The Valve Jr transformation is complete....

[tjcurtin1]

I think that there's a youtube video of someone playing the valve jr with a webber attenuator...

[warren0728]

thanks for the comprehensive explanation vood...i had a feeling that would be the case!

ww

[Ch0jin]

I think that there's a youtube video of someone playing the valve jr with a webber attenuator...

And here it is...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK5dzFwbfS8


I HIGHLY recommend checking out the rest of this guys videos, or if ur strapped for time, just watch the ones where he uses a modded Plexi. Man that thing is sweet.

But anyway, yeah from what I've read and listened to regarding EVJ's I suspect an attentuator is the answer for lower volume. Anything else really makes it a different amp completely tone wise.

[duhvoodooman***]

I've been on the lookout for a decent deal on a used Weber MicroMASS attenuator on eBay for awhile now. They don't come up very often, and seem to go for almost the retail price when they do, so I may have to break down and just buy one from Weber.

Even at 5W, to get that really nice tube saturation sound, the VJr is too loud in the small room where I generally play. From what I read, these little Weber attenuators work great and introduce very little tonal coloration of their own. At $70, the MicroMASS is very reasonably priced for a high quality speaker motor-type attenuator. And I can use it with my Blues Junior or Firefly, too, if I want to.

[Ch0jin]

Here u go....just $9.99 at the moment

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/WEBER-MICRO-M...dZp1638Q2em122

[Brian Krashpad]

Here u go....just $9.99 at the moment

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/WEBER-MICRO-M...dZp1638Q2em122

Yeah, but that's Oz Dollars, works out to $347.50 USD.

[Ch0jin]

Yeah, but that's Oz Dollars, works out to $347.50 USD.

HAHAHA, thats so something an Aussie would say about US currency traditionally.

FYI I just bought a bunch of stuff from GGG via paypal with the Exch rate at 97c so AUD/USD is damn close to 1-1 right now. Awesome for kit builders outside the US!!!

I'll start another thread when they arrive, but as a sneak preview for DVM, adding to my two fuzz's, BMP and Tremelo will shortly be....BSIAB, ITS8 and a delay.

Oh and to keep this post somewhat on topic.. I'm 90% convinced I'll pick up a rev3 Valve Jr Combo if they have one in my local store this weekend. Sounds like the go as they have a decent OT in them to start with, better tubes (maybe) and hum issues resolved. I'll post that up too if I pull the trigger.

[duhvoodooman***]

Resurrecting an old thread here, rather than starting a new one. To quote the old Paul Harvey line, here's "the rest of the story":

Quite a while back, I started to run into a problem with intermittent signal distortion and volume loss on my multi-modded v.1 Epi Valve Jr. combo. I'd get the volume suddenly modulating and a nasty static-y distortion happening at the same time. It was definitely vibration related, as it happened mostly on initial pick attack, and got worse as the volume was increased. But it wasn't tube-related, since multiple tubes (both preamp & power) produced exactly the same behavior. With other amps available to me, I pretty much just kicked the VJr to the back of the gear pile and stopped using it. Which was too bad, 'cuz when it was right, it was chock full of cool sounding 5W Class A single-ended goodness.

A few weeks ago, I decided to try and pin down the problem, and took the amp apart looking for a bad solder joint, lifted trace on the PCB or some similar issue. Poked around extensively in the chassis with a wooden probe to see if I could locate the problem, but I had absolutely no luck. Maybe it was a component with an intermittent problem, but I'll be damned if I could find it.

While I was "under the hood", I couldn't help noticing how amateurish a lot of my soldering work looked! This was one of my earliest projects and it showed! I was also struck by just how cheap and flimsy that first stock VJr PCB looked, now that I've had some experience with other amps. Just on the basis of visual appearance, it wasn't surprising that the amp might have problems.

Rather than spend any more time trying to fix that cheap old board, I decided to just replace it. An outfit called Watts Tube Audio sells replacement boards for the various versions of the VJr in both eyelet and turret configurations, so I was checking them out. But when I started looking at their offerings, I found that they also sold "loaded" boards, i.e. with the required components already mounted--just mount it in the chassis and make the required connections to the rest of the amp. Not only that, but they offered several versions with different tonal characteristics: stock, Marshallized, Voxy, Fenderish and Suprolicious, with the latter two available in both EL84 and 6V6 versions. Though not cheap at $110, there was (and still is, as of mid-Sept.) a sale going on, dropping the price to $75. Based upon the amount of time that would save me in sourcing the needed components and soldering it together, that seemed like a pretty sweet deal! Here's a photo of one of these loaded boards off their website:



After exchanging a couple of e-mails with Ken, the "head guy" there, I decided on the Voxy version. They build 'em to order, and I received mine just about 2 weeks after placing the order. It's a high quality little board, neatly fabbed and a very sturdy 1/8" thick. I went with the "red swirl" color, vintage Marshall-style. They provide layout diagrams on their website that serve as the guide for installation. That process was very straightforward....especially after getting some expert advice from resident Fret.net amp guru Tunghaichuan. Mostly a matter of tying in the power and output transformer wires, several ground connections, and wiring the input jack and volume pot.

It fired right up and sounds just great. Starts breaking up around 10 o'clock on the volume knob and is a real crunch machine by 2-o'clock or so. I still have the Tweed-style 1-knob tone control, gain boost toggle switch and standby switch features that I had added to the VJr back in early 2008. I didn't bother to hook up the treble boost toggle I'd installed back then, though, because it's plenty bright sounding as is. I've been running it through my 2x12 cabinet, since the onboard 8" speaker doesn't have much low-end punch.

If I get motivated enough to pull the chassis out of the cabinet again, I'll take a couple of photos and add them here.

[duhvoodooman***]

Here u go....just $9.99 at the moment

Thanks, but I'm already watching that one. Believe me, it won't end anywhere near that figure. From what I've seen, it'll probably go for around $60, and maybe more. A couple of weeks back, I saw one sell for $73. Weber sells 'em NEW for $70. Unbelievable.... :

[Ch0jin]

I guess your watching the 50W version thats also about to end too

It's still under what it'd cost to buy new, but barely. I'll post back later if I win it. I have a 60W and 50W tube amp (and maybe a valve jnr before the end of the week) that would all like to play with it.