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what's good hand wired Deluxe Reverb style amp do you recommend me.

The l is silent in solder. That's why we don't say it. 🤦 Just like when you say schedule. There's a "C" in there but you don't say it. Instead, you say "shed-jewel". Where's the "C"? It's SKED-JEWEL. There's a C in there. Just like when you say SCHOOL. You don't say shool. You don't skip the C like you do in Schedule. Makes zero sense. You observe the c in one words that starts with "SCH-" but you ignore it in another word that starts with the same 3 letters and is pronounced exactly the same. We can say solder without the L all we want. It is you all who have the messed up language 🤷 it's SKED-JEWEL. Just like School. You don't say shool. So why say shed-jewel? That doesn't make sense. At all. Where's the consistency? 🤷🤷🤦

Kester makes liquid flux. Not sure if you know this. I have 2 different types. One is clear and is a no-clean flux. It leaves no residue behind. The 2nd is a brown liquid flux that's pretty sticky and leaves a lot of residue to clean when you're done. I won't solder without them. Even if I'm just soldering a ground wire to a pot, I drip some onto the back of the pot and solder away. It makes all the difference in the world. I actually just bought a new 2024 Hot Rod Deluxe IV for myself and it came in today. It sounds incredible! I just tested everything to be sure there were no issues. Then I put it up in the hall closet because it's for my bday in 6 weeks. 😁 For those plastic jacks, I intend on just leaving a cable plugged in all the time and never removing it. Hopefully that will put less stress on the joints so they don't break loose eventually

Hi the be100 I was referring to is a pedal not a amp and what I was making as a point is that the tweed tone amp sounds good enough in its own right as evidenced in some of the videos but its a real struggle adding pedals. Interesting that the artist own videos all demo the amp without pedals.

So you prefer that the fuse be hot all the time, no matter what the switch position is? Seems like changing a fuse becomes a delicate operation. Maybe I am misunderstanding?

True Gentleman you are Sir. Thank You for the Lessons.

My teacher in 1976 had one of these Mk1s. I knew of them as a “boutique” amp built to do things a Fender could not do. These seem to be worthy of complete overhaul to at least benefit from quality components and workmanship. I agree that the graffiti is not worth a damn. I still swear by my Fender Princeton Reverb, but enjoy seeing this ghost of my distant past revitalized.

When was this VibroKing manufactured please ?

Love your puppy dups mate! Give him a pat & a scratch on the head for me!

