Reverb in Old Studio .22

[jbal122819]

My early 80's Studio Combo has no reverb tank in the bottom, I assume it's chassis mounted near the power tubes because there are many vent holes (without taking it apart). The Reverb sound sucks big time so I always leave it off because it's so noisy.
Is there an easy way of installing a new tank in the floor of the Combo and disconnecting/bypassing the old tank ? Or at least to kill the old tank - the amp is a bit noisy - less so when the reverb control is all the way off ??
All ideas welcome

 

[bartchamdoh]

Older Boogies are prone to many reverb related prolems such as dirty jack sockets which can cause noise and even distortion or loss of signal.The thing is that the reverb in many of the older mark and studio caliber amps was never good to start with and rather than try to sort it out i recomend removing the reverb tank, spraying the jacks with electrical contact spray (such as servisol) and using a good reverb pedal in the fx loop(the holy grail pedal is quite cheap and will sound better than your amps reverb) I have found that removing the reverb tray in Mark series amps is better as sometimes the tank stop the amp sitting on extension cabs properly....Hope this helps.

 

[laptop44]

I have a 88 Mesa .50 Caliber head with the small internal reverb unit. As others have said, the reverb is not the greatest. Had to max out at 10 to get any decent sound when in drive.

After reading so many posts on the subject I decided to do the following.

1) Change the preamp tubes with a matched quad with the highest gain possible for the reverb socket and a balanced tube for the phase. Got the JJ's 12AX7 from EuroTubes. About $45. Sprayed all the pots/jack inputs with contact cleaner. do not forget the back loop inputs!

2) Removed the chassis and took out the toy sized reverb unit. Called Accutronics and spoke to their main tech/engineer who was familiar with the Mesa brand and reverb problems. He gave me the part # for a longer 3 spring reverb tank that I installed on the outside of the head. Not really hard to do if handy with solder gun. Installed RCA cables instead of hard wiring to circuit board
Cost $35

Results: Although I knew it was not going to be a big difference or sound like a Twin Reverb, the improvements did make a noticeable difference on the reverb delay and depth. The new tank was the main improvement. Now the clean channel reverb setting is lower and for the gain channel it can be set at 8.

I also changed the EL84 power tubes at the same time with new Mesa tubes. I just had the caps replaced as they were bulging slightly. Dont want to take a chance with them leaking The tubes and caps will not impact the reverb. This was for TONE!


Hope this helps.