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This TK Sky King is BUILT DIFFERENT | Rift Workshop Update |
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- Опубликовано: 6 апр 2024
- PLEASE NOTE: This is not a tech channel, but simply a show-and-tell. It is not designed to give advice and support on vacuum tube amplifiers but to show what I get up to each week in the workshop.
I deliberately keep tech talk to a minimum, or at least to a point where it’s understandable to the casual viewer. There are other channels more suited to that level of detail.
I do not do reviews, either paid or unpaid. My opinions are entirely my own and do not represent those of others.
All comments are welcome but those deemed unhelpful, rude, inappropriate, or unsavoury will be reviewed and possibly censored.
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Matamp, Dexter, Sky King, Speaker Cable
Those transformers were made by the new defunct ClassicTone brand. Made the 45th week of 2013, and 25th week of 2013 for the reverb driver. These we OEM made for Tone King.
Thanks for the info 👍
Yeh. I hate that those guys melted down ...
Love that modular design for the valves….what a brilliant idea!
I have an early Sky King like that one. I've not opened up the chassis. Inside it's a work of art!
Love that build style
I seen something about wiring? I see you too are a fan of the wire. I too am a wire junkie. I just spent a whole night wiring a button box for my flight sim and it had 60+ connections that required connecting.
You're absolutely right, no click bait here the construction is crazy! But I also love it, totally endearing 😊
Right?!
It's like they rejected PCBs in favor of tie strips and point-to-point, then looked at even more modern developments and said "but we'll have some of that 3D design and modeling, thanks!" The only real issue is that it's harder as a repairer to follow a 2D schematic when the circuit itself is 3D. It does a great job of keeping wiring runs shorter, and for allowing single modules to be extracted for replacement or repair, and I imagine it also streamlines production that all the fiddly stuff can be done outside the box.
I'm happy with my early TK SkyKing. For what it's worth ....
I got it used so cheaper and it satisfies my bed for shimmery Fender to Plexi times.
These are indeed well built amps despite some peculiarities which seem to be a legacy from some vintage amps.
No complaints. I had it serviced once which all valve amps need occasionally. Smooth sailing.
I call those sub assemblies "component towers". I encounter them in vintage Australian amplifiers like goldentones, they built them like this in the 60s. The tone king implementation looks quite neat and easy to work on, unfortunately the vintage equivalents can be a real pain to swap anything out on
Component Towers - I love it!
looks beautifully made to me.
Electronic art indeed ❤
Thanks for this, am new to your channel and really enjoyed it.
Crazy indeed!
We used to call this method of construction, capstan style. It saves space longitudnally and can help with heat disipation , in some cases.It was used in mobile equipment, because of resistance to vibration and shock!
I've seen something similar in old radio equipment, probably military use. Never seen anything like this in modern amps tho.
Chris, thanks for showing us the guts of these amp builds, they are fascinating.
Have you ever worked on a Burman amp? ( hand built and designed by Gregg Burman in Newcastle area )… these were properly built in the late 70s
I still have mine, a Pro 502 , bought new in 1981 for £319.
If you ever get one in I’d be interested to see what you think of them.
Loving the channel, thank you.
Mike.
I've not had one in the shop for repair or service so couldn't comment. If I ever get one through the door I'll make sure to do a video :)
I have a 2013 Imperial MK II. It's construction is amazing, quite impressive actually.
Lovely build, they got the modular assemblies idea from valve computers where there could be hundreds of valves, but this is a guitar amp and honestly it looks like a solution in search of a problem, especially the filter cap assembly, plenty of room for chassis mount dual or multi cans or better put small modern radial caps at each stage. Overall looks harder to service not easier. Still fun to look at, thanks.
Harder to service if you haven't done it before, perhaps. It's all a matter of familiarity. Being able to take it down to individual elements that can be tested separately should _help_ maintainability, not hurt it. Also, keeping the point to point wiring as short as possible means fewer antennas to pick up stray noise.
Had a 2021 Tone King. Very different inside. Ask Psionic and you will have his opinion. It also had a custommade Celestion. I heard that the older ones were sweeter sounding.Sold mine after 6 months, did not really dig it……..too expensive. Have a blackfaced Silver Face Super Reverb, loveable❤️
TKs from 2016 onwards were built by BAD, completely different animal.
Trying to wrap my mind around this wiring method. Mostly do vintage amps, so have never seen this one. Really thinking outside of the box, would really have to service one to decide.
I bet the first one you work on would suck and you'd hate it, but by the third or fourth one, you'd have come to an understanding with the build philosophy and would be able to use it to your advantage.
You are using a heat gun to shrink the shrink tube, that is nice.
As opposed to what, a hair dryer or a lighter? I've seen both and have used a lighter in a pinch on many occasions.
It’s that well known Brown-Green flip flop tolex
Thanks for this timely video, as I recently opened up my own Sky King just to have a look under the hood, and was likewise impressed and perplexed by the beautiful but rather odd assembly design.
Any ideas about the rationale for this type of construction? I’m speculating that it might facilitate assembly efficiency, by allowing several assemblers to build the amp simultaneously, perhaps each specializing on a different subassembly.
Mark explained his rationale in the launch videos. Something about containing wiring around specific areas - maybe they are still on youtube. The current models are pcb. This was obviously expensive to build and an indication to the direction he was going now w Bartel
It also keeps wiring runs really short to minimize susceptibility to interference.
Good point.
@Rift Amps having looked at the guts, do you think it would be difficult to make some minor tweaks to the circuit? Two that come to mind for me - make the optical tremolo go faster and slower than the OG design, and rework the "Mid-Bite" circuit so it doesn't roll off so much bass at higher settings?
