Been after one of these to poke about in, used one to record Fire in the Womb. http://caricatures.bandcamp.com/ finally got one to poke about in, non-working.
Says ‘all tube’, but obviously tons of SS for the graphic and effects. Can be bypassed though.
Came with two KT88 missing, and the bust pre is presumably why it doesn’t work.
Not sure what the tiny floating board is. Not sure hat a lot of the stuff in there is really, but that looks odd.
The high end half of the bassist from ANTA was giving him shocks. He played through it.
PCB mount pre valves and noodle lead dress, meh. Its had a recap, but on that tag strip tot he left, the infamous death cap. Measures resistive on the meter, so leaking a fair bit of mains though. Live chassis, live bass, live bassist. Not really ideal.
The chassis is earthed so leakage would generally take this path of least resistance. However:
Live and neutral leads should be cut shorter than the earth, kind of why plugs are laid out like that, so earth is the last to pull out. This one they are are all same length and bundled in, so a tug on the wire pulled the sleeve from the strain relief and disconnected the earth. Edit: just been pointed out that US wiring scheme is black is live, so live and neutral are reversed. Still works like that, but the fuse is in the wrong place.
Later PCB model.Been recapped and the voltage selector made internal. Also tone control switches using various cap values fitted on the back, but disconnected.
Topside of PCB.
£700 if anyone wants it.
Been working on using the pile of Sound City 120 PAs as a base for new amp builds, since they don’t retain much value, being PAs. Basically, taken a Sunn Model T preamp and built on to updated output section of the 120 (different PI, individual bias), assembled in a bus bar style (sort of like all the stuff people claim of point to point, but true because you can have a good layout with it). Travelled up to Sheffield to visit Aitken Audio with the prototype to get it tweaked and talk plans.
Prototype on the bench having tweaks after first round of testing, addressed some mechanical potential issues, tone control sweep and gain levels.
Blasting it through a vintage Acoustic cab, check it does what its supposed to. Seems a fair bit of instrument character comes through in spite of being driven pretty hard.
Next one started in powder coated chassis.
Also collected this Invader 60 from being sorted. Weird layout, interesting amp, with a pretty good sound, gets pretty snarly dirty when pushed. Plus the tone stack is pretty nice, 2 band, actually does stuff. 2 EL34. £250.
