CeriaTone JTM45

Ok now, most gearheads will agree that the holy grail of amps is a 1950's Fender Tweed, a 1960's Marshall or the rarest of all amps, the Trainwreck or Dumble. These 'point-to-point' handwired amps are the epitome of craftsmanship as it pertains to tone. Very few amps these days are built the old-fashioned way, instead manufacturers have found they can save a ton of money by using PC boards instead of having the amps handwired. While PC boards afford a great amount of consistency from unit to unit, they also have some serious problems as well. Tube amps are famous for producing obscene amounts of heat which has a way of warping the epoxy which PC boards are made from. The traces are etched onto the board and can actually pop off over time as they are heated by the tubes. When this happens you pretty much have to buy a new board, which usually ends up costing as much as the whole amp. Bummer!

The few boutique amp manufacturers who are still handwiring their amps demand a pretty penny for their wares. Most of us working 'Joes' don't have $3k-8k to spend on a single amplifier. One of the latest crazes has been 'kit' manufacturers. Basically these small companies sell you kits with all the parts you need to handwire your own boutique amp. It's a great project for those with the know-how and the determination. The cost savings are incredible and the experience is priceless. But what if you aren't up for the task of wiring one of these complicated beasts? Well, there is a solution...

CeriaTone is a small amp kit company based in Malaysia who provide high-quality amp chassis, faceplates, transformers and all the parts you need to build your very own dream amp. They have made some of the most sought-after amp models available as do-it-yourself kits. Amps such as the 1959 Fender 5F6-A Bassman, the 1965 Marshall JTM45 and the Trainwreck Express. For a reasonable amount of money they will even build the amp for you and ship it to your door ready to fire up and scare the neighbors with. Nice!

Well, far be it for me to pass up an opportunity like this! I contacted Nik at CeriaTone about which amp he thought would suit my playing style. About 20 emails later I decided on the 1965 Marshall JTM45 which is Jim Marshall's variation of the 59' Fender Bassman amp; albeit with a British twist. Nik informed me that this amp has the reputation for having the sweetest clean channel known to man, but also has the ability to break up in a very musical way when pushed. Perfect!

Lead time on these amps is about 3-4 weeks on average. That should give me time to sell some of my other musical goodies to make room (read: cash) for this new addition. I am planning on ordering a custom head cabinet from Reason: Amps to house this beauty. The standard Tolex combinations for Marshall amps is either black, forest green or purple. Black is too common and purple is too psychedelic for my style so I'll be going with the forest green with gold piping and grill. It should look quite stunning with the gold plexi faceplate of the amp. I'd like to order one of their 2x12" speaker cabinets in the same color to complete the set, but that will have to wait a bit.

I got myself on the waiting list with Eurotubes for their new JJ KT66 power tubes which are expected to arrive the beginning of April. The original JTM 45 used the KT66's instead of the more common EL34's, but the KT66's have been out of production for long enough that the NOS supply is very limited. The sound of these tubes is supposed to be very rich and complex without the harshness that other tubes produce. Being that my style relies heavily on a nice warm clean sound I am planning on sticking with the KT66's.

I'm anxious for this new beauty to arrive. I have a limited experience playing through the high-end amps that are out there, mostly because I'm afraid that they will ruin my sense of 'content'. I remember playing through the Bogner Shiva head that RKS Guitars borrowed after the last NAMM show; I was quite disappointed with everything else after that. Last week I played one of the new limited edition Marshall handwired 1974x 18 watt amps at Guitar Center and was blown away. The sound was so different from what I've gotten used to with my budget tube amps. I guess it must be like driving a Ferrari after a lifetime of commuting in a Hyundai. The sound was so warm and organic; it really made the guitar sound like a living creature with a voice all its own. THAT is the sound I've been searching for. I'll keep you posted on the outcome when that baby finally arrives...

Rock n' Roll: It does a body good...

This is Eddie Van Halen at age 52.

Need I say more...

Tube swapping (part 1)

In my never ending quest for tone I decided to do a comparison of different tubes on my 93' Fender Blues Deluxe. It came stock with 6L6GC's which produce approximately 40 watts RMS @ 8ohms, but it was too much power for bedroom playing. As all tube amp lovers know, the amps sound their best when they're cranked up, but you can't always stand to be in the same room with 'em.

Anyhow, being that this amp was designed with a glaring flaw in it that prevents you from being able to bias it without having to change capacitor values, I used my bias-probe to check the bias with the generic tubes it came with to see where it was registering. It should have been around 38-42 mA to keep it idling properly and out of crossover distortion, however my reading was around 23mA! Waaaay too low. It was no wonder the poor thing sounded anemic. I ran out and bought a hotter duet of Groove Tubes 6L6GC's which biased at a more respectable 30 mA. Better, but the amp was still running too cold. (I have since purchased a do-it-yourself kit to allow me to bias the amp with the simple turn of a potentiometer, but that's another story...)

So, the GT tubes made the amp sound much better but I was pretty sure there was room for improvement. I scoured the Internet forums for some other possible solutions and discovered that by using 6V6 tubes you can lower the wattage of the amp by as much as 12 watts while still maintaining a respectable amount of clean headroom. With that in mind I ordered a re-tube kit from www.eurotubes.com and installed them in the amp to see what the difference would be.

The kit came with a matched duet of JJ 6V6 power tubes, a balanced JJ ECC 83s for v1, a hot JJ ECC 83s for the distortion channel in v2 and a standard JJ ECC83s for the clean channel in v3. I noticed right away that the volume knob was way less sensitive than before (a good thing) and I could turn the amp up to 3 before it blasted me out. The clean channel still had tons of headroom, but the dirty channel was still brittle and useless. Bummer. All said and done I was very pleased with the new power tubes. It comes in handy to swap the tubes based on what gig you're going to play. If I'm playing someplace where I need the extra power, then I drop in the 6L6GC's, but if I'm practicing at home or playing at church then the 6V6's are the way to go. I have yet to explore the myriad possibilities of swapping preamp tubes, but again, that's another story...

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment in my tube swapping adventures... (rolls eyes)