:shock: HIJACK ALERT :shock:
Stokes!
Funny you should write to me about vintage re-do's. I have purchased three Dumble clones, my 2/12 Mav gets little use now, nice as it is, it's for sale at a not cheap price, but the thing that has changed the most is my learning more amp theory and having fabulous luck on redoing three 60's Point to point/terminal strip vintage Sound Projects made in the USA amps.
'61 Harmony H-306A 1/12 combo (5y3 rec pair of 6v6 2-12ax7 1-6sh7 for bias modulated tremolo, a Lectrolab R600C 1/12 combo (same amp/circuit type as H-306A, EZ81 rec, pair of el84's, 2- 12ax7's and this time a 6au6 for the bias trem, and a Harmony H-420 1/15 (direct sibling of the Supro Thunderbolt) combo.
These are originally wired just like today's top end boutique amps. I replaced/massively increased power supply filtering, yanked out the crappy original tone caps, (saved 'em in original condition) replaced them with Paper in Oil cold war commie caps from a seller in the Ukraine, retensioned the sockets, replaced old stock glass with newer sounding old stock glass, yanked all the original speakers and replaced with:
H-306-A Altec 600b original cone for the original Jensen p12r
H-420 JBL MI-15 NOS for the Jensen c15ps
Lectrolab R600C vintage stereo cab pull Pioneer 12 inch woofer with parabolic cone and 2 " VC for the original Jensen c12r. That speaker is the tweed era Jensen P-series speaker killer of all time.
These amps were originally built with a well balanced selection of cheesy parts. When the right parts are placed in circuit and decent speakers installed to express the circuit, they are some of the most amazing sounding amps I have ever heard, and that's from an owner of three Dumble clones, a Bluesbreaker clone a Boogie, Hiwatt DR504 clone running bendix 6384's and on and on sorta like yur collection, I only have 13 amps. These three sound Projects amps are not especially loud, but all have a shimmer on the top end, all sustain unusually well, all have huge warm fat full bottom and lower mids, The el84 and 6v6 amps are my "stereo blue angel" rig, with a 6v6 amp on one side and similar amp running el84's on the other the sound is huge, hit the footswith for the deeply throbbing trem and the noted just hang, shimmer, and growl in the most amazing way, these amps throw out an amazing amount of even order harmonics, something that push pull designs aren't supposed to do, but these designs, not being Fender based, have non Fender tone palettes that are PERFECT for small and medium clubs. Hit the front end with a lot of eq pedal/boost with the amp volume knobs serving as master volume. These amps will sing forever at smaller venue volumes with no noise complaints from the bar or sound man or club owner, fat full rich, chimey/snarly on top.
I'm not buying any more new amps, from now on I'll be rebuilding or scratchbuilding my new stuff. Got a couple books and an online forum to learn from and have taken advantage of it. After doing these three up in the last three months smelling the solder fumes and then flipping on the power switch for the unusually successful results I'd get cocky except that I know I did some easy ones.