just recently built my first tube amp (100+ W running off of 4 kt88's and hammond iron)here are some pix. The enclosure is not finished yet, and due to its over-complicated design, might not be for some time.

n-eight wrote:what are all the knobs for?it is two separate channels joined at the master ch 1: V B T ch 2: V B M T P MVway too many controls for me to figure out how to use;) but I wanted to be able to experiment with as many things as possible without having to gut the fucker over and over each time I had a stupid idea.

what are all the knobs for?

1) recap and retube the Earth 2000 I took apart and has been sitting in the shop for 10 months.2) finally figure out what the fuck is wrong with the Ward Beck M441 I have that I can't get to work- or take it to someone that can make it work.3) bring 62 bassman to the only tech who has ever been able to make it work right- took it to a guy last fall to "try him out" and now it's fucked.4) Configure new PT rig5) Build new studio6) die

Absolutely beautiful amp, madraso!!I just ran into a funny situation. Got my first ever Garnet amp in the mail today, a LB190R, and after a quick look around the net, it appears to be super-rare. There's no record of it existing, even on the Garnet website in their model lineup or their registry. No schematics online either.The thing that makes it weird is that it's a "has reverb" version of one of their standard amps, the LB190... but at the same time, it uses a different tube compliment than the LB190 in a way that makes it closer to the BTO. Has a 6SN7 phase invertor like the BTO rather than the 12AX7 used in the LB190. Also, instead of using one half of the 6JW8 for the tremolo and the other half for the Stinger like what I found in the LB190 schematic, it uses both halves for the Stinger like what's indicated in the B190/B260 schematic (bass versions of the Pro and BTO). And it's got a 6C4 for the tremolo circuit, which I can't find in any Pro or BTO schematic.So that's kinda shocking!A nice bonus is that other than the phase invertor, it's got all the original tubes, Philips stamped on the glass of the preamp tubes, Garnet stamped on the bases of the output tubes, and the best part, Mullard date codes (XF2) on the 6CA7's which test as brand new. The whole amp is the cleanest amp I've ever owned, no hints of rust, barely any dust even, just a bunch of tiny spider webs that were built over the last 40 years.It's got the "Sound Fountain" preamp, with push-pull pots for the volume, bass, and treble knobs that provide brightness and the "rock" mode for the bass and treble, respectively. I wonder if Gar was one of the first to use push-pull pots in a production amp? This one is '69 as far as I can tell.Very happy with the amp. Slightly sad that the YBA-1A might come out of my rig after so many years, but happy with the idea that it could be replaced by another Canadian amp. I cannot wait to get it over to the practice space and see how it performs when cranked up. Sounds fricken awesome at apartment volumes, the reverb is mild but sweet, the bias-modulating tremolo has a great range of speeds and can be made to be strobe-like, and I haven't had the opportunity to see what the Stinger can do... Can't get the Stinger volume knob turned up past like 5% without it being too loud for home. Mmmmm...All original components, everywhere, other than the 3-prong *plug*. Not a 3-prong cord, just a 3-prong *plug* on a 2-wire cord. I'm inclined to replace the power cord and the electrolytics to get it operating safely and as it should, but at the same time, it's one of those annoying situations where it's in such excellent condition, all-stock, and apparently super-rare, that I'm afraid of knocking hundreds of dollars of the value. I suppose I'll have to try it out at band practice first, and if it's strong enough to supplant the YBA-1A, then I'll recap it with the expectation that I'll never sell it so who cares about resale value.FWIW, I was surprised to see that it's wired very differently from the old Traynors, or any other production amp I've encountered. It's laid out and wired up similarly to a Hiwatt, except without any turret boards or eyelet boards anywhere. It's wired with those terminal strip things, with all the components hanging between the terminal strips and the sockets and jacks and knobs and whatnot. Probably took forever to assemble these things.

So I learned two things about the amp. First, and I don't know how I missed this, the OT was replaced at some point with what is probably the same as what was in there originally, a Hammond made in Canada.Second, this amp is definitely very rare. I joined up in the Yahoo group for Garnet amps, and there were only two threads discussing this model. The older of the two is from 2002, and it was people talking about how this same model had sold on eBay for over $700 and what a ridiculous price it was. The newer is from 2005, and it's about how a guy who has one can't find a schematic for it, and that Gar estimated that he only ever built about 12 of this model. I'm gonna go ahead and call it "very rare" from now on.

Yeah, I am planning on doing that in the next month or so. Unfortunately I haven't found anywhere in the UK that stocks all the caps I need in one place so I'm waiting until I have enough stuff to justify an order from Digikey...Edit: Just wondering if you normally replace the solid aluminium caps? I'm guessing it's not necessary since the electrolyte in them can't evapourate?

I was archiving cassettes to CD and one of them was eaten up and destroyed by the deck.Fuck cassettes. You lo-fi loser kids can have the pieces of shit that we rejected.

I had some crazy pedal problems. One pedal I built was crackly and weird. Another had low volume issues. I could not get them to behave. I measures resistances, voltages, everything. They were just weird, and it seemed like the problems kept shifting.Well, I forgot to clean the flux off the board. I wend apeshit with alcohol and a toothbrush and now the pedals seem to be working great!Ben

I tried to capture some of our band practice on my iPhone so I could work on the originals later. Sounded like crap all overdriven and distorted. The next day I hacked together an XLR to an iPhone TRRS 1/8 plug. I made a 6dB resistive pad with a 2K resistor to fool the iPhone into thinking there was a electret mic. I tried it with a 57 and it sounded pretty nice if not a little low on level. When I got home to edit it I found an interesting waveform. The internal mic records a full waveform. I thought maybe the phantom power for the mic was making the offset clipping so I tried all kinds of circuit variations with DC blocking caps and different values and configurations of resistors for the pad. Nothing helped. I finally tried a few regular earpiece/phone mics made for iPhones. Same thing. This happens only with an external mic. The AudioScope oscilloscope app also shows the offset clipping. Has anybody else tried this or is willing to send/post a waveform? I want to know if I effed up my phone input or this is just more Apple lowtech DRM.