Soldano uses PCB in production. I've seen a turret build at the Sloclone forum and the guy said it's dead quiet. So it's possible, but a lott more work to do.
PCB also offers some nice advantages in reliability and repeatability. You can get a stable layout that avoids oscillations or cross talk, then mass produce it. I have hand made some higher gain amps and they require some more fine tuning attention.
A relatively significant part of what's being done with the higher value cathode and plate resistors is restricting the amount of current thru those preamp tubes... Biasing them cold... It makes them break up earlier, it's about the same thing going on in a lot of fuzz pedals... I feel like nobody talks about that because it's contradictory to the nomenclature of "high gain"... In a lot of cases you're not increasing voltage gain by a whole hell of a lot but you're increasing harmonic generation... This is a good video tho and I'm glad you touched on those components some... I'm not sure if a second part to this ever came out or not but if it hasn't yet you could touch on that 🤷
Awesome demo. Love that you actually took the time to explain what each component does and how it does it, why it does it. I had an Egnaters rebel 20 that felt alot like the Soldano in this breakdown. Id really love to see a breakdown of the rebel 30 mkII. I think that circuit has alot of potential to become one hell of an amp so if love to see a breakdown of it. Even some of Bruce's older stuff would be awesome cuz it's the foundation of all these Soldano, bogner, Egnater and a couple others... They all worked together in 1 company at one point and it's like they all 5 had slightly different ideas and directions to take the company so they all split off rather than continue together and build everyone's at the same time. The jet city amps are related to these as well, BUGERA... Alot of modern boutique builders use the clever cap resistor placement to build up, shape then release method. Thank you for explaining this so clearly. Be safe man
One question I have on the cold clipper is that its asymmetric clipping before the tone controls. That will have even and odd order harmonics, which will sound complex, aggressive and maybe harsh. Then the tone controls have to balance between a bright clean tone and taming the fizz/ice-pick of that asymmetric distortion. It looks like maybe the capacitors used for the voicing help deal with that. But I wonder if there are cases where multiple cold clippers are used to leverage the phase inversion to get more symmetric clipping?
I have not seen multiple cold clipper stages. That is an interesting idea. It might be counter productive as at that point you might as well just use a more standard gain stage. Not all high gain amps use a cold clipper. It is definitely a feature that you would intentionally choose for its characteristics.
Another question is given all that asymmetric preamp tube clipping before the master volume, isn't the holy grail symmetric poweramp clipping? Or is this asymmetric clipping part of the nature of modern high-gain amps?
thats the endless debate between preamp gain voiced amps and oldschool non master volume amps, where the gain is comming from all of the stages lit. The feel between these two types are very different, but listening to recording, you might no hear it at all.
Asymmetric and symmetric clipping is definitely a matter of personal preference and taste. While the lineage of the Bassman into Plexi into JCM800 into the Soldano is a very nice way to track the evolution of high gain - there are many other ways to skin the cat. Many Mesa Boogie amps do not use a cold clipper. Dumble doesn't. A Dumble ODS type circuit can also be fairly high gain - but it is very smooth and refined. By not using a cold clipper and the way they shape EQ by using capacitors in certain locations you get a fair bit of treble attenuation in key locations.
Hey, love these analysis videos! Would you please do a ToneKing Imperial? I know it's like a mix of a tweed deluxe (lead channel) and a deluxe reverb, but curious what are the differences (in particular the mid-bite knob on the lead channel). You can find the schematic by Google-ing it (I could not link a URL).
Thanks for the good analysis. According to the Soldano SLO-100 scheme You can see that the clean channel signal is added to the overdrive signal when you use OD mode. Is it so?
The value of the resistance from the pot works with the value of the capacitor to form a high pass or low pass filter. Change the value of the pot and you change the frequency of the filter. I recommend downloading the Tone Stack Calculator and you can experiment with those changes and see what it will do.
