Recent content by LeDuck

Jesus himself only plays a Rickenbacker 4001 because it's the only passive bass (one must be a passivist and turn the other cheek if an active devil bass played through solid state amplification with massive reserves of power has offended you) that can hit the high notes of a Vatican castrati...

Jacob J, Your friend is an idiot. I am an audiophile and degreed biomedical engineering technician. I use only lead free solder in my high end projects because it is much better than 60/40 lead/tin solder. There is no such thing as a ban against using leaded solder in consumer electronics...

My Polk RT5 loudspeakers have internal ports of unequal length in order to get rid of internal resonances. Saying that reflex ports must be equal length means the person doesn't understand loudspeaker design. If you KNOW what you are doing then you can vary the port length. I improved the...

The person to buy tubes from is Andy Bowman of Vintage Tube Services. He is THE premier tube guru and he has a tube testing setup that is without equal. His prices are reasonable and lower than the "California Crazies". He mainly serves audiophiles and studio owners with tube equipment that is...

The price of the practice amp in question is not the least bit expensive if you get what you pay for and you need a high level of quality and the product delivers the goods. Phil Jones Bass products are not really expensive either, if you consider products like PHY-HP from France. Their best...

There are all the powerful and clean solid state class AB power amps you need on the audiopile used market. B&K power amps are especially noteworthy, as John Beyer, the owner of B&K, loved big powerful tube power amps, but not the associated cost and ownership hassles. He designed solid state...

The modern SOTA (state-of-the-art) bass amp in a large venue scenario is a really good preamp into a really good PA system. How is was done way back when means nothing today as the PA systems sucked back then compared to what you have to work with now.

John Beyer of B&K was known for his love of the sound quality of high powered tube amps. He was NOT in love with their high cost, high weight, high heat load, and high maintenance. He developed (back in the early 80's) the ST series of high end audiophile amplifiers that emulated the best...

Paul, I actually have more projects than time. The current project is rebuilding a pair of 11-year-old VMPS Ribbon Monitor 1 loudspeakers that are flat to 32 Hz frequency response. 2x8" graphite coned, phase plugged woofers driving a slot loaded passive radiator. The midrange and tweeter are...

I once had a similar problem on an old Peavey bass head. The culprit was a loose rivet that mounted the transformer. Drilling out the rivets and using real screws, nuts and lock washers solved the problem. You SHOULD be using blue Loc-Tite on the speaker mounting screws on any bass cab you...

Over the weekend I upgraded a Marshall AVT50 with a much better Celestion G12H-80 speaker that was made for modeling amps. That speaker gave such great bass response in an open cab Traynor YCV40 that I thought it might be good for bass in a closed cab Marshall combo amp. One thing I noticed...

Graphite in the neck is the thing for me. No matter how hard and dense and well seasoned the wood, it can't compare to graphite in strength, stability, and consistency of tone and sustain up and down the neck. Euro Spectors are every bit as good as USA Spectors in the neck department, as they...

You probably have too much voltage on your 6550 plates as your B+ is rising to a high level before the cathodes heat up and the tubes begin passing current. B+ will decrease after the cathodes heat up and tubes start passing current. You can hook a voltmeter (rated to 600V minimum) to your B+...

1812: Napoleon's Invasion of Russia by Paul Britten Austen. Hands down, the best history book I have ever read. It was actually released as three previous books, 1812: The March on Moscow, 1812: Napoleon in Moscow, and 1812: The Great Retreat. 425 pages long, with 25 pages more of footnotes...

Bend end of string 90 degrees. Bring string out of slot and wind it OPPOSITE the direction you normally would wind it around the tuning peg for 1/2 turn then bring the string back through the slot and begin winding it in the normal direction. Instead of making a single sharp turn out of the slot...