Hi all;
New member and first post... Nice to be among Boogie-philes.
I have owned a studio preamp (along with a 50/50 power amp) since the late 80's, and have always loved the smooth, singing lead tone. I was less happy with the somewhat loose, fuzzy lower end in the lead channel, but it was an OK compromise for what I was doing, and the presence knob on the 50/50 helped somewhat...
I had some problems with the rig recently, and upon opening up the preamp discovered that the spring reverb was in bad shape, one loose spring rolling around (hence the problems I was having), and another that was broken. After verifying that everything else was working properly, I ordered a replacement reverb tank, and whiled away the time for delivery looking into doing the IIc+ mod. I finally decided to give it a try, because I had read that the low end tightened up somewhat.
Well, I just completed the work, and in testing the result, I have to say the difference is pretty striking. The low end is much bigger, and the tone is more reminiscent of an older Marshall's kind of grunty quality. The gain at the same settings is lower, and I will need to re-work some settings to regain that singing lead tone (which I believe is still there), but its a lot weightier tone. I never really used the EQ before, but it might be necessary now to re-balance the spectrum more towards the way I like it.
One thing is that I think this amp will record better - It always sounded great, but a little thin mic'ed up, but this default tone should really sound full. I'm looking forward to experimenting with it in the coming weeks.
The new reverb tank sounded OK, a little tinny I thought, but I am not a big spring reverb guy, so I am probably not the best judge. After all, I didn't know the old tank was broken until the loose spring started shorting things out so that should tell you how often I used it
FYI for reference, I run the rig into a Boogie Road-Ready 4x12 loaded with old greenback Celestions I salvaged out of an old Marshall cabinet I used to have. The prominent low end I got was a surprise given those greenbacks I have to say, they are not the heaviest sounding things around - think late 60's early 70's rock guitar tones. I love 'em though...
All this to say, if you are considering doing this modification, or having it done by someone else, be prepared for a big change in default tone. If you love that out of the box singing lead tone, I would think twice before having this done. Of course, its pretty easy to reverse the rework, but I hate to do too much desoldering / resoldering etc - it just leads to damaged PC boards, melted wiring and broken feedthroughs!
I may have inadvertently switched a couple of the tubes around (V3 and 5), and that could also be contributing to the big difference - I can check that out tomorrow...
Anyway, thought I would try to describe the difference with and without the mod in some detail in case anyone was thinking of doing it. UNfortunately, I did not record before / after
New member and first post... Nice to be among Boogie-philes.
I have owned a studio preamp (along with a 50/50 power amp) since the late 80's, and have always loved the smooth, singing lead tone. I was less happy with the somewhat loose, fuzzy lower end in the lead channel, but it was an OK compromise for what I was doing, and the presence knob on the 50/50 helped somewhat...
I had some problems with the rig recently, and upon opening up the preamp discovered that the spring reverb was in bad shape, one loose spring rolling around (hence the problems I was having), and another that was broken. After verifying that everything else was working properly, I ordered a replacement reverb tank, and whiled away the time for delivery looking into doing the IIc+ mod. I finally decided to give it a try, because I had read that the low end tightened up somewhat.
Well, I just completed the work, and in testing the result, I have to say the difference is pretty striking. The low end is much bigger, and the tone is more reminiscent of an older Marshall's kind of grunty quality. The gain at the same settings is lower, and I will need to re-work some settings to regain that singing lead tone (which I believe is still there), but its a lot weightier tone. I never really used the EQ before, but it might be necessary now to re-balance the spectrum more towards the way I like it.
One thing is that I think this amp will record better - It always sounded great, but a little thin mic'ed up, but this default tone should really sound full. I'm looking forward to experimenting with it in the coming weeks.
The new reverb tank sounded OK, a little tinny I thought, but I am not a big spring reverb guy, so I am probably not the best judge. After all, I didn't know the old tank was broken until the loose spring started shorting things out so that should tell you how often I used it
FYI for reference, I run the rig into a Boogie Road-Ready 4x12 loaded with old greenback Celestions I salvaged out of an old Marshall cabinet I used to have. The prominent low end I got was a surprise given those greenbacks I have to say, they are not the heaviest sounding things around - think late 60's early 70's rock guitar tones. I love 'em though...
All this to say, if you are considering doing this modification, or having it done by someone else, be prepared for a big change in default tone. If you love that out of the box singing lead tone, I would think twice before having this done. Of course, its pretty easy to reverse the rework, but I hate to do too much desoldering / resoldering etc - it just leads to damaged PC boards, melted wiring and broken feedthroughs!
I may have inadvertently switched a couple of the tubes around (V3 and 5), and that could also be contributing to the big difference - I can check that out tomorrow...
Anyway, thought I would try to describe the difference with and without the mod in some detail in case anyone was thinking of doing it. UNfortunately, I did not record before / after