Say, I was looking out of curiosity a Mesa Mark series preamp schem, and I hear the clean signal is always on. I look and it seems the case, so my question is: Why this signal is not so loud that it cloud the drive one? I understand must go to the high gain circuit, but how come the remain doesnt go louder? is cuz some resistence that send it to ground? or the other way around? Im confuse
Hi Kley, i have a question regarding minute 12 where your talking about the capacitors from cathodes to ground to make low end more tight. Why do you think, this is not done in the normal channel? I feel like on a lot of amps the bass falls off when switching from normal to drive channel.
@@KleyDeJong Thank you very much! Any ideas for tracing back a noname modded amp, when on the input jack resistor is supposed to be a 80 something kohm resistor, but it measures at 34k? Do these markings matter at all and if the value is not correct, do I have to change to a new component? It's like a 50+ year old amp, was there a color code change since?
Hi kley Ma-noo-sha is nice. What do you think about the DC circuit that is used to power the heater of this amp. I know nothing about them I was hoping maybe you knew something about a DC powered heater circuit in a audio amplifier. Pro and cons? Thanks for your time JM
![Hunxho - Ball Forever [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nki9ZTF9Uls/mqdefault.jpg)
Soldano uses PCB in production. I've seen a turret build at the Sloclone forum and the guy said it's dead quiet. So it's possible, but a lott more work to do.
PCB also offers some nice advantages in reliability and repeatability. You can get a stable layout that avoids oscillations or cross talk, then mass produce it. I have hand made some higher gain amps and they require some more fine tuning attention.
A relatively significant part of what's being done with the higher value cathode and plate resistors is restricting the amount of current thru those preamp tubes... Biasing them cold... It makes them break up earlier, it's about the same thing going on in a lot of fuzz pedals... I feel like nobody talks about that because it's contradictory to the nomenclature of "high gain"... In a lot of cases you're not increasing voltage gain by a whole hell of a lot but you're increasing harmonic generation... This is a good video tho and I'm glad you touched on those components some... I'm not sure if a second part to this ever came out or not but if it hasn't yet you could touch on that 🤷
Awesome demo. Love that you actually took the time to explain what each component does and how it does it, why it does it. I had an Egnaters rebel 20 that felt alot like the Soldano in this breakdown. Id really love to see a breakdown of the rebel 30 mkII. I think that circuit has alot of potential to become one hell of an amp so if love to see a breakdown of it. Even some of Bruce's older stuff would be awesome cuz it's the foundation of all these Soldano, bogner, Egnater and a couple others... They all worked together in 1 company at one point and it's like they all 5 had slightly different ideas and directions to take the company so they all split off rather than continue together and build everyone's at the same time. The jet city amps are related to these as well, BUGERA...
Alot of modern boutique builders use the clever cap resistor placement to build up, shape then release method. Thank you for explaining this so clearly. Be safe man
One question I have on the cold clipper is that its asymmetric clipping before the tone controls. That will have even and odd order harmonics, which will sound complex, aggressive and maybe harsh. Then the tone controls have to balance between a bright clean tone and taming the fizz/ice-pick of that asymmetric distortion. It looks like maybe the capacitors used for the voicing help deal with that. But I wonder if there are cases where multiple cold clippers are used to leverage the phase inversion to get more symmetric clipping?
I have not seen multiple cold clipper stages. That is an interesting idea. It might be counter productive as at that point you might as well just use a more standard gain stage. Not all high gain amps use a cold clipper. It is definitely a feature that you would intentionally choose for its characteristics.
Awesome video, thanks so much for the nice explanation and references to the underlying circuits like Plexi and JCM - keep em coming!
Another question is given all that asymmetric preamp tube clipping before the master volume, isn't the holy grail symmetric poweramp clipping? Or is this asymmetric clipping part of the nature of modern high-gain amps?
thats the endless debate between preamp gain voiced amps and oldschool non master volume amps, where the gain is comming from all of the stages lit.
The feel between these two types are very different, but listening to recording, you might no hear it at all.