Pretty thorough job Chris! You tried to think of all the potential problems with this amp. It's called 'preventative maintenance'. Good stuff! They used lacing twine in Telecom years ago too. They taught us 'lacing stitch', not 'self-undoing stitch', as they called them back then. To keep everything laced in, they'd make us lace in other lengths of the waxed nylon twine along the run to lace up the 'branches'. We'd have to tie a 'constrictor knot' at the beginning of the lacing run, so it would not come undone, being sort of slippery from the wax. They never called it a constrictor knot back then, but my searching has actually confirmed the name. Just TRY to undo a tightly tied constrictor knot! - Ya gotta cut through it! I've managed somehow (?) to have a coupla big rolls of that very same lacing twine here at home! Ssshhh! Amazing stuff; you can't tear it off like electrical tape! - You'll deeply cut yourself! I've laced up a few looms on gear I've built, & even split the twine into thinner halves on the narrower looms, as it can flatten out to almost 3mm wide, which looks overdone. - Still you can't break it though! Ya gotta cut it or melt it! While we're not talking about cable ties, & after you heat tested your threaded nylon standoffs to 360° or whatever it was, I was a little puzzled as to why you didn't just use a nylon cable tie around that pair of 5W resistors, instead of contact glue? You'd just done the proof-of-concept experiment! As far as component leads 'clinched over' on the copper side of the board before soldering, I think it's a good idea. Regardless if it's a pita to replace the component. It gives extra mechanical stability to the joint, as well as more surface area of the component's lead actually soldered. When I built a pcb, I always 'clinch' component leads, except I.C's & sometimes TO-220 power devices. For neatness, I try to bend as close to parallel to the board as possible, & at 45°or 315° to the edge, whichever is most suitable to not have clinched leads shorting on each other. It looks quite neat too, & less kinda 'random'. I do this in preference to bending ' back down towards the track' as you do. - But I get where you're coming from though! I guess in that way I sacrifice a little bit of longevity for neatness! - Just a little though, cos I've never ever had a fault in anything I built or repaired as a result of a dry joint! Yep, those big old 'soldapullit' solder suckers definitely do a good job mate! I've just gotta remember to 'reload' mine over my solder 'ashtray' (a sardine tin with a felt base & a bunch of splashed [ashed] solder in it for weight), as it can spray out little flakes of solder about! Actually Jaycar sells a beige version, & new teflon tips too! - or they used to. I gotta agree with you on the solder braid too. Way too easy to overheat & lift tracks of the board with it. I find it useful sometimes when replacing SMD's (which you said you don't do), when I tin the pad then to get the pad nice & flat again for the new part. I've gotta cut the used part of the braid off very often though, as one false move not melting all the solder in contact with the braid & board will also rip fricken tracks off! Grrr! I'm old school as far as flux goes though. I use the honey type paste stuff. The pens never seem to apply enough for my liking. I'd rather apply too much & just exhale while generating all the smoke, then clean up with an I.P.A. soaked toothbrush/rag afterwards. The lid of my flux was nearly always fricken glued to the mofo jar, cos the flux goes so sticky, so I now just place an oversized plastic lid on top of the jar, & the adhesion of the flux shit securely holds the lid on till I break the seal to use the stuff! That's a nice looking ESR tester you've got there - with variable test frequencies & all! - Noice! I built the 'Silicon Chip' ESR meter in the cheap-ass jiffy box with the two 7 segment 1/2" led displays & a pushbutton. But it works a treat! It measures down to .01 ohms, but at only one frequency, at which I'm not sure. Did you clean the valve sockets? I never saw you do that. Have you seen those tiny little 'bottlebrush' type cleaners you can get for cleaning your teeth? They're called 'Pickers', or that's the brand. You can getem from Coles, & even more sizes from chemists. They're ideal for cleaning valve-pin sockets, with a dash of I.P.A on them. I love your idea of using dividers to set up & bend capacitor leads! I'm gonna steal that one! Actually I just bought a coupla metal nail files from Coles this arvo for cleaning contacts, as you suggested. At $2.50 each I bought two! - Gotta be one of the cheapest tools on my bench! Very handy to clean up my polystyrene military model parts too! Sorry bout the rant. I've gotta get a life! Actually I've gotta get a job! Too young to retire yet really.

I have often wondered why DC current is not used for indirectly heated valves/tubes? Surely this alone would lower hum levels? Fraser

Im struggling with this amp. I find it best with a distortion pedal reverb and delay with the volume and tone at 10 0'clock Im using it in a soundproof music room playing at higher volumes and wearing music earplugs sounds great Has a great smooth growl But take the ear plugs out to hear it as the audience would.. not so good Its tone is too bright or kind of brassy not pleasing Im currently swapping the distortion pedals around to see what improvements I can get Currently I find a friedman be100 seems to work best as it has tone controls and a tight knob Now Im wondering if a better speaker might help. But once you get to speaker swap outs your really struggling Using a fender strat custom shop have tried les pauls richenbacher and custom tele with humbuckers. I find the strat works best because there are more pickup combinations

Excellent videos! Fenders are very good, only concern I have is tubes/valves operating upside down! It must shorten their life and toast the caps and resistors etc above them! Any comments! Fraser!

You da Man, Chris. Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom. Keep those old electronics alive; do it right; do it with integrity; attention to detail; no shortcuts!

Hey Chris, great to see another one of your master tech videos..! Tips and expert info, just fab.. Nice bit of rocking out to Jimi..Take care..Ed..uk..😊

Tried ta thumbs up ya, but it wouldn't let me! WTF? Good job Chris!

Good explanation Chris! I was thinking the dropping resistor would go in after the rectifier, & before the first filter capacitor. But you've installed it before the rectumfrier. Fair enough! I guess pre-rect is more suitable than after huh? Thinkin about it, before the rect would reduce the effective AC waveform reaching the rect., so it would have more of a valve-sag sound. Is that right?

Good job mate! Looks like you've done all the standard reliability improvements to keep this girl goin for years n years! I like the earthing improvements you've done; self-tappers for earth leads you're bloody kidding! Those Webbers are sposed to be about the best ay, so this customer is gonna be very happy with his amp. Sydney huh? I'm only about an hour's drive north of ya!

