If your in MO, you should check out Bear Amps aka Bear Hampton, hes in Springfield, mos def worth even a couple hour ride.
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Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out
- Thread starter Korladis
- Start date
If your in MO, you should check out Bear Amps aka Bear Hampton, hes in Springfield, mos def worth even a couple hour ride.
Agreed. STL sucks for decent shops. I know a guy that does some amp stuff. He's modded a few things for me. I think it's a side job for him. Always been a stand up fellow. PM me if you want his info.
How difficult is it to bias one of those old Sunns? I've never done it so I have no idea. If it's somethign where you can just use a DMM and a screwdriver it might be worth it to get the meter and do it yourself.
The 2PRO is super easy to bias, just twist the trimpots until it stops humming and the LEDs light up green. Obviously a 40 year old am doesn't have those luxuries, but I can't imagine it's THAT difficult.
The 2PRO is super easy to bias, just twist the trimpots until it stops humming and the LEDs light up green. Obviously a 40 year old am doesn't have those luxuries, but I can't imagine it's THAT difficult.
I didn't even ask. They use JJs and I didn't want to use JJs.
That's a 7 hour round trip brother. If I had that kind of time and Bear was able to take care of me immediately I would love to take it to him.
I'll have to investigate that. I'd love to learn how to do it myself, but it scares me a bit and I don't want to destroy the amp.
I think you'd have to try pretty hard to destroy the amp. You'd need to take the normal safety precautions because you'll be working on a live amp, but from what I can tell most of the old Sunns had bias pots inside, you'd just need to figure out where to put the probes. If you set bias wrong you'll probably know, it'll be humming like crazy and not running normally, but I doubt it would kill the amp.
There's a few different Sunn forums out there, I'd start digging there and see what you can find.
There's a few different Sunn forums out there, I'd start digging there and see what you can find.
The 22nd or so this month was my 14th year with this company (worked for the San Jose division since 1998 before changing hands). We used to be able to cash out unused vacation. Now I can't complain. It's been nice taking time off. Plus you can't beat a salary+OT scenario... For this trip I'm going to start billing hours soon as I leave the driveway to the airport and will not clock out till I hit the hotel. Plus the OT pushes the 15days of vacation to a little more each fiscal year.
I'm off on a vacation day today... hang with my daughter. We think the Batman vs Superman movie is in order.
I'm off on a vacation day today... hang with my daughter. We think the Batman vs Superman movie is in order.
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Not only am I in the exact same boat, I was about to buy a set of Gold Lions from that same vendor. Best price I could find on the GLs. I also decided to spring and bought a Bias-Rite from Weber speakers so I could do it myself. They're $137, but using the code SSS10 you get about $12 off. It's a bit of cash upfront, but in the long run it means I can just buy tubes and do the biasing myself. I've been reading up on biasing, with Sunns it looks pretty straight forward. The bias adjustment is in the "jack" between the power tubes, and with the bias-rite you just need to read the plate voltage and idle current in mA and use some real basic calculations to figure out where you need to set it, if my understanding is correct. I'm still doing more reading on it before I set about actually doing it.
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THAT's what that jack is for! I always wondered what the hell that thing was when I had my Sentura II. Glad I never plugged anything into it, haha!
The old Sunns, like old Ampegs, are pretty tanky, from what I've heard. Once the death switch is removed, they should stand up to a lot of error.
How much did you spend on the tubes? What a bunch of sleazes. My dude asks what tubes people want when he's doing a retube.
Anybody know the difference between the DOD Ice Box and Deep Freeze? I hear that the Deep Freeze is just a modified Ice Box. Is it just caps or something? Can find Ice Boxes cheap, but would like a Deep Freeze.
From what I understand, the Deep Freeze is just an Ice Box that's more suited for bass and has a blend control.
I paid $175 shipped for a matched quad of Genelex Gold Lion KT88s. It's the best price for those tubes that I've found. Even cheap KT88s are still like $125 for four. I was originally looking for something in between the cheaper tubes and Gold lions, usually $230-240 a quad. When I found that most tubes in between those price points were like $150-160, the jump to GLs at $175 wasn't really a question. They are supposedly the ideal tubes for a 2000s. I just wanted some killer glass.
I'm pretty disappointed with St. Louis amp repair options. I am sure there are great techs in town. I just don't want to be taken advantage of.
Also, NPD. The Reagan fuzz is super cool. It's a civil war muff. A nice change from the Iron Fist, a Rams head. The IF is obviously more tweakable but the Reagan definitely pulls it's weight. I think I like civil war muffs more than Rams heads. It would be super cool to see a civil war with the tweak options of the IF.
Yeah, they're pretty stout. I've run them at ohm ratings that certainly aren't what they're supposed to see (I believe I ran a 200s at 2Ω once) and never had them show any issues. I did have a PI tube go in the 200s, but I don't think that was related. Other than that I've had very few issues (the 1200s motorboating after shipping, noise indicating the need for new valves)
I think my band works better when we've got less time.
Last Tuesday everyone was late and suddenly we had 1,5 hour of practice instead of 2,5. We've nailed our two finished songs perfectly and finished the third one and had some time to spare and shoot some BS.
Last Tuesday everyone was late and suddenly we had 1,5 hour of practice instead of 2,5. We've nailed our two finished songs perfectly and finished the third one and had some time to spare and shoot some BS.
Jeez, expensive, especially in addition to the cost of labor you were getting quotes at.
I never go with anything fancy for the power tubes. I'm just going to destroy them anyway. :/
I just don't think I could have a picture of Reagan on my pedalboard.
