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Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

171 by Garth
TylerDeadPine wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:43 pm
Garth wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 2:55 pm JFC. Literally first half-page of results googling this standby thing and ALL the experts and mfgs have something to say on the subject....and none of the articles are fully consistent with each other.
correct. A much younger me found myself asking the same question - so I started playing one of my amps never using the standby, and nothing bad ever happened, and my tubes lasted a lot time - so I concluded that the position of "it does nothing to save your tubes/amp" accurate. Not scientific, but there you go.
Lol - I've been doing the opposite and scolding people for NOT using standby based on any one of a number of "legit" books.

Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

172 by Dr Tony Balls
I've heard that it was generally supposed to be a way to mute the amp without the tubes going cold. A standard way to implement a standby switch is to cut the high voltage from the tubes, which does this effectively, but there's also a lot of other ways to do that. You could just have a switch that grounds the signal out. But also you could just turn down the volume, or your guitar's volume, or just turn the amp off. Tubes warm up rather quickly....like 20 seconds, if that.
Website: http://ballseffects.com/
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Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

173 by tommy
Most standbys just allow heater voltage, right? And I'd always heard it prevents "cathode stripping" but then I'd turn around and read it was horseshit on tubes seeing under 500V anyway. I do know some rectifier tubes prevent for the large inrush of immediate voltage on the plates because they ramp up more slowly (GZ34/5AR4) when turned on making standyby less "needed." I've also read using standby can cause cathode poisoning (which is different than stripping). So who the fuck knows!
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Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

176 by Garth
Ok, here's a dumb question:

Comparing the two photos, we can clearly see there's a lot more going on w/ the original Fender circuit.

What kind of bells, whistles, etc were being added on that printed circuit board? I guess I just don't think of Fender amps as being anything fancy going on under the hood (in fact, I'm sure the average tone lawyers would grumble about the tone being "stepped on" or "sucked" or something), but clearly there's more complexity there. Just wondering if anyone knew the point of it? Obviously there's gotta be some sort of perceived benefit by Fender to go to the trouble and expense of adding these extra components or they'd simplify the circuit as much as possible to keep costs down, right?

Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

177 by tommy
Garth wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:28 pm Ok, here's a dumb question:

Comparing the two photos, we can clearly see there's a lot more going on w/ the original Fender circuit.

What kind of bells, whistles, etc were being added on that printed circuit board? I guess I just don't think of Fender amps as being anything fancy going on under the hood (in fact, I'm sure the average tone lawyers would grumble about the tone being "stepped on" or "sucked" or something), but clearly there's more complexity there. Just wondering if anyone knew the point of it? Obviously there's gotta be some sort of perceived benefit by Fender to go to the trouble and expense of adding these extra components or they'd simplify the circuit as much as possible to keep costs down, right?
The Hot Rod series is pretty fancy in terms of features for Fender. It was meant to appeal to almost all guitar players. It had 3 channels (sorta), mid, reverb, bright switch, an effects loop of sorts, and a footswitch jack. Tony made a much simpler single channel volume/treble/bass/master circuit with no reverb and eliminated all of the PCB mount everything (tubes, pots, jacks, etc were all mounted to the PCBs).

Guaranteed this rework sounds better and is WAY easier to service.
self: https://tommiles.bandcamp.com/
old: https://shiiin.bandcamp.com/

Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

178 by Garth
tommy wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 3:54 pm Guaranteed this rework sounds better and is WAY easier to service.
You're kinda hitting on what I'm getting at. I wasn't implying that the original Fender design was somehow better because it had more going on, just more like "wtf is all that extra shit and what (perceived) benefit does it all serve?"

But the extra channels is probably enough to explain it for me. Thx

Re: Balls Effects / Balls Amplification

179 by tallchris
A borrowed Hot Rod Deluxe was the first "real" amp I had long term access to, so I'll always have some sentimental appreciation for them. Even at the time, I thought the gain channel sounded crappy, and never had use for an effects loop, but I think the main channel sounds pretty good, took pedals well, etc. I had lots of friends who used the various 1x12/2x12/4x10 iterations for touring in the early 00s and they held up pretty well.

I'm sure what Dr Balls has in there sounds great, and more importantly is easier to fix, but the lowly HRD was a fine first tube amp for lots of folks I knew from '99-'09 or so.
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