IIC+ clone boards on ebay

[SonicProvocateur]

http://cgi.ebay.com/MESA-BOOGIE-MARK-2C-TUBE-GUITAR-AMPLIFIER-PCB-BOARDS-/120658505450?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c17ceaeea#ht_4213wt_906

it looks like the preamp, GEQ and main cap boards....no power section by the looks of it...

IIC+ super users, do chime in! one of us should buy one to compare for further use...

 

[msi]

Those boards are based off the MKIII board. They are not exact so there shouldn't be any problem with them being illegal as there are lots of changes to the real board. As to how close it will sound, I don't know. None of the R2 switching is in the signal path so it should be fairly close. But as boogiebabies always says the only way to get the authentic tone is to use the same parts, transformers, boards everything. Having the parts in the right place with the right value gets you 90% of the way there, but the last 10% can be pretty important to some people. Should be closer than a MKIII with the C+ mod though. The sloclone forums has a lot more information though. I still feel you should get the amp though if thats the sound you'd like to have.

 

[SonicProvocateur]

Aha! I was wondering to why it looked like it had so many components. It did seem kinda out of place, the IIC+ lead circuit seemed much more simple than their board, even with R1.

 

[okgb]

Correct me if i'm wrong BUT
i thought some of the mojo of the IIC
was that the lead circuit was divided
between two different tubes ?
[ not two stages from the same tube ]

or after a quick look , Randall in one of the
" white papers " claimed thickness of traces & pcbs
were important for the capacitive reactions between
components [ Hmm he seems too White for Voodu ! ]
i could see that , although nice to confirm it in the Boogie Lab

 

[zebpedersen]

"Made by DK amplification - do not copy or resell this board"

 

[okgb]

Never head of them , is it a good copy of a copy ?
or just a copy ,

 

[msi]

Well I can't comment on the quality of the boards because I haven't seen them I just know a little of the history. As for having extra parts, there is a very long thread over at the sloclone forums where the MKII C+ schematic was compared to the real amps and fixed if there were discrepancies. From that I compared the schematic to my MKIII's pcb. I needed to know what some parts were to fix my personal amp and the MKIII is schematic is illegible. I shared the basic layout I made based on the MKIII and that along with other resources was used to base that board on. Because the basic signal flow of the MKII and MKIII is the same if you omit the changes for R2 mode there shouldn't be extra parts. Some of the capacitors are radial rather than axial due to axial capacitors being expensive.

I don't know exactly everything about the board because I don't know all the changes that were made and I didn't actively help design it or make it.

As for the theory concerning any voodoo in the original amps concerning layout I call bs. While I am not saying that the layout doesn't affect the tone, Randall makes a lot of claims that can't be verified and do fall into the realm of voodoo. There is another quote somewhere where he claims some of the tone of the two channel rectifiers comes from the same capacitive reaction between the power traces and the ground traces. The power traces are kept a decent distance from most of the ground traces so this seems unlikely as well. I like the amps, and I agree there are reasons to get one version from another. But I dislike Mesa's hype machine.

 

[okgb]

I think Boogie was Early in on those " feeling " hype words
like Liquid sustain the black magic of conjuring up images
of great products like black faced fenders [ with a little help
from Aspen and his marketing ] and there was a time where
they wouldn't advertise in Gtr player Mag [ Honest reveiws ? ]

I don't mind buying into some Voodu as long as i'm not being ripped off for it

But I'm trying to work on An early mkIII no strip that i bought in the 80's
Hadn't played it in 10 yrs and when i fired it up , sounded like crap
tried the mods and recaped it , little help . I had recorded examples
where it seem to sound o,k, but not now
So i'm trying to figure out the voodu there !

A new boogie every year like cars ?

 

[msi]

I've played a couple of MKIII's and I have the best of the ones I've played. The first one was like a buzzy fuzz pedal and the most recent two didn't seem to have the gain of mine. I know one was a blue and another was a red but beyond that, don't know what the differences were. Mesa at the time was fairly inconsistent with part selection so it's possible those amps just had lousy parts in them. That's the problem with trying to make an official MKII C+ schematic. One amp may vary in a few places from another amp due to part substitutions.