One of my little 5 watt single ended amps needed an overhaul. I removed the entire existing preamp section for starters. Then came the fun part: What preamp to put in this thing?? 18W Lite II? Deluxe? Champ? Hi-Octane? Instead I went for one of the channels based on the Jose Mods. Its pretty high gain, not quite modern sounding but still plenty of bite. After digging through some spare parts and recycling some of the old components from the previous build, I started piecing this thing together.
After putting it all together, I took a break before firing it up. Then after catching a show on TV I realized that I had wired the input jack backwards. So a quick unsolder and resolder, the amp was ready to fire up. I usually use some old spare 12AX7s or 12AU7s in the preamp, just in case I wire up something wrong. That way I dont toast a brand JJ ECC83. :)
Powered up the amp on standby. Check. Took the amp off of Standby. Check. No blown fuse or sparks. Check. Started turning up master volume and gains. A little buzz. Plugged in the guitar. Nothing. Powered down. Swapped out preamp tubes to new JJs. Powered up again. "Houston, we've got sound!".
Still have a descent amount of buzz whether single coils or humbuckers. Time to bust out the chop sticks. :)
More to come...
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