Back in the late 1960's we had a tv that was making a popping/crackling sound after it had been on for awhile. My step dad called the dealer to complain. The dealer came and picked it up and returned it to the shop. He tested it for a week and the issue wouldn't repeat. The dealer brought it back to us and soon after we started watching it again the noise returned. My step dad called and complained again. So, back to the shop it went again. They had the same results at the shop. Home again it came, same results! The issue was a charge building up due to a capactive situation that only occurred when the back was on! I don't remember how they finally figured it out. When I went on to study electronics a few years later the scenario made sense.
On some old Fenders, the negative side of the output transformer secondary winding might be soldered to the chassis elsewhere, not at or to the RCA jack directly; the RCA jack is mounted on a phenolic strip and has metal tabs on the front side of the jack assembly that get their speaker ground/negative connection by being pulled against the chassis by the two mounting bolts ---- but the bolts themselves do not directly make a ground connection to the outer barrel of the jack (unless a jumper wire has been added). Sometimes you can get a better ground just by tightening those bolts and pulling the Jack tighter against the face plate but you run the risk of cracking the phenolic strip. It's a good idea to unbolt the jack and clean/polish the metal tabs of the connector and the area of the chassis that they make contact with, using a scotch bright pad, an ink eraser or a fiberglass-bristle scratch brush. Note that a poor connection here may affect the NFB loop as well as the audio to the speaker. The outer barrel of the RCA jack also corrodes and pits and you should clean that too. Don't just spray it all with that D-word s--t, that's not the same as polishing the metal!. The inner positive speaker contact of the RCA can be squeezed slightly tighter with needle-nose pliers.
Reading that reminds me that if the output isn't grounded properly, that's going to affect the negative feedback - even if the speaker connections are fine. Loss of feedback will affect the sound.
@@TeleCaster66 , does he use Fender's bias "vibrato" (still tremolo, but a very nice tremolo) or the "Harmonic Vibrato" that uses the preamp tubes just for the effect? I repaired a brown Concert with the harmonic vibrato a while ago; that was a great-sounding amp. Best Fender "vibrato" I've ever heard...
I love the particular characteristics of that tremolo circuit. And of course, the amp itself would make any tube afficionado drool. Salivating as I type !
Excellent sleuthing! I once had a Dynaco pass 3 preamp that I used for a few years and it started sounding very bad - like there was a ton of skritchy distortion. I found that when I plugged and unplugged the RCA connectors on the back a few times it was a night and day difference. I guessed that it was a thin layer of corrosion, and corrosion acts like a diode. I wonder if something similar was going on here - the rust on the connector absorbs moisture from the air while sitting. When turned on the moisture makes the connection work "better" and then those power tubes warm the chassis driving off the moisture leaving the corrosion and thus a bad connection? That is my hazard of a guess. Well done sir! I am not sure I would have found that problem on this amp.
The RCA jacks on your Dynaco preamp are mounted on phenolic strips and are very similar to the RCA jack used for the speaker output on the amp (see my other post here). Not only do the outer barrels of the connectors become corroded and pitted but the inner contacts tend to develop a powdery whitish corrosion as well. The line-level RCA jack inputs also get their chassis-ground connection mechanically, via the bolts to the phenolic strips which pull the front-facing ground tabs up against the chassis, and corrosion can develop at those points as well (athough if I remember correctly the phono input grounds are lifted above the chassis and isolated, perhaps with a pair of ceramic capacitors, as is common in lots of old Hifi gear). You can clean the inner contacts of those old style jacks with a Q tip that has had 90% of the fuzz pulled off of it, dunked in alcohol and then twirled inside the jack (It's usually a pretty snug fit). You can squeeze the contacts tighter slightly with needle nose pliers. An alternative to the Q tips is to buy some paint sprayer nozzle brushes which only run about $8 a set at Harbor Freight. In conjunction with alcohol they will work to some extent on tube sockets as well.
@@goodun2974 Yeah, I still have that preamp tucked away somewhere. It was around that time that I started building tube audio stuff from scratch. My problem with vintage gear is I always want to improve it but am conflicted so I just build from scratch and let the old gear do what it does - hard to let it all go though ;-) I have a hunch that the white powdery substance was likely cadmium oxide - another problem with vintage tube gear - wear a respirator when cleaning that stuff. The reason I brought up the Dynaco was that the RCA's were similar or possibly from the same manufacturer - I just assume that everyone is aware but probably wrongly so and thanks for pointing it out. I read your other post and also agree that I would never use that D- word on any connection. My favorite cleaner from the past (I'm sure unobtainable now) was called STREX - an electronic contact cleaner that left no residue and also was dielectric up to like 5kV - removing a few worries in its use. That stuff dried in a few seconds anyway - the old Bad - Good stuff.
