The Electra Forums

I got a guy that owes me some money and wants to trade me for his nearly new black heart amp that can be used on a 3 or a 5 watt setting. Dollar value is about what he owes me. The nice thing about it is it is a tube amp but the sound of it is a bit too crunchy and the distortion on the higher wattage is way over what I want. Is there a mod that can be put in it for a reasonable cost which would be just a master volume rather than the current knob which appears to be volume and gain combined?

Thorny is the amplifier doctor around here.

Look in the member section - close to the top.

RCSBlues

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RCSBlues

I think the cheapest way to do this would be to replace that 12ax7 tube with a 12au7 tube that has lower gain. I know this has cleaned up some amps for me. This will definitely cleanup the preamp section of the amp and give you some more headroom. It would be an easy swap that would in no way compromise the amp.

What he said. A different speaker may give some later break up too. Volume and gain combined is a little strange. The 3 watt is a triode in that amp (Little Giant?) and should give you more clean headroom.

It is a Little Giant. It sounds pretty good on the 3 watt setting but when put on the 5 watt setting the distortion starts getting pretty heavy on the higher vol settings and especially if the strings are worked a bit hard it really gets distorted. Its ok if that is the style but if not...... I may try the tube replacement as a start. I also dis a google search and found a few things but they seem a bit expensive to add on.

I'm with sandspur on this one, try the 12au7 in the preamp which I believe is about 70% as hot as a 12ax7, that will cool down the preamp. I spent about $200 modding a 10watt Epiphone Galaxy amp (which was probably only worth $150 to start with...) and it still is kinda flat, so some of those journeys are fruitless I'm afraid. It's your call, but changing out transformers and wiring and speakers just ends up being a wild goose hunt sometimes. Best of luck, Mike.

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Did some additional research and several suggested replacing the 12ax7 tube and a couple suggested an EL84 replacement also.

Comments? Thanks