Time and energy haven't permitted the continuance of my single-ended 6V6 marvel, so I figured I would tear into something I alluded to in the last post.
The Pignose G40V Combo amp.
I sort of picked this up on a "researched whim".
What web-scribes I could find on it indicated that it had some very old-school "brown" grit to it, and in fact, was almost hard to play clean.
Well I had been eyeing this puppy in the pawn shop for several months. Bigger rigs came and went, but this lingered. After it had gathered enough dust, the proprietor decide to reduce it to well South of 100 clams, so I was on-board for a 100% tube amp.
Topology of this little guy indicates a 6L6 Push Pull (presumably biased AB1) power section with a rather busy 3 stage front end, driver section, cathode follower tone (bass, mid,treble) and gain/master volume controls. It also sports a presence knob to de-bleed some of the negative feedback. so I would call it a hot rodded Plexi front-end (12AX7's) firing into a Fender Vibrolux.
Bear in mind, I am talking circuit topology, not build quality.
Indeed, even with single-coils this thing was hot, fat and wet. Anything over 9 o'clock on the gain started some serious compression and loose vintage grit. Even playing modestly clean it would compress and sing for what seemed like hours.
Only problem was it also received WEW out of Del Rio Texas (and any other station that was strong enough). Further schematic rooting indicated that indeed, like very antique Fenders this thing had no buffer resister up to the grid of V1a, the input was wired directly to the grid.
I figured a little buffer would kill some of the RFI and leave the crush, so I wired a salvaged 15K carbon resister in series and sure enough, no more del rio.
Most of the compression and mushy overload stayed intact.
I am currently using it as my practice amp, and I continue to be amused at:
. How loud it can get (I'm guessing an honest 35 watts through a 10" generic speaker).
. How much old-Fender crush it can build on the front end (Fenders did it out back).
. How tactile it is, you can pull-back and be sensitive or tear-in and sound really PO'ed, without ever turning a knob.
More later
