Alan W
Well-known member
For about ten years my only amp was a TopHat Club Royal, a Vox AC 15 spin off, with 2 12s. (Chris, the designer, typically mixes speakers in his two speaker amps; this has a Weber Blue Dog and a Celestion G12. I bought the amp used, very early 2000s. At the time my main guitar was a ‘62 ES330, which went incredibly well with it. (But it had a thinner, and narrow neck, that I always hated…) In 2008 I decided to sell it, and really turned a lovely profit on it. With my spoils, I bought 2 NEW guitars (rare for me to buy new)—a Collings 290, and an Eastman thin line single pickup jazz box. The 290, especially, sounded just perfect through the TopHat, certainly roots music perfect.
But around 2018 I got Fender clean curious, and ended up building out two with Bill Lawrence micro-coils, and an Allen Encore, his take on a Vibrolux Reverb. I was in clean tone bliss! I’ve hardly used the Tophat. A few weeks ago, I decided to remedy that, but when I went to use it, it sounded awful! There was a fairly loud “mechanical buzz“ that resonated with whatever was going through it. Yesterday I finally had time to tear it apart, expecting to find a loose nut, especially near the Green Dog, since the buzz seemed to be coming from that area.
Nada. Everything was tight, Chris really builds well—all the cabinet screws I pulled were stainless machine screws that went into threaded inserts. I decided to pull the Weber, thinking I might find a tear or something in it—although that seemed odd, since it sounded good prior to being sidelined. Nada.
I put everything back, and played through it. The buzz had slightly lessened, but was still not a viable situation. But, it was still fun, and I played it for maybe 90 minutes, during which time the buzz began to disappear. It’s not totally gone, and really only seems to come from the Weber (which was always how it seemed). Now, I’m trying to figure out what was going on, and my best wild guess involves the voice coil, maybe needing to recenter? or something.
So, TLDR, — have any of you experienced this type of thing, or can suggest what was happening? My plan is to play it the next week, to see what level the buzz ends up at. Part of me is happy that I don’t need a new speaker, but I’m also stumped.
But around 2018 I got Fender clean curious, and ended up building out two with Bill Lawrence micro-coils, and an Allen Encore, his take on a Vibrolux Reverb. I was in clean tone bliss! I’ve hardly used the Tophat. A few weeks ago, I decided to remedy that, but when I went to use it, it sounded awful! There was a fairly loud “mechanical buzz“ that resonated with whatever was going through it. Yesterday I finally had time to tear it apart, expecting to find a loose nut, especially near the Green Dog, since the buzz seemed to be coming from that area.
Nada. Everything was tight, Chris really builds well—all the cabinet screws I pulled were stainless machine screws that went into threaded inserts. I decided to pull the Weber, thinking I might find a tear or something in it—although that seemed odd, since it sounded good prior to being sidelined. Nada.
I put everything back, and played through it. The buzz had slightly lessened, but was still not a viable situation. But, it was still fun, and I played it for maybe 90 minutes, during which time the buzz began to disappear. It’s not totally gone, and really only seems to come from the Weber (which was always how it seemed). Now, I’m trying to figure out what was going on, and my best wild guess involves the voice coil, maybe needing to recenter? or something.
So, TLDR, — have any of you experienced this type of thing, or can suggest what was happening? My plan is to play it the next week, to see what level the buzz ends up at. Part of me is happy that I don’t need a new speaker, but I’m also stumped.