Definitely looks impressive but is there an actual advantage? Does it make circuit tracing or identifying component values and testing more difficult? genuine questions. The layout of the matamp just looks much easier to troubleshoot?
Brown is red and green. Red is more fugitive or fades easier than green so the red faded out and left the green you have there. Old sign painter here
Thanks, Tony!
Would be interesting to see if the tolex on the bottom is green or brown.
Revox G36 Reel to Reel in fully valve building uses such a comparable technique in the early 60th
As Lyle once said overdoing mil spec is violating mil spec. That tone king. Good lord it will be annoying to change any of these components (some wrapped twice around the lugs. Ugh. Not even talking preamp tube sockets...
As I said, working on these is no different than a valve radio from the 40s or 50s. It’s really not difficult at all.
Oh well if Lyle said it, then that's the final word... smh.
@joeltunnah I'm not saying that mate. Just to give credit to his quote.
Any tech will understand
Going beyond “civilian” spec is violating civilian spec….init?😊
I’ve seen stuff on Coast Guard vessels wired like this inside of control benches and the like.
@darrencole1387 Well maybe violating is the wrong word. What I mean is that this increases field service time considerably. Overdoing anything in life is unnecessary. It's all about the balance.
That chassis design, with the hinge and the potentiometers all on their own(removable if necessary) plate is something I hope other builders steal, even if they leave the knobs on the front.
"I can't remember being inside a Sky King" is a great opening line for a smutty sci fi novel.
I realised that as I said it 😂
I would call them Alien Artifacts.
Having been incredibly lucky to be pals with a custom amp builder, I have some amazing unique gear, but still only a passing knowledge of the workings sadly. I am curious about the cone frequency rating.m If I am mixing a song, I would never look for frequencies as low as 75hz from a guitar, I am assuming this is not intended to suggest a goal for low end reproduction by the amp, but affects the frequency range downwards in some relationship as that number goes down? Super fine with being wrong if someone has a good explanation, why I asked.
in your opinion, are the new Sky Kings well made? I mean does an amp have to be point to point to be well made? or can a PCB amp be good?
I've not seen one in person, so couldn't reasonably give an opinion.
Re PCBs...nothing wrong with them, if they're well designed built.
The first batch of the Sky Kings from B.A.D. had some issues, and I believe they have been sending replacement boards to owners to rectify the issue. The current ones being produced should not have the same issues with the new PCB board layout. I would also note that the current production amps have a different Celestion speaker that was made for Tone King, and not the original spec Creambacks (most likely to cut costs). I have also heard that at least some of the B.A.D. amps were shipped with different power tubes than the original spec and it resulted in the bear claws on the tube socket touching the glass bottle of the tube instead of digging into the plastic base like they were meant to, causing some of these tubes to fail over time. Obviously that is an easy fix because you can just put in some original spec TAD 6L6s. My advice would be to get an earlier 20th Anniversary model like shown in this video that were built by P.B.G. Not only was the construction to the spec of the original designer Mark Bartel at that time, but they had pine cabinets that add extra resonance and make the amp lighter.
WOW! Insane build quality in the Tone King but does it actually benefit the signal path in any way?
I doubt it hinders the signal path, if that’s what you’re really asking?
I meant by reducing noise / hum & is there any benefit to reducing overheating to certain components 👍👍
there's always a benefit in reducing overheating...
I was wondering the same thing, but ultimately, it looks like it's more likely to increase lead length on critical nets. Is that the end of the world? Probably not.
with that matamp... the backing reads to bias in volts. not 10x volts.
unless there someone has fiddled with the amp (changed bias testing resistors) or there is something inside or on datasheet saying different, that is pretty bad labelling. test at the wrong voltage.
It uses 10r resistors to measure Ik, so the labelling is correct.
what make where those brown wire strippers?
I bought them from RS Components, #613-044
The issue I see is that all the heat from the tubes will flow upward, toward the PCBs. While the design is unique, I believe the arrangement will cause premature component failures.
That’s true of every chassis with vertical hanging tubes and it’s not the issue that you’d think it is.
He’s developed his ideas further with Bartel amps, they look nicer to work on now.
Always annoys me that they label the attenuator with db. It's dB arghhh
Don’t get me started on KHz!
@@RiftAmps Alexander Graham Bell and Herr Hertz are raging! Expect revenge 😂
Sub-assemblies.... Modules? Nodules? Clusters?
kindof bizzare for my tastes
It looks like it was made by bloody Daleks.
I wouldn't want it. Unnecessarily complicated. It makes tracing the circuity a bit of a nightmare for a tech savvy owner, or even an experienced tech. Not as bad as some modern multichannel amps that have layers of fragile pad PCBs stacked like pancakes, all the sockets and pots PCB mounted, and all connected by quick connect cables. Better than that junk star brand that makes disposable valve amps too (they have recently improved apparently).
I'd like to see what the fussiest amp tech channel in RUclips has to say about it. That Lyle fella.
most techs would open that chassis and say "nope" i aint touching that
Says a lot about most ‘techs’ then, doesn’t it!
Really? You can get to every component and do more than if it were pcb (not that i an anti pcb). Techs usually prefer this for servicing (not sound which is a different and somewhat religious topic)
What a nightmare ...
£2,800!!! ??????
I think it had to be painted bc it wouldn’t turn green in a uniform way like that from sun or environmental influence…. Without the hidden side also turning color…. While a lazy painter would just not paint the inside…
I'll bet there's a cute girl named, "Penny" inside that Sky King ...
Inches? What is this language you are speaking?
English.
Probably runs cooler 🤷♂️
Super stupid construction
Can you elaborate on that, please?