Maybe in India or Japan.

Hey Chris another detailed great video. I used to own a '77 2203 bought back new from the UK by my long suffering parents while on a holiday. Bought from Macaris London for the princely sum of around $240 AUD. Unbelievable I know but that was the price back then. Regretted selling it years later for a decent profit but really what can you do with a 100W fire breathing monster of an amp for playing around the house once your gigging days are done?

Top gun and jimi in the same video, awesome mate😎.

Fenders are very good amps! Only thing I don’t like is the upside down chassis! Valves operated like this going to shorten their life and toast the components sitting above! I.e. Capacitors,resistors etc! Any views on this? Fraser

Hi Chris, great video as always. Are you really sure the JMP 2204 and early JCM 800 2204 are different. I have to look into my JCM , but I think the pcb looks almost the same. Greetings from Germany Markus

That Strat is amazing.And as a 54 year old guy,I agree theses 7o's JMP were the epitome of marshall.

Hi Chris, my good man! So great to see this video! When I start working on electronic noise issues, I start with a 'ground' up.approach. In the world of audio ground noise issues, reducing and isolating the DC ground resistances are very often the root cause of the issue. Inductance is not a significant factor at audio frequencies. Your analysis and implementation in a JMP-50 is the best part of this video (for me). And yes, Jimi with a Marshall and a Stratocaster is the ultimate test for this amp! Yea, he did not play JCM 800 amps. Congratulations on this video and you guitar playing!

Hi Chris, Denmark on the line....this were very informative videos for me, as I have two of the original Vibro-Kings that I try to maintain myself. They're both with 6V6 reverb drivers but born with different speakers (one Blue Eminence, the other Jensen Reissue) and there's small differences in the circuit, as they were revised a few times over the years...one only came with a single button footswitch for FAT, not a button for vibrato as the later versions. I have recapped both with F&T's all over the place and had som serious battles with hiss and noise at higher volumes, and various... The Vibro-Kings are like race cars and you need to keep an eye on them all the time - and quite some even give up on them because of reliability. But when they work, they're about the best sounding amps ever made...touch sensitive, three dimensional sounding and a reverb to die for. I also have two '66 Super Reverbs, Super Six Reverb, Dual Showman etc... and I know my way around in those classic amps, but like you show here, the Vibro-King is another animal - so for a guy like me that are not very good with schematics, your explanations of the circuit was very velcome, and I'm glad that I came across your videos....even though, I don't have any problems right now :-) But it made me want to open them up just to check some stuff.... Oh, and I also have one of the matching 2x12" cabinets.... but to me the 3x10 combo sounds better on its own... Thanks, Bjarne

Another fantastic video Chris. Thanks a lot. Rookie question. Why take the grounds to two separate stars instead of just one. Would that not be even better ? Cheers

?Where did you purchase the 3 connection star ground terminals? Thanks

Is it the resistance of the steel that causes the noise when they go directly to the chassis? Would this still be a problem with an aluminum chassis?

Good one Chris! I heard or read somewhere that the piano wire link between the pots was mainly to stop them rotating if their mounting nuts became loose? But I'm not sure. Does that link wire separately connect to chassis earth? - I couldn't see. What wattage iron do you use to solder the earth wires to the chassis? I bought an 80W iron from ole mate Jaycar electronics, which was the highest power iron they make, hoping it would be enough. I used to have a 250W iron with a 1 inch diameter copper tip! - Which unfortunately got incinerated when a firestorm burnt my sheds down, & nearly my house along with them. Those Vishay metal films sound like a great choice mate! - As do the fnt (?) filter caps. I like your idea of grinding down a metal nail file for the phone jack contacts. We won't tell the missus! Shshh! That original V1 was definitely kangaroo Edward, as well as not knowing the words! Did I miss the the point where you said a bit of assymetry gave nicer 2nd harmonics, but then you said the 27% difference in bias was no good? I missed the nuance there! Loose bolts all over the place was a bit of a surprise, but good thing you checked em & tightened em! Maybe a bit of nail polish might help ya reckon? Nicely done overall & you should have another very happy customer! Liked the "back in black" & "baby please don't go" sound test! - Noice!

