Asdrael
Well-known member
As all the high voltage people from our thread know, after assembling a SLO30 kit from Rosamp, making my own two channels Deliverance 60 clone, Britney Spears visited me and...
Went on another adventure! Wanted something iconic but way different. So focused my eyes on a Diezel VH4 but I wanted it smaller both physically and in output, less bloated in function, and integrate the most characteristic part of the main revisions on a switch (treble dump before the tone stack basically).
Since I can't just do things without setting my goal way too high for my skill level, made it Ch1 + Ch3, bright switch for the clean, "Shape" switch (the treble dump before the tone stack), DC heaters, relays, series/parallel loop and oops it's bloated again.
Anyhow, started by designing the PCB and getting those printed, as well as getting a chassis made by the same manufacturer, powder coarted and predrilled (JLC in China, honestly best bang for buck):
Waiting for this I had time to design some vynil stickers for the front panel:
Populating the PCB, mounting it, wiring everything up is actually the straight forward part. Bit of extra wire length everywire to potentially accomodate fixes, transformer rotations etc. Everything except wiring of the signal chain is on Faston stuff so I can remove the boards easily. Foreshadowing. Shielded 3 cable wire for pots as in the original. Completely overkill, can't flex it properly, major pain in a small factor, can't recommend, won't do it again. Shielded "single signal" cables (loops, NFB, input etc) are nice tho. Everycomponent is decently overspecced so nothing on the board should blow up. Foreshadowing.
Also had Thermionic Lab do the power and output transformers as well as choke to my specs. Great service and quality, can recommend (even tho the courrier yeeted the transformers at some point along their trip and I had to replace the end bells of the power transformer...).
- I am totally skipping and not talking about fucking up the bias voltage divider specs which led to a fried pair of KT77 and having to switch out a couple of resistors, as well as forgetting to wire the bass pot as a variable resistor which made the EQ unresponsive as well as reverse wiring depth and presence on the first go. But hey, nothing blew up except the tubes so I guess there is that -
It's alive! And because I like LEDs and have access to a laser cutter, blame me for the over the top light show.
How does it sound? Well, as it should I suppose. That THUMP. And mid grind. Surprisingly tight also. But so much more forgiving than my Deliverance clone, and so much tighter than my SLOclone. I'm still fiddling with the knobs (I will switch the taper of the depth and presence pot I think) but it seems that at least on the tone stack, 80% of the range is a kind of sweet spot. It's loud (60W transformer for 50W worth of tubes), but nicely done so the volume is very gradual. I am biased at around 63% now and it doesn't need more. I may even turn it down a tad. Totally not PTSD from the thermal runaway I got btw, just think it's "warm" enough as it is. I seem to prefer the "Shape" switch set to basically no treble shelving. No idea which year that makes it an approximation of, but I think it opens it up nicely. Mind you I am currently using a dark speaker and need to try others. I think with V30 a bit more shelving would probably be welcome. So I'm 99% there with the mods I wanted to make but the core works, is in line with what you'd expect from a Diezel, but is way more usable for me. Which is the point of a self built amp, so I am happy. Bonus: I can adjust the bias pretty broadly now so I should be able to accomodate a lot of different power tubes including KT88. So... that might be coming next. Also some preamp tube rolling... so much to explore!
(before anyone asks: around 1200€ in parts but that includes 550€ of transformers. With some slight modifications of the PCB and accepting compromises with off the shelf transformers, I think 1000€ is realistic).
Also I hate you @Hal Harvey for putting me on to this. Sound clips coming once I am done coughing my lungs out.
Went on another adventure! Wanted something iconic but way different. So focused my eyes on a Diezel VH4 but I wanted it smaller both physically and in output, less bloated in function, and integrate the most characteristic part of the main revisions on a switch (treble dump before the tone stack basically).
Since I can't just do things without setting my goal way too high for my skill level, made it Ch1 + Ch3, bright switch for the clean, "Shape" switch (the treble dump before the tone stack), DC heaters, relays, series/parallel loop and oops it's bloated again.
Anyhow, started by designing the PCB and getting those printed, as well as getting a chassis made by the same manufacturer, powder coarted and predrilled (JLC in China, honestly best bang for buck):
Waiting for this I had time to design some vynil stickers for the front panel:
Populating the PCB, mounting it, wiring everything up is actually the straight forward part. Bit of extra wire length everywire to potentially accomodate fixes, transformer rotations etc. Everything except wiring of the signal chain is on Faston stuff so I can remove the boards easily. Foreshadowing. Shielded 3 cable wire for pots as in the original. Completely overkill, can't flex it properly, major pain in a small factor, can't recommend, won't do it again. Shielded "single signal" cables (loops, NFB, input etc) are nice tho. Everycomponent is decently overspecced so nothing on the board should blow up. Foreshadowing.
Also had Thermionic Lab do the power and output transformers as well as choke to my specs. Great service and quality, can recommend (even tho the courrier yeeted the transformers at some point along their trip and I had to replace the end bells of the power transformer...).
- I am totally skipping and not talking about fucking up the bias voltage divider specs which led to a fried pair of KT77 and having to switch out a couple of resistors, as well as forgetting to wire the bass pot as a variable resistor which made the EQ unresponsive as well as reverse wiring depth and presence on the first go. But hey, nothing blew up except the tubes so I guess there is that -
It's alive! And because I like LEDs and have access to a laser cutter, blame me for the over the top light show.
How does it sound? Well, as it should I suppose. That THUMP. And mid grind. Surprisingly tight also. But so much more forgiving than my Deliverance clone, and so much tighter than my SLOclone. I'm still fiddling with the knobs (I will switch the taper of the depth and presence pot I think) but it seems that at least on the tone stack, 80% of the range is a kind of sweet spot. It's loud (60W transformer for 50W worth of tubes), but nicely done so the volume is very gradual. I am biased at around 63% now and it doesn't need more. I may even turn it down a tad. Totally not PTSD from the thermal runaway I got btw, just think it's "warm" enough as it is. I seem to prefer the "Shape" switch set to basically no treble shelving. No idea which year that makes it an approximation of, but I think it opens it up nicely. Mind you I am currently using a dark speaker and need to try others. I think with V30 a bit more shelving would probably be welcome. So I'm 99% there with the mods I wanted to make but the core works, is in line with what you'd expect from a Diezel, but is way more usable for me. Which is the point of a self built amp, so I am happy. Bonus: I can adjust the bias pretty broadly now so I should be able to accomodate a lot of different power tubes including KT88. So... that might be coming next. Also some preamp tube rolling... so much to explore!
(before anyone asks: around 1200€ in parts but that includes 550€ of transformers. With some slight modifications of the PCB and accepting compromises with off the shelf transformers, I think 1000€ is realistic).
Also I hate you @Hal Harvey for putting me on to this. Sound clips coming once I am done coughing my lungs out.
The chassis is made by JLCCNC. They just opened a "Sheet Metal" service which is very efficient and affordable. 15€ for the chassis powder coated and drilled, 2mm aluminum is unbeatable. Obviously, shipping + taxes pile up fast but you can combine with the PCBs which, again put it in the unbeatable category. Just have to provide them with a .step file. You can prepare it fairly easily with the sheet function in Fusion. (Also they can't do masking of the powder coat yet so be ready to sand it off for grounding etc).