Magnatone Twilighter

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famousmockingbird

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Joined 2010
I love how Fender puts all their schematics up for support.



I then contact Magnatone technical support for a schematic and they pretty much tell me to go eff myself. Any licensed service center tech's out there with one that would like to share it with me privately? I don't feel like tracing the amp out and drawing it up myself but I will if I have to. I lost reverb and one channel has a nasty 120Hz hum. The amp is only used in the studio and has very low hours.


I know I have discussed reverb design in the past with a lot of you. When I made a preamp with built in tube reverb I used a 2 watt EL84 single ended power amp to drive the tank and it has balls. I was VERY surprised to see that Magnatone uses A HALF A 12AX7 as the reverb driver in their Twilighter amp:eek: Talk about wimpy!! :rolleyes:


-bird
 
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famousmockingbird

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Joined 2010
Printer2 said:
At the price of the amp I can see why they would not want the schematic to get out.
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I partly agree but if a company really wanted to clone it all they would need to have the amp so they could figure out things that wouldn't be on the schematic like output transformer specs etc.... A few hours of tracing the circuit and drawing a schematic wouldn't stop a company from reverse engineering it. At the end of the day people will pay the money for the amp because of the name and looks. I think Fender knows this which is why they so openly share their schematics. I have had friends want say a Deluxe Reverb and I offered to build them a custom hand wired one for roughly the same money and they refused because they want a "Fender".



For the amount of money they ask for these amps I would think they would have chosen a better reverb driver tube over one 12AX7 triode. I think this amp is roughly based on the famous 480, which had a 6DR7 I believe as a reverb driver tube and in my opinion a much better choice. 7 watt plate dissipation and low internal resistance for the second triode unit.
 
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Printer2

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Joined 2010
It was not so much a affirmation of their reasoning of not supplying a schematic but rather a comment on the price of the amp. From the look of it it seems like a well built amp but that is a little high for what I see. On Fender's schematics, the old ones have been out for quite some time and the schematics were in the pubic sphere already. But their newest equipment does not have schematics online.
 
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famousmockingbird

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Joined 2010
Printer2 said:
It was not so much a affirmation of their reasoning of not supplying a schematic but rather a comment on the price of the amp. From the look of it it seems like a well built amp but that is a little high for what I see. On Fender's schematics, the old ones have been out for quite some time and the schematics were in the pubic sphere already. But their newest equipment does not have schematics online.
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Good points, I have noticed some schematics for Fenders not on there. I agree that the price tag for the Magnatone is way too high for what you get. It is built well and I like the amp but it should probably be in the $2k price range for what it's get.
 
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Enzo

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Joined 2004
Fender never put ALL their schematics on the web site, only the ones most requested. Ones no there can usually be requested from them.

For the amount of money they ask for these amps I would think they would have chosen a better reverb driver tube over one 12AX7 triode.
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In what way does the existing circuit fall short? How is the reverb sound lacking?
 
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famousmockingbird

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Joined 2010
I'm under the impression it takes power to twist the springs. All the reverb units that sound big seem to have a fair amount of power. Reverbs units driven by an opamp don't sound good to me and the reverb on this amp is okay sounding, I mean it's real spring reverb so it's going to sound decent. The spring reverb I really like always seems to be driven by something with power. The Fender units with 6K6 or 6V6 sound good to me. Even the ones with two 12AT7 triodes in parallel are pretty good.
 
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famousmockingbird

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Joined 2010
I got about halfway through tracing the circuit out and drawing the schematic and I had a very nice surprise email today. Dave Ryan over at Magnatone is a stand up guy and sent me the schematic anyway and made my life a bit easier. What a gentlemen, I really appreciate what he did for me :)


I got to check Q1 and see if it's shorted defeating the reverb and figure out why one channel has so much 120Hz hum.
 
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sophoni

Member
Joined 2020
famousmockingbird said:
I got about halfway through tracing the circuit out and drawing the schematic and I had a very nice surprise email today. Dave Ryan over at Magnatone is a stand up guy and sent me the schematic anyway and made my life a bit easier. What a gentlemen, I really appreciate what he did for me :)


I got to check Q1 and see if it's shorted defeating the reverb and figure out why one channel has so much 120Hz hum.
Click to expand...


Hey there!! Would you be able to share the schematics perchance??
 
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