@@leiferickson3183 , yeah, if you get a snootfull of that cadmium corrosion product, it'll leave a nasty metallic taste in the back of your throat for a day and a half! Supposed to be quite toxic too, but it hasn't killed me yet. Hickok tube testers in particular are usually full of the stuff (on the backside of the control panel). If it's not interfering with an electrical contact or electro-mechanical connection, I treat it the way I would asbestos ---- leave it alone and don't disturb it unless absolutely necessary.
Did your client give a reason for wanting the quick connects? Is it rude to tell them the quick connects are terrible and those connections want to be soldered?
If the connectors are good quality and they fit the speaker terminals tightly (squeezed slightly as Lyle did), they hardly qualify as "terrible". Pull the crimp terminals off and push them back on again and there should be two shiny stripes on the speaker terminals where the contact pressure of the crimp connector wiped the oxide layer off of the terminals. If anything, the weak point is likely to be the crimp connection from the wire to the crimp fitting (factory crimping rarely approaches the mil-spec standard of a *cold weld* where the metals are fused together under high pressure). The other Achilles' heel of crimped speaker connectors is the likelihood of breaking the tagboard strip that holds the spade lugs to the speaker when pulling the terminals off or pushing them back on; but newbies to soldering have been known to overheat the speaker terminals while removing or attaching the wires and creating a cold-solder joint to the tinsel leads that jump from the tagboard to the speaker cone.
What makes a Vibrolux different from other Fender amps? I know that’s a broad question considering their have been different Types of Fender amps called Vibrolux in the past.
Totally different amps with the same name. Post-‘63 Vibrolux Reverb is (kind of) a Deluxe Reverb with 6L6s and two 10” speakers. It’s really its own beast though.
I have a mid 60s Airline 5 watt amp that plays normally for anywhere from the first minute to first few minutes depending on how loud it is and how hard you play, then suddenly drops to about 1/5 the volume. If you turn it off and leave it for a day or so, it will start out normal again and last a couple minutes until it does it again. Very frustrating because when I got it it was in mint condition. The problem started only after a couple of years of occasional use.
Aside from the usual potential culprits like an intermittent resistor, capacitor, tube or tube socket, 1960's Airline amps are typically built by Valco, who used rivets to hold grounding terminal strips to the chassis. The differing metals oxidize (under the rivets where you can't see it), and the rivets relax, causing intermittent grounds. Frequently the ground connections for each tube are made to the metal frame of the tube socket which is riveted to the chassis. A defective 60 year old filter cap could also cause your problems by dragging the power supply down to almost nothing and overheating the power transformer, which could kill it. Anyway, best to bring it to a tech before something goes seriously wrong.
He does use DeOxit ---- on potentiometers. It's not appropriate for spraying on jacks, tube sockets and/or chassis ground points in order to "clean" them. See my other comments attached to this video.
DeOxit Red can be very effective cleaning open connections but it MUST be fully removed, so is not used in blind situations like pots. Blue is mostly a lubricant for cleaned connections. Gold is both a cleaner and lubricant in one and does not need to be removed. Gold is what people are referring to when they just use the generic term DeOxit.
Two and one half things... Cripes (!) it's a veritable bit of inclement weather... It's a freaking bleeding brainstorm (I'd feel lucky with half a thing...)
![[UNCUT] "บอสณวัฒน์" แฉ! แหล่งซุกเงินแก๊งบอส ขยันผิดที่ไม่กี่ปีก็เข้าคุก l คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ l17ต.ค.67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BL56qIfXYZM/mqdefault.jpg)
Back in the late 1960's we had a tv that was making a popping/crackling sound after it had been on for awhile. My step dad called the dealer to complain. The dealer came and picked it up and returned it to the shop. He tested it for a week and the issue wouldn't repeat. The dealer brought it back to us and soon after we started watching it again the noise returned. My step dad called and complained again. So, back to the shop it went again. They had the same results at the shop. Home again it came, same results! The issue was a charge building up due to a capactive situation that only occurred when the back was on! I don't remember how they finally figured it out. When I went on to study electronics a few years later the scenario made sense.
Love the AIC reference at the very end.
I'd be scratching my head looking for failing resistors or caps. Well done!
Nice one at the end. Love your style.
Another great video but my god can we talk about that killer tremolo for a min!