Asymmetric and symmetric clipping is definitely a matter of personal preference and taste. While the lineage of the Bassman into Plexi into JCM800 into the Soldano is a very nice way to track the evolution of high gain - there are many other ways to skin the cat. Many Mesa Boogie amps do not use a cold clipper. Dumble doesn't.
A Dumble ODS type circuit can also be fairly high gain - but it is very smooth and refined. By not using a cold clipper and the way they shape EQ by using capacitors in certain locations you get a fair bit of treble attenuation in key locations.
Great analysis. Learned a several things about high gain I’ve been searching for.
Hey, love these analysis videos! Would you please do a ToneKing Imperial? I know it's like a mix of a tweed deluxe (lead channel) and a deluxe reverb, but curious what are the differences (in particular the mid-bite knob on the lead channel). You can find the schematic by Google-ing it (I could not link a URL).
I’d love to see the Peavey Classic series. Would be curious if they share any similarities with “real” classic amps!
@@rustyhighlander786 I hadn’t heard of the Bravo before! I’ll definitely check that out!
Nice content as always. How about a Soldano SLO vs. an early Mesa rectifier and modern rectifiers for next ep
Good idea, I will look into it.
Spoiler: The preamp is pretty much identical. Stolen, some would say…
Great video! Would love to see you go through a Trainwreck Express circuit
Thanks for the good analysis. According to the Soldano SLO-100 scheme
You can see that the clean channel signal is added to the overdrive signal when you use OD mode. Is it so?
Consider going to the opposite end of the spectrum with super clean amp like the Hiwatt DR103?
How changing the gain pot from 500k to 250k or to 1M will affect the overall sound?
The value of the resistance from the pot works with the value of the capacitor to form a high pass or low pass filter. Change the value of the pot and you change the frequency of the filter. I recommend downloading the Tone Stack Calculator and you can experiment with those changes and see what it will do.
Would you do a video on Marshall YJM 100? I’d be really curious.
Say, I was looking out of curiosity a Mesa Mark series preamp schem, and I hear the clean signal is always on. I look and it seems the case, so my question is: Why this signal is not so loud that it cloud the drive one? I understand must go to the high gain circuit, but how come the remain doesnt go louder? is cuz some resistence that send it to ground? or the other way around? Im confuse
Hi Kley,
i have a question regarding minute 12 where your talking about the capacitors from cathodes to ground to make low end more tight.
Why do you think, this is not done in the normal channel?
I feel like on a lot of amps the bass falls off when switching from normal to drive channel.
With a clean tone you can have more low end. Less gain = less mush. But when you increase the gain you have to keep things under control.
Ok, thank you for information!
Correct me, Coupling cap is used to block dc and allows ac through, what is the effect of the changing of its value?
@@zabtej1645 You can use a higher value to trim some low end. Like a 0.1 uf would be more bass than a 0.022 uf.
@@KleyDeJong Thank you very much! Any ideas for tracing back a noname modded amp, when on the input jack resistor is supposed to be a 80 something kohm resistor, but it measures at 34k? Do these markings matter at all and if the value is not correct, do I have to change to a new component? It's like a 50+ year old amp, was there a color code change since?
Hi kley Ma-noo-sha is nice. What do you think about the DC circuit that is used to power the heater of this amp. I know nothing about them I was hoping maybe you knew something about a DC powered heater circuit in a audio amplifier. Pro and cons? Thanks for your time JM
DC heaters are a bit more complex, but can be great for reducing hum which is a big concern in high gain amps.
I wouldn't use the main b+ for heaters. I would look to rectify a different tap for dc heaters, probably the ac heater supply.
So the tonestack is after the FX loop? Doesn't that color your post effects? :O
@@GoudVis56667 No and no
Very interesting
Do you make schematics for amps?
Yes I do. I can talk more in depth if you email me at kleysquestions@gmail.com
Engl… what if anything makes them different.
drink a glass of water before recording..you wont be swallowing your spit every 30 seconds great video otherwise
What???