First off, happy Easter. Don't get hung up about it.
Not much point to this story, but here goes anyway.
Back in 2007, I built my third, and intended to be my last
amp, a tweed deluxe. Since this was going to be the last amp I ever built, I spent money on voodoo and imported Mercury Magnetics transformers and stainless Clarostat CV4 pots
I built it right off the bat with all the "defarting" mods and the 6G2 tone stack. In other words, it was never really a tweed deluxe. I thought that, since it was my "last" amp, it would have to be flexible. My commitment to quality didn't extend to buying a real chassis for it (I used a Hammond 1444) or covering the cab with tweed (I used smooth blonde tolex). It was fine. After I had built a few other amps, I didn't use it much any more. So much for my "ultimate" amp.
It started making noises a few months ago that sounded like grounding problems to me, but when I opened it up, I just shook my head, and decided to tear it down to nothing and rebuild it. I bought a real chassis from Dirk, reused the pots, transformers, and turret board, but redid everything else. I had some blue Sozos that I had intended to try in my single-channel DR build but never did (because the Xicons are just fine) so I used those, and Dale RN65 resistors. I built it pretty much as a straight-up 5e3, except for the inputs; I dropped the lo inputs and added a channel jumping switch. I was going to build a new cab for it, but decided to just replace the blonde tolex with tweed and make new back panels to replace the cardboard ones I had on it. To shorten it up a bit, I put RCA blackplate 6V6 and Sylvania pres in it, left the C12Q, and there you go. The amp sounds wonderful now, much better than the "improved" version. I'll probably try a WGS C12Q when Dirk gets them in stock. I was thinking about trying a Blue but I'm not sure the magnet will fit.
A year and a half later I built a 5e5a. Again, since I hadn't learned my lesson yet, I built it with some mods, the main one being a PPIMV. I was never happy with the sound of it and continued to mod it over the years until it sounded completely horrible. So being in a rebuild mood (and having absolute new amp Verbot - but I've got more than enough anyway) I decided to bring it back to stock 5e5a specs, though not a complete teardown like the 5e3. At least I had a real chassis for it (a Weber - by the way, the chrome and silkscreening on the TT chassis is much better than the Webers I have). I did decide to build a new cab for this one. I had a Legend 151 in the old cab, but put a JBL K130 that I bought from Thomas in it this time. I'm much happier with it now.
So here's a photo of them, along with my Revibe, also in tweed. I don't have anything left to rebuild now.
steven
