The best guitar amp in the world?

[Stevenb]

Is it?

No doubt the whole internet will completely agree. Ha! But y’know this is the internet and sometimes people say things to get clicks. Just imagine.

Anyway, is it? What do you think? And are you still apologising for your volume and tone?

Enjoy the show if you dare.Interesting bits and go to sections…

1. 0:00 Which amp is this?​
2. 0:52 This is it!​
3. 1:18 But why?​
4. 1:55 Stop apologising for volume​
5. 2:49 Don’t use any pedals​
6. 6:50 Is it too loud?​
7. 7:51 So why don’t we just crank it?​
8. 8:58 Finding the amp’s sweet spot​
9. 11:39 Add the No-balls​
10. 12:35 Adding or subtracting tone?​
11. 13:05 The Under-drive Concept​
12. 15:55 Would the sound work for you?​
13. 16:55 What about a clean boost?​
14. 18:22 Combining two gain pedals​
15. 19:30 Using an EQ pedal with your amp​
16. 23:38 Is it still too loud?​
17. 26:24 What about delay and modulation?​
18. 28:50 And on-board tremolo​

I love my Matchless Lightning. Plug and play….you don’ need no steenkin’ pedal.

 

[Mustardc Caps]

If I could choose any amp ever made, it would be a 1966 Marshall JTM45/100 Stack, with TVB Cabinet, and Pinstripe cloth.

 

[Patrick Ginnaty]

I finally watched that. Funny, I set my DRRI volume at 4, with a Fulldrive.

 

[charliechitlins]

Unfortunately, for most small clubs/bars, even a DR cranked into the happy zone is too loud.
I am a very reluctant pedal owner, but I need some crunch at low volume.
A few years ago I realized my '72 DR was gathering some dust.
It's funny...I'm 62 and clearly remember when a DR was a pretty basic ham-and-cheese amp that often wasn't loud enough to gig.
So I dragged it out to a gig with a bandleader who has great ears for guitar sounds.
A few songs in he says, "Holy **** that thing sounds incredible, I didn't even know you had it."
I said, I know...I leave it home a lot because I always think it's sort of a ham-and-cheese amp.
He said, "Well it's NOT!"

 

[el84ster]

I enjoy TPS from time to time, but their idea of good tone is different than mine. They really seem to go for brighter more jagged sounds, so I can see why they pick a deluxe reverb.
I like more greasy sounds with a little more lower mids, tweed meets jtm45 meets valco for me. But I can see why this is their amp of choice.

 

[haiduk]

Best sounding amp I played was an EVH 5150 (III). Perfect for riffs and shredding.

Before that I enjoyed the Peavey 6505+

 

[LeonC]

I sold my last Deluxe Reverb probably 8 or 9 years ago. My greatest friend, however, has been playing his '64 quite a bit more lately and has been bugging me to give the DR a try again. He's a great tech and he told me about a DR he recently rebuilt for a friend using transformers from Bryan Sours and he was really knocked out with them. After talking about it for a few weeks, I finally figured, what the hell, I haven't played through one in a long time and haven't build anything in a long time either and that it would be a fun project. So I went ahead and ordered the bulk of the parts that I would need (and didn't already have on hand).

I got the chassis, faceplates, boards and brass grounding plate from Songwut Sopajaree in Thailand. I bought a Mojotone cab because I'm just too damn old to build these things anymore! I also got a medium-decay reverb tank from them. I had some blue molded Ajax caps and got some more from my buddy; I also had most of the old carbon comp resistors, pots and other caps that I would need but bought more from Mojo and CE Dist as needed. Songwut's work is excellent (I'd bought chassis from him maybe a dozen years ago when I was building more); his stuff looks way more like the real deal than anything else I've seen. The octal holes were a bit too small for the particular old micanol/phenolic sockets I wanted to use (which I just love, because you never have to work about snapping off a key with these!) so I had to file them out bit to make them big enough. Same goes for the AC cord strain relieve hole; I wanted to use a big, heavy duty cord so I had to file the hole out for a larger strain relief. PITA but an hour later, it's all done.

I tried to stay very close to the Fender approach as far as the overall design and my approach to filament windings and lead dress goes. I figured, you can't argue with success. But I did do a few things differently.










First I used a push pull vol pot in the "vibrato" channel and tacked on a 100pF bright cap. I don't generally like the bright cap and when I do want one, I've gotten better results with a higher value cap...so as I'll be putzing around with this value a bit, I just tacked it in. I also used a 50K linear pot with a rotary on-off switch built in so I can optionally kill the connection to ground in he oscillator; this gives you a bit more gain. But when you turn the pot on (past the click), it's just a regular trem intensity pot. One more gain boost mod I did involves changing the negative feedback amount. The less you have, the more overdrive you get. I repurposed the ground reversal switch so that it optionally adds an additional NFB resistor in series, thus removing a bit more negative feedback (and boosting the gain a little). I've got a 4k7 in there now, I may opt for something a little larger...I've used a 4k7 in my Vibrolux Reverb and dug that value...

