VTypeV4

Top fella!

Purchased his old Fender 2x15 for a very reasonable cost. The cab was better than described and he was happy to oblige with the courier I organized. A true credit to this community - why aren't all ebay transactions like this!?

Matt

On a slightly different topic, I did the job I always seem to wind up doing for Bullet Sound Co at The Victoria Hall on behalf on St Joseph's college..

St Jo 17 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

St Jo 17 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

Yamaha LS9, Lab Gruppen / Crown and Nexo boxes - a very different PA than we've used on previous years but reasonably equal in terms of power and quality. Personally, I still prefer the EAW boxes but that's just my preference. It's been a while since I used an LS9 but their lineage and relation to my beloved 02Rs made most navigating really straight forward although I would have rather spent a bit more time building a more personal template. The show was excellent and went without issue (as ever) and shows there maybe hope for the next generation of musicians yet. 

Wow!

Valves the size of big coffee jars requiring kV of HT are really something quite magical - even the most hardcore 'lightweight / class D' stalwarts on the forum can surely appreciate the beauty of these thing however impractical they may be.

I love the glow of my 6L6 and KT88 / 6550 amps!

1 hour ago, dood said:

Philips EL6471 might just take the biscuit but I wouldn't wanna take one to a gig!

Awesome!!

Personally I think it's the big Trace VTypes but I'm biased really!

http://www.chambonino.com/construct.html

And this is just nuts..

http://www.chambonino.com/construct/const9.html

The O/E Celestion (it'll be a C15T or a C15H) isn't that heavy anyways - they've only got a moderate sized magnet and a pressed frame as they're both likely to be based on the old K series from the '90s. Quite sweet sounding drivers in my opinion although they're surpassed with todays technology. I can't recommend a suitable driver as I've never crunched the numbers or needed to load something newer or lighter into an 1153 / EV 606 although give or take, if it's ok in a 606, it'll be ok in a 1153 / 715 / 7215 Trace box..

Best of luck with them! I've used the Tung Sol 6550s in a few different amps and they're a great tube so see no reason why the 7581s shouldn't be.

Thanks for the compliment, the 135 is proper cool and as I've said elsewhere, it's one of the few bass amps I've owned that isn't a Trace Elliot.

Just as a follow up, I've had a few hours on the valves today albeit still not in anger although I do think the amp has less background noise..

I haven't got a lot of experience regarding 6L6 powered amplifiers as most that I've got / had have mainly been either EL34 or 6550 / KT88 based. This might make any meaningful comparisons a little tricky especially as the previous valves in the Fender were two different pairs - one were what I assume to be the original Fender branded Sylvania 'Made in the USA' valves. Might keep them as spares or might let them go as they're quite strong on the second hand market.

1 hour ago, Pow_22 said:

Let me know what you think of the JJ 6L6's VTypeV4.  My ampeg v4BH is due a re valve soon and as you say the amount of 6l6GC's and other variants available is very confusing!  

Will do, no worries..

Dropped some new valves into the Bassman 135 today - I opted for JJ 6L6 GC types as they seem to have a great reputation for reliability and character. There seems to be more variations on the 6L6 theme than most others including 5881, 7581, various re-issues, re-creations and all new designs! I haven't used JJ tubes for a while but had some of their EL34s which were much better than the Sovteks they replaced.

New jj 6L6s 1217 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

New jj 6L6s 1217 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

New jj 6L6s 1217 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

They've not yet been used in anger but I'm sure they'll be fine. 

It's officially back in service now - gave it a bit of a shake down run last night after swapping all the cards and O/S chips back over and it seems to operating just fine. All of the save data and configurations haven't been lost either which I'm very thankful of as there's one job I was half way through when it let go. All good!

There's a review here.....

135 Wem boxes by VTypeV4, on Flickr

Oldskool with my WEM boxes this evening. Sounded superb as the Goodmans speakers contained within were re-coned a few years back. Very smooth and warm sounding and all just about era appropriate except for the KHL 6er on the right! 

135 rigger by VTypeV4, on Flickr

Arty  shot from work the other week.

Bass 135 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

Oldskool / New school with my SWR cabs - this setup really punches! Perfect combination of new and old together.

I've had a couple of valve failures over the years and the odd string (can't remember the last one - must be 15 years ago) although I've never had a 'sorry, that's it folks' moment.. Yet!

1 hour ago, mike257 said:

I can see where he's coming from - I've got a channel down on one of my 01v, but for the price they can be picked up for, it's barely worth paying an hour of bench time with a repair tech. Might as well just keep stockpiling cheap ones as and when they appear!

Very true mike - I missed a knackered one that went for £31 the other week. The kicker is it had two ADAT and a UNITY card that were apparently in good order..

2017-11-25_03-20-43 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

It's fixed, tested and seems to be working fine so I'll swap everything back during the week. And no more sticky faders which was becoming a little irritating. The repair has come with an observation though - I've been told that should it fail again in a similar manner then future repair may be very difficult (expensive!) or even impossible. I'm not quite sure of the details of his observation as I didn't speak directly with the repair man but I guess I'll keep it in service until we run (or don't - I might get lucky) into problems down the line. 

As mentioned before, these consoles are approaching 'vintage' status and I'm under no illusion that they're getting any younger but should the worst happen then they're still plentiful on the 2nd hand market.

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

Enjoy it. Great amp. I used to use a Y lead to route the bass into both channels of mine. I felt it improved the tone.

I do too but link the channels with the 'spare' input on the bass channel into the normal one. It just feels a bit bigger somehow.

Thanks man, I'm loving it!

Purchased - it's officially mine.

I already have a MK2 plus I've just bought a Bassman 135 but best of luck with what is a truly a wonderful bit of kit..

I'm quite sure I'm gonna buy it so I took an arty shot at work this eve..

135 rigger by VTypeV4, on Flickr

I'll stop bleating on about it now - need to get that cab built now!

1 hour ago, Balcro said:

Hi there,

As Stevie says, either Celestion speaker will work OK in that box. By the way, my calculations are that it's
167 litres gross volume.

Just one other observation. It's a square box 27 x 27". Having an exact square dimension might well cause some unwanted resonances, so it's best to pad out one side of the box with hard polystyrene blocks if you can get hold of some. They take up volume without adding any real weight. Two to three inches should be enough. For every inch in depth of poly blocks you'll lose about 5.9 litres in internal volume, but in this case it's all to the good. No significant difference to the frequency response.

Thanks for that, I did some calculations in my head hence the VB discrepancy. 

I'd considered the standing wave / resonance potential but the solution suggested here seems the perfect fix.

Thanks again chaps.

As mad as it sounds, friendly is a great description - smooth and fat (phat?) but still defined..

And the cab covers, even better, they're genuine SWR!

135 and V4 by VTypeV4, on Flickr

What I took with me on Monday.. Glass and Iron!