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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 1:37 am
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Hi

How is the volume balance between vibro and bassman channels now? Has it improved doing those mods?

cheers, thanks for joining this thread, this is valuable input!

Dirk


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 9:52 am
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Yes, that part of the fix is great!


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:01 am
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Quote:
When I set the vintage channel volume at anything higher than 3-4, with my strat's Texas Specials, (what I believe) the preamp out op-amps distort. This is very audible, harsh distortion: I ran the output through a DI to my mixing desk, to make sure it was coming from the pre-amp outs, not from the volume pedal I inserted. This distortion doesn't appear at all in the "normal" circuit: the power amp section, pi included doesn't exhibit this behaviour.


Dirk, my amp was doing the same thing on the Burn channel, nasty distortion when I played my Strat which that has a fairly hot set of Van Zandt "Blues" and a Tele with a hot bridge pickup. The power transformer was also getting really hot. Traced it down to the 22uF/500v
caps leaking after seeing this on www.billmaudio.com Image

I swapped all of my IC caps on this amp and a HRD too just to be safe. Check you PT and see if it's getting too hot to touch and check those caps


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:01 pm
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Hi,
Over the past year i have been messing with my supersonic22 i posted some of the stuff last year.
the loop is an irritant if used (but man what i am going to say is really too good for a tube amp but me thinks anything i can do to clean up the loop (amp and effects)

currently the ss22 has the good ole parts bin TL072 opamp...not a bad part at all, and is in MANY high performance parts even some pro pieces.

i have a well equipped lab and am going though all my amps because i have time so on one of my servers i have a spread sheet i started last year with all sorts of parameters i wanted to note...amp overall and loop only. soon i will boot those servers and i intended to post data and will as soon as i update it and grab photos.

i have so far done things like use Deoxit D on all the pins, jacks ribbon cable jacks etc, i replaced the screwed in ground screw with a small bolt and star washers. its a cool little amp i can get dead country on it or get a NICE just about at "she's gonna blow" stage on the gain channel.

i retubed i will post combinations of mullard, or Premium choice tubes from the tube store. i use tung sol 6201's in the 12at7 spot (cleaner 12at7 like tube) i have about a hundred old tubes i have gathered over the years and went through all and have them to try so i have NOS GE tubes and others i will post the stuff

but everything i did improved it a little - now back to the loop

OK i am a tweak and well appointed in the chip department and i have duly noted that a guitar tube amp can be noisy and all are relative to the noise level the tubes and circuity make for all sorts of reasons. SO
i scoped the loop in standby mode...by injecting a signal at pin 3 (1Khz @ 100mV o volt offset squarewave, bursts and sines. i injected at 50 ohms and 1 meg and one time via 100K i scoped in to out of V3 (1/2 not used) and then v4 signal path and noted stuff (i will publish) but roughly at 1K the squarewave had high end roll off (maybe a reason-i can't think of one) i tried 10K same but more noticeable. the loop is either balanced or single ender per your requirements and uses a common technique and common methods to deal with DC offset (22uf caps ICK) so i started swapping op amps keeping in mind the freq range of a guitar amp (tube amp) the noise by the HOLY GRAIL carbon comp resistors TONS of noise because of their composition and thermal issue creating popcorn and other nice noises and things and the tubes ...so i said the NATURAL thing to do is try the TLE2072 which if you compare it's specs with the tl072 chip it was and is it's direct replacement (most times) in MY ss22 they worked great...i entered all that stuff into the spreadsheet)..i'll boot those servers this week and grab it and update it BECAUSE i went bat poop crazy (a habit of mine) took all the measurements then replaced Jfet V4 with a LM4562 http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm4562.pdf and it took well...i haggled before i did it i have a friend who is an engineer at UT Austin we jawed and saw no reason not to...and it worked great and had way mor driving current than the TLE (if my sheet shows that but i remember goodness)...so THEN
i yanked it and V3 and put in OPA2134...they ARE THE ONES...in V3 have not tested V4 i will tonight or tomorrow.