On some old Fenders, the negative side of the output transformer secondary winding might be soldered to the chassis elsewhere, not at or to the RCA jack directly; the RCA jack is mounted on a phenolic strip and has metal tabs on the front side of the jack assembly that get their speaker ground/negative connection by being pulled against the chassis by the two mounting bolts ---- but the bolts themselves do not directly make a ground connection to the outer barrel of the jack (unless a jumper wire has been added). Sometimes you can get a better ground just by tightening those bolts and pulling the Jack tighter against the face plate but you run the risk of cracking the phenolic strip. It's a good idea to unbolt the jack and clean/polish the metal tabs of the connector and the area of the chassis that they make contact with, using a scotch bright pad, an ink eraser or a fiberglass-bristle scratch brush. Note that a poor connection here may affect the NFB loop as well as the audio to the speaker. The outer barrel of the RCA jack also corrodes and pits and you should clean that too. Don't just spray it all with that D-word s--t, that's not the same as polishing the metal!. The inner positive speaker contact of the RCA can be squeezed slightly tighter with needle-nose pliers.
Reading that reminds me that if the output isn't grounded properly, that's going to affect the negative feedback - even if the speaker connections are fine. Loss of feedback will affect the sound.
It's so nice to hear a tremolo that actually sounds musical as opposed to the LDR tremolos in the black and silver face amps.
The guy who made my Blackface Deluxe clone (well done!) puts in the Brown era tremelo because they sound so nice. I agree.
@@TeleCaster66 , does he use Fender's bias "vibrato" (still tremolo, but a very nice tremolo) or the "Harmonic Vibrato" that uses the preamp tubes just for the effect? I repaired a brown Concert with the harmonic vibrato a while ago; that was a great-sounding amp. Best Fender "vibrato" I've ever heard...
I love the particular characteristics of that tremolo circuit. And of course, the amp itself would make any tube afficionado drool. Salivating as I type !
Learn so damn much here😃😎👍
Thanks Lyle 😎👍❤🖖
Exquisite tones. I’m partially deaf in both ears (USMC CH-53E) from my active duty service, but the amp sounds good to me.
Excellent sleuthing! I once had a Dynaco pass 3 preamp that I used for a few years and it started sounding very bad - like there was a ton of skritchy distortion. I found that when I plugged and unplugged the RCA connectors on the back a few times it was a night and day difference. I guessed that it was a thin layer of corrosion, and corrosion acts like a diode. I wonder if something similar was going on here - the rust on the connector absorbs moisture from the air while sitting. When turned on the moisture makes the connection work "better" and then those power tubes warm the chassis driving off the moisture leaving the corrosion and thus a bad connection? That is my hazard of a guess. Well done sir! I am not sure I would have found that problem on this amp.
The RCA jacks on your Dynaco preamp are mounted on phenolic strips and are very similar to the RCA jack used for the speaker output on the amp (see my other post here). Not only do the outer barrels of the connectors become corroded and pitted but the inner contacts tend to develop a powdery whitish corrosion as well. The line-level RCA jack inputs also get their chassis-ground connection mechanically, via the bolts to the phenolic strips which pull the front-facing ground tabs up against the chassis, and corrosion can develop at those points as well (athough if I remember correctly the phono input grounds are lifted above the chassis and isolated, perhaps with a pair of ceramic capacitors, as is common in lots of old Hifi gear). You can clean the inner contacts of those old style jacks with a Q tip that has had 90% of the fuzz pulled off of it, dunked in alcohol and then twirled inside the jack (It's usually a pretty snug fit). You can squeeze the contacts tighter slightly with needle nose pliers. An alternative to the Q tips is to buy some paint sprayer nozzle brushes which only run about $8 a set at Harbor Freight. In conjunction with alcohol they will work to some extent on tube sockets as well.
@@goodun2974 Yeah, I still have that preamp tucked away somewhere. It was around that time that I started building tube audio stuff from scratch. My problem with vintage gear is I always want to improve it but am conflicted so I just build from scratch and let the old gear do what it does - hard to let it all go though ;-) I have a hunch that the white powdery substance was likely cadmium oxide - another problem with vintage tube gear - wear a respirator when cleaning that stuff. The reason I brought up the Dynaco was that the RCA's were similar or possibly from the same manufacturer - I just assume that everyone is aware but probably wrongly so and thanks for pointing it out. I read your other post and also agree that I would never use that D- word on any connection. My favorite cleaner from the past (I'm sure unobtainable now) was called STREX - an electronic contact cleaner that left no residue and also was dielectric up to like 5kV - removing a few worries in its use. That stuff dried in a few seconds anyway - the old Bad - Good stuff.
