Fast forward a few years to now, and nothing much has changed with the little amp. My son did a few tweaks to the project, mainly rolling tubes through it. He toyed with adding another preamp tube before the phase splitter to get more overdrive, then converted the socket to try out effects loop gadgetry, but abandoned both experiments. The extra tube stages affected the pick sensitivity and noise floor.
So now and forevermore, the amp has a short plate sovtek 12ax7 in the front end, a ruby 12ax7b in the pi, and some RCA gray plate 6v6gta power tubes circa 1964. This is his "American clean/crunch reference" amp. He likes it better than the clean channel of his "monster rock" amp, a Peavey 5150. The crunch and lead channels of the Peavey cut the bass out up front and try to add it back in downstream, so yeah, not the same. The little homebrew beast with pedals whoops the Peavey for the high gain distortion sound. He says the Peavey doesn't handle the modern drop tunings and seven string riffs unless he runs it like the homebrew rig: effects pedals and clean channel.
He scored a "british steel" amp for the def leppard/ACDC sound. Not a whole lot different than the one that we built. Jet city 20h, designed by soldano. Has EL84 power tubes in it.
So now and forevermore, the amp has a short plate sovtek 12ax7 in the front end, a ruby 12ax7b in the pi, and some RCA gray plate 6v6gta power tubes circa 1964. This is his "American clean/crunch reference" amp. He likes it better than the clean channel of his "monster rock" amp, a Peavey 5150. The crunch and lead channels of the Peavey cut the bass out up front and try to add it back in downstream, so yeah, not the same. The little homebrew beast with pedals whoops the Peavey for the high gain distortion sound. He says the Peavey doesn't handle the modern drop tunings and seven string riffs unless he runs it like the homebrew rig: effects pedals and clean channel.
He scored a "british steel" amp for the def leppard/ACDC sound. Not a whole lot different than the one that we built. Jet city 20h, designed by soldano. Has EL84 power tubes in it.