once i have ALL my stuff done then we can chat about it...i have a nice selection of speakers i am going t audition for the SS22 and my DRRI (new)

i experimented with two sets of LME parts from TI.com -overkill overkill.l..

no matter what chip i put in at either injection impedance i used (its a voltage follower and a buffer at that so the injection crap shouldn't be a big deal...but i still get a square wave that is sweet...at V4's loop in's output

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tle2072.pdf works fine no oscillations, and slightly cleans up the high speed roll off

i believe this to be the best for our application and it applies to all the supersonics with this circuit

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/opa2134.pdf works great in V3's spot i EXPECT it to rock in V4's place and it has major improvements for ALL parameters and is the low end of AUDIO optimized jfets on the food chain..and remember we are talking mass produced TUBE amps NOISE..and these op amps are like overkill...but way better..BUT rollo off

so my bud Tom and i decided the CAPS MUST GO so we whipped up a board and he is putting the design into his cad system so he can make the board and i am taking out both V3/V4 V3 will be a opa2134 in soic and have a level control feeds - stealing V4's 8 pins after sucking it out...what we will have is this

a voltage follower of great quality and sound feeding the former V3 with level (maybe)
4 loop out with a THAT corporation outsmarts with zero dB out. the loop in will be an ingenious from THAT corporation we use these chips extensively but with OTL loop out

SO with no engineering and blind luck we should have a killer Jfet in V3, possible level control feeding it - to a dean Jensen based concept differential output amplifier that has amazing qualities (but is noisier than a OPA that is not the point) the outsmarts is a bad a$$ed chip and designed to be a buffer and OTHER cool things the loop in will be an ingenious chip because it too is magical.

i already beefed the +/- 15 circuit NOTED and will be posted on effect...
i bypassed the electrolytic with film caps for ESR and other reasons. i replaced the two DC voltage MINI fuses with chassis mounted (inside with twisted shielded wire grounded at the source) because i want to be able to FIND a fuse on the toad if i pop one - try finding a mini fuse.

i replaced both regulators with a better spec part and i got millivolt increases in DC and less noise i bypassed with my Mylars right there....

if you can't wait....i KNOW the TLE2072's work fine...but if you wait we'll know if the OPA2134's are the trick

but tom and i are moving forward with the mod - and then testing

i would bet when it is all said and throwing overkill out the window the loop only chips will be the opa's - i intend when i finish up to bypass at the hips with 10uf - 47uf also on V4


OK so the OPA2134 will probably be all we need for all you "normal types" cuz it is OVERKILL in a tube amp but cleans up V3's voltage follower stay tuned for V4's outcome

stay tuned i have 5 amp projects going on and it's late i have to do my honey do's before the wife gets off the ferry or i will die!!!

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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:03 pm
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tejaus wrote:
Quote:
When I set the vintage channel volume at anything higher than 3-4, with my strat's Texas Specials, (what I believe) the preamp out op-amps distort. This is very audible, harsh distortion: I ran the output through a DI to my mixing desk, to make sure it was coming from the pre-amp outs, not from the volume pedal I inserted. This distortion doesn't appear at all in the "normal" circuit: the power amp section, pi included doesn't exhibit this behaviour.


Dirk, my amp was doing the same thing on the Burn channel, nasty distortion when I played my Strat which that has a fairly hot set of Van Zandt "Blues" and a Tele with a hot bridge pickup. The power transformer was also getting really hot. Traced it down to the 22uF/500v
caps leaking after seeing this on http://www.billmaudio.com Image

I swapped all of my IC caps on this amp and a HRD too just to be safe. Check you PT and see if it's getting too hot to touch and check those caps


I use F&T or spauge IC caps are notorious - now i gotta check mine on all my fenders. my Marshall clone i used F&T's and am very happy

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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 6:45 pm
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hey D.O. ! AND anyone with a ss22~
I have a SS22 and mine has the noise hiss too~