@@leiferickson3183 , yeah, if you get a snootfull of that cadmium corrosion product, it'll leave a nasty metallic taste in the back of your throat for a day and a half! Supposed to be quite toxic too, but it hasn't killed me yet. Hickok tube testers in particular are usually full of the stuff (on the backside of the control panel). If it's not interfering with an electrical contact or electro-mechanical connection, I treat it the way I would asbestos ---- leave it alone and don't disturb it unless absolutely necessary.
Two mammoth albums too ;)
I’d love to hear more demonstration of this amp while I wait for the clone I ordered to be built.
Hopefully we’ll see/hear it at least once more!
Did your client give a reason for wanting the quick connects? Is it rude to tell them the quick connects are terrible and those connections want to be soldered?
He has a lot of old speakers. I told him soldering is best, but they are his amps. So.
@@PsionicAudio Easy swappage is a great reason.
If the connectors are good quality and they fit the speaker terminals tightly (squeezed slightly as Lyle did), they hardly qualify as "terrible". Pull the crimp terminals off and push them back on again and there should be two shiny stripes on the speaker terminals where the contact pressure of the crimp connector wiped the oxide layer off of the terminals. If anything, the weak point is likely to be the crimp connection from the wire to the crimp fitting (factory crimping rarely approaches the mil-spec standard of a *cold weld* where the metals are fused together under high pressure). The other Achilles' heel of crimped speaker connectors is the likelihood of breaking the tagboard strip that holds the spade lugs to the speaker when pulling the terminals off or pushing them back on; but newbies to soldering have been known to overheat the speaker terminals while removing or attaching the wires and creating a cold-solder joint to the tinsel leads that jump from the tagboard to the speaker cone.
We call them spade jacks in these parts of the world
Lyle, can I ask what that is clipped to your baseball cap?
The lavalier mic. The hat keeps it the same distance at all times while I work and the omni capsule aimed to the side avoids plosives.
That's it in a nutshell.
What makes a Vibrolux different from other Fender amps? I know that’s a broad question considering their have been different Types of Fender amps called Vibrolux in the past.
In this case it’s essentially one channel from a 5E3 Deluxe with added bias tremolo and a 10” speaker.
@@PsionicAudio what about the ones that more closely resemble a DRRI? I have one of the 68 Custom Vibroluxs with the two 10” speakers.
Totally different amps with the same name. Post-‘63 Vibrolux Reverb is (kind of) a Deluxe Reverb with 6L6s and two 10” speakers. It’s really its own beast though.
I have a mid 60s Airline 5 watt amp that plays normally for anywhere from the first minute to first few minutes depending on how loud it is and how hard you play, then suddenly drops to about 1/5 the volume. If you turn it off and leave it for a day or so, it will start out normal again and last a couple minutes until it does it again. Very frustrating because when I got it it was in mint condition. The problem started only after a couple of years of occasional use.
Aside from the usual potential culprits like an intermittent resistor, capacitor, tube or tube socket, 1960's Airline amps are typically built by Valco, who used rivets to hold grounding terminal strips to the chassis. The differing metals oxidize (under the rivets where you can't see it), and the rivets relax, causing intermittent grounds. Frequently the ground connections for each tube are made to the metal frame of the tube socket which is riveted to the chassis. A defective 60 year old filter cap could also cause your problems by dragging the power supply down to almost nothing and overheating the power transformer, which could kill it. Anyway, best to bring it to a tech before something goes seriously wrong.
Dont most tube amps sound different after tubes get to operating temp from room temp?
Not like this was.
Do ever use Deoxit spray ????
He does use DeOxit ---- on potentiometers. It's not appropriate for spraying on jacks, tube sockets and/or chassis ground points in order to "clean" them. See my other comments attached to this video.
DeOxit Red can be very effective cleaning open connections but it MUST be fully removed, so is not used in blind situations like pots. Blue is mostly a lubricant for cleaned connections. Gold is both a cleaner and lubricant in one and does not need to be removed. Gold is what people are referring to when they just use the generic term DeOxit.
Two and one half things...
Cripes (!) it's a veritable bit of inclement weather...
It's a freaking bleeding brainstorm
(I'd feel lucky with half a thing...)
So, rca connectors were used for speakers? I did not know that. What a poor choice.
A jar of flies......................I see what you did there.
A jar full of fireflies is pretty cool ---- as long as you're not the firefly....
What, no comments on the Alice in Chains joke? ;-)
Sorry, I was asleep.