OMG, keep these freaks away from vintage Traynor goodness.
I should learn to recap myself.
I'm reading Dave Hunter's book on amps, hard to find, super long out of print, 2005, he says things like "you can easily find amps like Tweed Champs for $500", lol, not anymore.
Anyway, Hunter is really full of it, but in a good way, and reading his stuff I have learned a whole bunch, like the size coupling caps make all the difference in tone", etc, etc.
In one chapter he advises finding old tube PA heads, and changing the EQ of the amps towards guitar by changing values of coupling caps, all of the research has already been done.
I've only skated through the book, The Guitar Amp Handbook.
Also bought his other hard to find Tone Manual book, again a lot of words but they're all about guitars amps and pedals, so how bad can it be? ;]
I bought both these books during the pandemic. Learning stuff is exciting.
I also have little faith in internet lore. There is some really good information out there, if you can find it, if you want to be glued to a computer reading forum threads.
I have Gar's book, because I bought one of his amp last summer, but there not much text, mostly notes, observations, and circuits.
Gar was responsible for the Guess Who's monstrous guitar sounds, at some point building the Herzog, a 5E3 circuit in a box just to overdrive other amps.
No to brag, but I'm in effin tone heaven right now, I have a '57 Silvertone 1331 Champ circuit 1 x 6" on an old school chair, turned around so I can see the tubes glow, and the Garnet 1 x 12" that now has a Weber Signature Ceramic not Alnico, turned aroud also, sounds better, it's got some chunka chunka bass, both being fed by a 76's Fender Tube Reverb - the mild one - with 4 tubes instead of three, and a 6V6 instead of the 50's tube , fed by by 12AX7 powered Varidrive, and two old CMATMOD pedals I've had forever, a very early Boost, and a script logo Gray Ross clone compressor, and the tone is incredible.
Not to underestimate the Silvertone 1x6" amp, on the channel B of my old Horizon Selectaline glow in the dark A/B/Y box, it sounds amazing by itself, better bedroom amp than the other with 12" speaker. Both together maybe the best "amp" I've ever played.
The Garnet has both Reverb and Tremolo, all the way off.
An oddity about the Garnet circuit is that the tone circuit is completely backwards, all the way open and it's bassy and bearable, go toward close and it's bright city, it's almost like a contour, clever, but I think Gar was known for his unique take on the tone stack.
The Reverb is killer, easily too much. Also weirdly interactive. To understand this amp would be very educational. When you dime the Volume, it's not that loud but you can max out the Reverb, sounds great, but turn the volume down, you have to turn the Reverb way down or it's overpowering. Tone stack works the same way, very interactive. When you have the Volume dimed, you can dime both Tone and Reverb and the whole thing sounds fantastic, rip your head off loud and this is a three tube 12AX7 single 6V6 circuit, probably SS rectified.
My biggest b*tch about this amp is it's just too loud, and turning it too much down just kills the tone.
The Trem works great, click pot on/off, but too fast for my taste when backed off all the way. I'd like to slow it down. I like really slow Trem.
I had a Reverberto, dang it who made that? I got CRS. Gorgeous tweed low serial number unit, prob worth a small fortune today. The trem was too fast and me not having much more than my Fluke 23 a soldering gun and a some guitar Orange Drops before I slowed the Trem right down. Left the original cap in place, just unsoldered a leg, for easy reversal, but why?
I often feel that most Phase Shifters don't cycle slow enough either.
Hans and his book are featured as well.