Does yours make a loud sound thru the speaker when you touch the back (where the wires are soldered to) preamp sockets with a chopstick?? EVEN lightly tapping on the INSULATED PART of the skinny wire did this! (yellow wire) ONLY ONE of the preamp tube sockets does this- sorry, cannot remember if it was V1 or what..... If yours does maybe that is the culprit with these amps
I remember that only 1 of the 5 sockets did this - so I wondered if that was supposed to do that

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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:04 am
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Just an update on my amp. I ended up not removing any of the caps strapped across the volume pots. I didn't realize my Gibson DC Les Paul stock bridge pickup was wound to around 14K. :roll:
That hot pickup has no top end and a barky midrange. Sounds great with my Marshall DSL though and some Celestion Mesa Boogie Black Widows, (Classic Lead 80)

I also swapped out the Vintage 30 for an Eminence Man O War I had, big improvement on tone and feel with that speaker. No more wet blanket sound with the amp on the Burn Channel.

BTW Rollo, F&T caps are what I used to replace those leaking Illinois Caps. I'm just glad my PT didn't catch on fire!


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:35 am
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tejaus wrote:
Just an update on my amp. I ended up not removing any of the caps strapped across the volume pots. I didn't realize my Gibson DC Les Paul stock bridge pickup was wound to around 14K. :roll:
That hot pickup has no top end and a barky midrange. Sounds great with my Marshall DSL though and some Celestion Mesa Boogie Black Widows, (Classic Lead 80)

I also swapped out the Vintage 30 for an Eminence Man O War I had, big improvement on tone and feel with that speaker. No more wet blanket sound with the amp on the Burn Channel.

BTW Rollo, F&T caps are what I used to replace those leaking Illinois Caps. I'm just glad my PT didn't catch on fire!



There are a ton of new capacitor construction types coming out now that will allow one to do audio path and filtering like never before..should be interesting

i mean CERAMICS in the signal path - WTH??? esr, phase distortion on the device..what's that..? it's coming...the day where a hand rolled film cap will be junk -damn near had a heart attack reading about new coupling ceramics for audio...

may still have the heart attack just thinking about it

F&T's Spauge atoms all solve my problems

FIRST thing i do...is yank my Chicago caps...leaky critters and hate to say junk by comparison to some)

i read all my 22uf@25 kathode caps on my new DRRI out of circuit with a calibrated cap tester

most in the high 30's low 40's

they are slated for extinction

the only speakers i can try are stock ss22, a new CK12 in the drri a gold celestion (my fave) or a pair of V30's in a closed back cab the SS22 has what appears to be a clone CK12 -not sure what to put in it

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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:18 pm
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I think we have a winner. After doing the upgrade mods I listed earlier I still wasn't really happy with the burn channel. It still sounded too boxy and felt stiff playing chords on it.
I tried different speakers, different preamp tubes, still sounded flat. I had recently picked up both a Marshall TSL 100 and DSL 100 heads that needed a little TLC. The SS Burn channel just couldn't keep up with either.
So today I dug into it again and completed removed C15 and C25.
It now sounds like an amp should sound like, big and open with plenty of clean crunchy distortion!. Why Fender neutered it like this I'm not sure. I'm debating whether to increase C2 for more bass. I did remove the cap and soldered it to the back of the PCB for easy access. For now I'll leave it as is.


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 8:54 am
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I want to thank everyone for this info.

I purchased a SS 60 at a very (very) reasonable price. It had a reverb issue and the higher than usual hiss. After reading all of your efforts, some tube swapping (did not fix anything), repaired a few cold solder joints and a new reverb tank that area was fixed, but it still had the horrid hiss. I went through the the schematic and it did look like c38 was the culprit. It was de-soldered and .....waalaa, all quiet and a great sounding amp is alive again.

My tube swapping did show that the best preamp tubes were the Fender GTs.

Thanks again! Big smiles all around!

