34's vs. 6L6 in high gain amps. Mike said he was using 6L6 tubes in his famouse SL0-100 because good EL-34's were drying up in the late 80's and 90's. He also said in the SL0-100 switching to EL-34's doesn't make much of a difference actually and because the 6L6 is more robust it makes sense from a reliability standpoint to stay with them.

Good EL-34's sound like magic in that old Bassman circut. The 5150 is more like a Soldano SLO-100

[Nitro Express]

One trick I do with the 5150 is I order low bias point 6L6 tubes from the Tube Depot. They break up faster and what's great is the audiofile snobs don't want tubes that distort easy but us crazy guitar player love them. Right now I'm running Electroharmonix power tubes with a low bias point and running it into a THD 16 ohm hotplate and a Marshall cab.

The preamp tubes are Sovtek copies of the old Telefunken tubes.

To be honest, the crunch channel sounds great with the pre and post gain at 7, with the bright switch on. With a Wolfgang it does get that early VH vibe. Now I have the 5150 II which many say is a warmer amp.

As far as a bias control goes, YES! that is what really turns this particular amp from a razor blade tosser to a warm amp. I have no idea why Peavey left it out. They bias the stock 5150 amps cold. Sure any idiot can change their own tubes and the tubes last longer but boy does it cut the warmth out!

[Nitro Express]

There's footage of Eddie playing his solo on he Balance tour. He's playing through a 5150 but it's warm and actually sounds pretty good. He's got his crunch channel dialed in and the amp is biased (which means his were modded with a wide sweep bias pot!)

Now there's footage of Eddie playing live through 5150 amps and it's a buzz machine.

Ed's guitar tech on the last tour said Ed was complaining about the sound of his amp and wanted new tubes put in. He said he had his meter and Ed asked what in the hell he was doing and when told he was rebiasing the amp Ed got mad and told the dude to just crank it. LOL!

Maybe it's Ed why those amps don't have a bias pot. He probably demanded that the amp be engineered that any idiot can just pull and replace the tubes without messing with that bias shit. LOL!

[Nitro Express]

Didn't Groove Tubes sell an adapter you could use to run EL-34's in a 6L6 amp?

I know the mod is easy and only requires that a wire be relocated on the socket points and the amp rebiases.

Some amps even have a switch that does that for you.

[BrownSound1]

Terry Kilgore said that in the old days Ed would slap in any old tube from the drug store and never rebiased. Seems like he's keeping that practice going today. :D

I think you're right about the GT adapter...seems like I remember seeing those some time ago. I like the THD Yellojacket idea too, cuz sometimes 50 or 100 watts and full tilt is a bit tough on the neighbors. :D Bust an EL84 in those holes and it isn't quite as bad.

[Nitro Express]

I notice the Peavey 6505+ not only has a bias pot but multimeter probe ports built into the back. People are saying it's a short sweep pot so you still can't bias the amp all the way to the maximum idle voltage.

I called Peavey and got a straight answer. They said they designed the amp to be user friendly so people could change their own tubes themselves because it's hard to find qualified people to rebias anymore and many musicians need to change their own tubes themselves. Peavey is dealing with liability issues. They sure as hell don't want people opening the amp and killing themselves. They got enough complaints about an unadustable fixed bias that they put one in but a conservative one where if you even crank the thing to the max, you still aren't going to cook the tubes.

If you want to keep your warranty and not void it out and warm the amp up. Dime the factory bias pot to the left all the way and put low bias point power tubes in. That really helps. The pot is such a narrow sweep no way in hell are the milivolts even close to overheating the tube plates.

[Nitro Express]

David Lee Roth once said they stopped at Thrifty Drug a lot in the day because Dave liked to check the records out and Eddie would buy tubes there because he blew them all the time because he dimed the shit out of his amps. LOL!

I can remember going to Osco drug as a kid and they had a huge tube diagnostic machine and all sorts of tubes for sale. I remember our television stopped working and my dad pulled the tubes and he's plugging them into this huge, complicated machine. I remember I had an old GE black and white TV in my room as a kid. It would have to warm up and after a while the room filled with that wierd smell. The smell of tubes! I would look in the vent ports and see them glowing in there and I was blown away with how magical it all was.

Somehow, IC circuits and digital technology killed all that magical fun. The warm up time, the smell, the mystery. My three year old looks at the 5881 tubes on my Golden Tube SE-40 amp the same way I did when I was a kid. Out of that whole glowing mess comes sounds and you look real close to see if you can see the electricity. The voltage and heat is scary but intriging. Is it safe? Will it burn the house down? You have to love it!

Man, buying and testing tubes at the drug store. That brought back some cool memories! I won't even go into the facinasion I had with my grandmothers Magnivox stereo/TV console or her Hammond organ. All tube! A zillion of them! I had to move both when she passed away and those were heavy as a truckload of lead!

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by BrownSound1
Terry Kilgore said that in the old days Ed would slap in any old tube from the drug store and never rebiased. Seems like he's keeping that practice going today. :D

I think you're right about the GT adapter...seems like I remember seeing those some time ago. I like the THD Yellojacket idea too, cuz sometimes 50 or 100 watts and full tilt is a bit tough on the neighbors. :D Bust an EL84 in those holes and it isn't quite as bad.

Ed proved you can't kill an old Marshall! LOL! Holy hell, I wonder how many fuses he blew! Ed probably got tired of blowing fuses and put tin foil in there! I remember him saying he blew the whole house in Pasadena because he hooked his Marshall into a light dimmer! LOL!