I have a clone JMP 50 built here in NZ. Sounds great, but I am always looking for improvements or tweaks to taste. Grounding is something I'll check now. Cheers. So far all I have changed is I've split the shared V1 cathode, so it has the 0.68uF and 2.7K setup on V1b. I have also tried changing that coupling cap between the first two tubes. 0.0022uF instead of 0.022uF. I am not sure I'll keep it that way, plus I like the look of the mustard caps it came with. I've also tried various bright cap values. All pretty basic stuff. Maybe the biggest improvement was had by trying the various preamp tubes I have. Just looking for the least noisy combinations of them in all three slots. That and sourcing some tube shields for them helped with noise. I'd like to find a good 7025 tube. Supposed to be very quiet in V1 but still sound good. Once I got the preamp noise down, the presence control is less prone to oscillation when everything is turned up (still scratchy though, but that's normal for this design apparently). Power valves are Mullard reissue EL34. Seem pretty good so far. I have a pair of those old Sylvania 6CA7s like Van Halen used. Last time I checked they were barely within matched, so I do not like using them, plus I do not want to use them up for everyday use, because they are very rare now. It did not have a head cabinet. I ordered one from Ceriatone, but it does not look right. Ones that do look right from the USA tend to cost almost as much in shipping as the cabinet itself. Stuff that. Not sure what to do. Sometimes I think about converting it to 2204 spec, but then I think nah. Having a good sounding Plexi is nice to have, so why change it to something else is what I think. Then i toy with the idea of build a MKII master volume amp. A little above my pay grade yet, so i think I should build a 5F1 amp instead.

Good job Frend.

Did you end up changing the el34s?

My next amp is going to be one of these, or a 2203. Gotta be a JMP, my favorite Marshall aesthetic by far.

Great job my friend. I have always been able to improve the noise floor on older Marshall’s by improving the grounding in much the way you did it. Cheers.

I bought the combo version of this amp new in 1977. I was new to the guitar and it was my first tube amp. Sadly, in 1978, I sold it to buy a solid state amp with more bells and whistles. Though I still have and use the amp I replaced it with, selling that 2104 is something I really regret. Not to mention that now it would be worth 5 times what I paid for it in 1977. Glad to see some still out there and being taken care of.

interesting you grounded the middle and presence pots to the reservoir cap ground. i never tried that. What would be the difference grounding those near the pots on a ground lug to chassis? (not to drill a hole for this amp as it is vintage)

They're a fantastic circuit!. Jolly good show, legend!

Hey Chris, where are the screen resistors? 33 minutes into the video and I keep looking but I just don’t see them. Are they hidden?

A beauty. What's your experience with those impedence switches? I've seen them for a good price but didn't know if they could handle current.. I've tried the alpha ones as well, and they worked, but then I read they also are questionable. There's a 20 dollar switch I've used as well, but I don't particularly like spending all that much if i don't have to.

Hi Les. Yes, it's good to be doing another video. I have been so squashed with repairs that the videos have taken a back seat until I am more caught up. Thank you for asking about my daughter. We’re all going well, thank you God! I use a chopstick to hold the wire in the solder puddle to make the best connection. Some insulation gets a bit soft when using the high-heat soldering iron. It’s a sound connection.

It's great to see you back making videos Chris. I hope you and your daughter are OK. Another great video. It looks like your soldered earth lead got squashed a bit!

One two of the reasons I watch your videos is you are very good and I get a kick out of your deep down under south Australian demeanor and speech accent. And is slightly salty at times with good humor.

Thyats bettah.

Never seen one before. Nice video!

hi Chris great information on cross over distortion.

Great work. I had an older HRD that had the +/- 15V dropping resistor overheating and noisy channel switching along with an ultra-sonic oscillation at about 22 KHz that was sensitive to presence control setting (negative feedback) and tube socket flex circuit positioning. It required adding series resistance in the tube grid circuits to kill which was not easy. I think we all should be more vigilant in routinely checking the output with a wideband scope.

Nice job! Would’ve been fantastic to hear the handwired ‘64 DR in comparison. Maybe it wasn’t available at the time. Thx for the great comparo.

Great video and explanation Chris. At 58:50, the 2 tubes magically insert themselves.

soddering iron, snozzoramus!