Bluesbreaker for You Amp Modders

[marnold]

I read this article (http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Feb/The_BluesBreaker_Revisited.aspx) in Premier Guitar magazine about turning Marshall's Bluesbreaker reissue into something that actually sounds like Clapton's Marshall combo on the Beano album. My guess is that this would not be an inexpensive project. Still, I found it to be very interesting.

[tunghaichuan]

Very cool, thanks for posting. :bravo:

I'd love to do something like this, but realistically the JTM45 circuit puts out about 30w clean and about 45-50w at full roar. Way too loud for my needs. There is no arguing that Clapton achieved legendary status with the tone on the John Mayall album. It is still one of my favorite blues albums.

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to start with a kit. By the time the cabinet, speakers, tubes, and output transformer are changed out, the only thing left is the chassis, PCB, power transformer and various chassis parts. While having a PCB does not affect the tone, eyelet/turret boards have tons o' mojo.

I have several sets of the Groove Tubes KT66HP, which are no longer being manufactured. Apparently the Chinese Valve Arts KT66 sound better than the Russian Groove Tubes. However, I find the GT tubes to be good sounding tubes, even if they don't sound like the original GEC KT66s.

Expensive to recreate for sure, but I would bet that it would still be cheaper than buying an original Bluesbreaker amp :D


I read this article (http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2008/Feb/The_BluesBreaker_Revisited.aspx) in Premier Guitar magazine about turning Marshall's Bluesbreaker reissue into something that actually sounds like Clapton's Marshall combo on the Beano album. My guess is that this would not be an inexpensive project. Still, I found it to be very interesting.

[duhvoodooman]

Yeah, very interesting read. Even though the Bluesbreaker RI is supposed to be a very good sounding amp, you can see from this article how loosely the term "reissue" gets used with respect to vintage musical equipment. The differences between the RI and the original are many and apparently tonally significant.

Agree w/ you, Tung. Why even start with the RI version for such a project? With all the changes, using a good kit would seem to make a lot more sense. I guess he wanted to show that it could be done, and reveal just how extensive the necessary changes were.

I wish the guy had posted a clip or two, though. I don't like to just take his word for it that he "nailed" the Beano tone....

[markb]

I can remember reading an interview with Jim Marshall where he stated that their buying policy for components was to "send a boy down to Henry's in the Edgware Road" when they were running low on anything. This included transformers. It's no wonder there's a fair bit of variation in those old Marshalls. The early models were something of a work in progress.

[TS808]

There are a number of pretty good manufacturers out there now building Bluesbreaker clones at half the price of Marshall. Some are using the weber kits.

I got my 18-watt Bluesbreaker clone from www.sligoamps.com. I believe the 33-watt version runs around $1100, which in my opinion is well worth it. My 18-watter hasn't let me down yet.