I completed the amp several days ago and fired it up on the 14th after a good deal of testing and checking. First pair of 6V6s I chose turned out to include a bad one. It was heading into red-plate territory as I was preparing to bias it. Fried the NOS carbon comp screen grid resistor on the one tube. So I replaced that with a modern metal film resistor and went through my stash of old stock, mostly RCA-made, 6V6s which I bought years ago. Biased up a pair at 18mA and started banging on the amp pretty hard. I let it run for hours at 114/115VAC and the DC readings are spot on!

So, I'm not thrilled with the medium decay tank and I'm looking for a long decay tank. Interestingly as many modern long delay tanks are just too damn long, Sours makes his reverb transformer with an extra higher impedance winding (in addition to the stock winding) that will chill out the modern tanks' "over enthusiasm." So I'll be interested in trying that. But the amp is a monster! I played it between 7 and dimed today for several hours. Keep the bass way down and and the thing just kicks ass! Fantastic overdrive and really cleans up well!

 

[LeonC]

Note that I started out with the secondaries (blue and brown) just tacked in place until I was sure that they were correct. They were, so I've subsequently dressed them a bit better.

 

[LeonC]

Another note...for anyone who needs a tremolo-reverb dual footswitch, Fender makes them (in Mexico) with the very cheapest parts they could find. They're absolute junk. This is my second time dealing with them. Sweetwater was good enough to send me a replacement (which I hope they've tested) as the first one didn't work. I inherited one a few years ago in an old Pro Reverb that I bought and it used the same garbage switches--damn things will start to melt if you move your soldering iron in their general direction!

 

[jb_abides]

Well Done! Glad you are enjoying it and thanks for sharing the details of your build.

 

[Any Name You Wish]

Great speaker choice!

 

[MarcB]

Great speaker choice!

 

[LeonC]

A slight update to my build story. I got a replacement footswitch and it's been working. Sweetwater appears to have tested this one (I asked them to); the box had been opened when I got it. So all good in that dept.

Also, I've got probably close to thirty hours on this one now...the OT really seems to be breaking in nicely; it's getting a little sweeter / softer sounding...if those are the right adjectives. I've been playing through the effects channel with the volume wide open, treble on about 9 and bass at about 2.5. Wow...that is some amazing sound. Just killer for old school hard rock (think "I Don't Need No Doctor" by Humble Pie) and at the same time, absolutely awesome sounding for Dickey-style singing leads. I was playing Jessica and the sustain and bloom that you get is just fantastic! It's amazing how getting that sound can inspire you to play a certain way.

All that said...it is--to my 72 year old ears--earth shatteringly loud (even with plugs in) and 100% impractical/unusable. If you're using it in an iso-booth in a studio--great; otherwise fuggedaboudit! To use it in any venues where I've played in the last couple years, I'd have to keep it below 5, thus robbing it of half its mojo, at least. Not that it doesn't produce a beautiful clean...but as I said earlier in the thread---I'd kinda rather have a Vibrolux Reverb if I'm going to play mostly clean. It's a bit punchier with a bit more bottom.

 

[Any Name You Wish]

A slight update to my build story. I got a replacement footswitch and it's been working. Sweetwater appears to have tested this one (I asked them to); the box had been opened when I got it. So all good in that dept.

Also, I've got probably close to thirty hours on this one now...the OT really seems to be breaking in nicely; it's getting a little sweeter / softer sounding...if those are the right adjectives. I've been playing through the effects channel with the volume wide open, treble on about 9 and bass at about 2.5. Wow...that is some amazing sound. Just killer for old school hard rock (think "I Don't Need No Doctor" by Humble Pie) and at the same time, absolutely awesome sounding for Dickey-style singing leads. I was playing Jessica and the sustain and bloom that you get is just fantastic! It's amazing how getting that sound can inspire you to play a certain way.

All that said...it is--to my 72 year old ears--earth shatteringly loud (even with plugs in) and 100% impractical/unusable. If you're using it in an iso-booth in a studio--great; otherwise fuggedaboudit! To use it in any venues where I've played in the last couple years, I'd have to keep it below 5, thus robbing it of half its mojo, at least. Not that it doesn't produce a beautiful clean...but as I said earlier in the thread---I'd kinda rather have a Vibrolux Reverb if I'm going to play mostly clean. It's a bit punchier with a bit more bottom.

More watts, more bottom, hence we all need a real '65 Vibrolux Reissue! I don't think anyone will disagree that the DR or DRRI gets awesome after about 7. You can bias it hot and it will break up a lot sooner, but you'll need an oven mitt to touch the on/off switch. Loud amps and hearing loss is sadly the dark side of rock. Consider that all of our rock guitar heroes that are still alive are nearly deaf at this point. Playing a DR loud with all its dynamics and touch sensitivity is truly intoxicating.