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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 4:16 pm
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thanks Juice~
GREAT info on C38 !
also, for anyone, D38 is tp for plate V
D35/36 is for power tubes

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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 5:07 am
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Hey everybody.... I've had a SS22 for about 2 years now.... and I never experienced any of the issues discussed in this thread... hiss, hum, etc. I guess I got a "good one". BUT:

At about the 1-1/2 year mark, I started developing an issue with the reverb. At first, I thought it seemed to be "diminishing"... I had to turn the reverb control higher to get the same amount of reverb as before. Then it stopped working all together. I went thru all the usual culprits: reverb cables, new pan, used De-oxit on the jacks, changed the send & return tubes.... nothing. So I opened it up to see if I could find anything obvious, like a broken solder joint or burnt component.... before I took it in for warranty service (which I really didn't want to do because I've heard it takes FOREVER to get the amp back, and this is currently my only tube amp)

I did not see anything strange. I did tighten the ground screw right next to the RCA cable board where the reverb enters the amp, and poked around that board with a chopstick so see if anything was loose, and I also moved the paddle connectors on that board around a bit, in case maybe some oxidation was causing the problem. Or the amp vibration caused them to work loose a bit? (and ditto for that ground screw I tightened)?

In the end, it works perfectly again. I have no idea WHY, I'm guessing maybe one of those paddle connectors wasn't making constant contact? IDK.... but it works. If the problem re-occurs, I will do the same thing and see if it fixes it again. It's a PITA to pull the chassis every time this happens, hopefully it won't, at least not for a long time.


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:19 pm
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Hi all. I have owned a SuperSonic 22 Combo since 2013 an have been quite happy with it. Didn't care too much about the hiss either, until I started to use a load box between the amp and the speaker (and got used to the sound without hiss.) I tried the amp without the load box after half a year load box/attenuator usage and the hiss was intolerable. Actually it was at the same level as it was when the amp was new. I tried to search a way to reduce the hiss from this forum and other forums as well. It was funny that all the ideas that I found were not very logical. For example how can the effect loop opamps make any noise when the effect loop is not in use?

I ended up asking the cure to this hiss from a Finnish forum and I got answers like the problem can be in the 100kohm anode resistors that are not metal film resistors. Another idea was to make a master volume between the pre- and power amp (not the PPIMV). I made a very simple mod with one 1Mohm log pot and three wires. I also had to drill a 7mm hole for the pot in the back of the amp as well. I think the mod took one and a half an hour. Now the hiss is gone if I use master volume settings like 5 to 6 (which is mechanically about half of the log potentiometer range) and I can still get reasonable volume levels by increasing the preamp volume.

Here is the original schematic of that area: https://www.dropbox.com/s/frq3q86pxb1oj ... l.png?dl=0
And here is the modified one: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehcqi4kjhsxbz ... d.png?dl=0

You just need to:
-remove R127 (or leave the R127 connected to gnd but cut the hot end that is connected to the line that goes to C68)
-cut the connection line between the point where R127 was connected to the C68
-solder a wire from pot 1 lead to the point where R127 was connected to the gnd
-solder a wire from pot 3 lead to the line end that comes to the point where R127 was connected to lead going to C68
-solder a wire from pot 2 lead to the end of the line (that you cut) that goes to C68

I hope I made clear enough explanation. I also twisted the wires 2 and 3 to reduce some potential interference. Sorry that I forgot to take actual pictures. Those could have been even better than written explanation :)

The mod really helps with the hiss and the sound is good after the mod. I didn't notice any influence on the sound quality between the original and the modified one. You just need to know what to do with high voltage tube amps. If you don't have experience with tube amp mods, it is better to take the amp to a tube amp repair shop and ask them to do this mod. The voltages inside the amp (even when the power cable has been removed) can be lethal.


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 6:13 am
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Thanks for posting that mod. Could one achieve a similar result by running a volume pedal in the effects loop?


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Post subject: Re: Supersonic 112 mods
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:11 am
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JDB2 wrote:
Thanks for posting that mod. Could one achieve a similar result by running a volume pedal in the effects loop?


Yes, for sure. That will do the trick, unless one would like to use effects loop for switching on multiple pedals at the same time and the volume- should remain the same regardless is the loop on or off.

The load box between amp and speaker works also.

The mastervolume mod is more permanent fix for the hiss issue.


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