68' SuperBass Lost Its Mojo : Marcon 40-40 PI Goes Bye Bye. . .

[aberry9475]

F&T caps are as high quality as anything you can find today, that fits the requirement.

Earlier this year, I was in talks with Kemet, the company that owns the rights to all the Daly capacitor brand, about reissuing correct Daly capacitors for restoration purposes,
and they were looking into doing this. But I don't have any updates on that. I do think it's be nice if they were to offer cosmetically and functionally correct capacitors for those
of us who are such traditionalists that we want our capacitors to be blue Dalys. Maybe it'll happen.

If it does, quality will be assured. Kemet makes caps that are second to none.

That would be pretty cool, especially if they made them with the same materials and mfg process but that's not how I'd expect that to go. Like how Spragues became just smaller modern caps shoe horned into the bigger blue containers with empty space inside.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

There'd be no benefit to returning to 1970's manufacturing formula when modern caps today are much improved in efficiency and durability. Back in 1970 there was no such thing as an aluminum electrolytic capacitor that was rated for 10,000 hours at 105 degrees Celsius. Today you can get much longer life/high temp rated caps than that. Kemet could make Daly replicas that could easily outlast the originals which sometimes are still good after 50 years.

I conveyed my belief to them that making the caps to be as long life and durable as possible would be something they'd want to do.

If they use the same can size as the originals, they'd have plenty of room for the roll, extra electrolyte, and would naturally get lots and lots of cooling through the large can.

 

[coony]

I only measured the UF when it was out and drained, and it speced ok ... 41 / 42 actually :

JTM 100 Mk V, could you measure ESR and/or Dissipation Factor (D) too please?

 

[JTM 100 Mk V]

Ok, back from shakedown round two. I decided to simply lift one half of the F & T so I went from 32 / 32 down to a single 32. Before I did so I measured the value again and they are at 36 each side 72 total. So same circumstances and recorded again to listen back. In the room I felt a bit more bounce and the expected lower bass response with a tad more hum.

I was getting beautiful 3-D cleans and basically from Jimi cleans to a VH II tone wide open. Angus in between. Impressive. I could live with it and be completely happy to be honest.

The main thing listening back is that it had less bite. So this set of qualifiers tells me I was operating on Half of the Stock Marcon. Having owned it during the time of decline what I can confirm is :

over time the 'width' of frequency response narrowed.

The bottom end tapered enough to keep it tight with the top round and still able to bark and grind. Very much a sweet tone that didn't hurt or bite.

The main change was this elastic type of bounce that is unique. A spring like response. Wide open I'd mute and dig the low E or A and it would thump nicely without being brash and stiff.

So I can't measure the ESR or D sorry to say. I'm going to keep the 32 / 32 and burn it in some more and then try out a 50 / 50 and a single 100 that Dave Friedman talks about. He likes a LCR 100, but I can't find LCR anymore.

I'll report back, overall take away is the F & T sounds very nice with great detail. The controls can now dial in the old sounds, so that tells me overall this is a win / win. Especially for future projects. Cleans are stunning, sweet and chimey. Grind is balanced and has that rush that comes with the feedback. Its interesting that it does not have 'peaks' , just sweet true guitar tone.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

This just lends credence to my belief that new capacitors DON'T make your magic tone go away and it's perfectly fine to recap an old amp especially if the caps are showing clear signs of age. Some people seem to think that magic tone only exists in the original parts but that clearly isn't true. But it takes a period of breaking in before the new parts settle into their job.

 

[strato2009]

Someone compared electrolytic caps to tyres on a vintage car. Sometimes they just are better off nice n new, even if without that vintage mojo.

 

[Seanxk]

Someone compared electrolytic caps to tyres on a vintage car. Sometimes they just are better off nice n new, even if without that vintage mojo.

Hmm, not really a good example, I want new tyres on my cars....... here's an argument from the vintage side, you're racing and braking a lot, your disc's are glowing red and you need brakes, but they're not performing, it might be that when the car was racing in say the 60's the disc contained some Titanium, but now they don't add it in.
Or your vintage racer with drum brakes with new shoes will only brake well three times, but you remember it used to brake well 4 times before you got fade, might be the fact they don't use Asbestos anymore.......

 

[Matthews Guitars]

All that's really changed over the years in the manufacture of electrolytic capacitor manufacture is improving the chemistry of the electrolyte, to make it more efficient and/or non-toxic, or at least less toxic, plus finding ways to get more capacitance out of a given amount of aluminum foil used in the construction of the capacitor. Which usually involves etching the surface to increase its surface area.

 

[JTM 100 Mk V]

The reason I got in here to post this whole experience is that my Marshall was 'boxed' or what you would call so perfect that you would not toucn anything. That means no screw touched or anything changed like a MLB pitcher that practiced stupid supersticious behaviour. I was that rediculous with this amp. I have been through so many cabs and heads that I know whats up and what not to do. Like that time I was literally the owner of a 69 Superlead I just bought sans the cash exchange. I played the head, it sounded like ass. Why? becaue Joe Taylor (seller) had a shit Crate cab. So I said, "Hey lets take a ride, bring the amp and hit the ATM and my place for a quick 'confirmation' through my rig". And that was the biggest mistake of my life. Why ? what could possibly go wrong.

Alot. In fact me, the jerkoff that I am, let Joe plug into my "A" Marshall into my "A" cab. We are friends right ? So Joe played better than I ever heard him play, I was like WOW. So thats that. So we have the cash (we hit the ATM) , it was $1200 at the time BTW and I took out 300 and had 1K at the house. So I plug Joes head, my head actually sans cash exchange ( Pay attention here kids ) into my Pre Rola 1960A and Ampeg V4 loaded with the same and powered up the amazing 1969 MARSHALL SUPERTREMOLO.

Well , I played the chorus from "Dirty Movies" and the last descending run from "Ain't Talking about Love:" and bout shit.

The fact that I was literally sitting in front of the cabs and my skull was resonating was cool, but the feeling and the 'moment' was undeniable. I looked up at Joe and we had a moment. He said , " I can't sell it man". It was a universal understanding that was met with silence. I had to drive him home and handle that feeling. Best amp we have ever heard in our lives in that moment. He had the amp, but I had the cabs. So, still not back to that moment yet. But I still hunt. This Plexi is close. But that thing is . . . I know I have to install the 69 spec parts and It will get me there. So far it sounds better than expected and I have no desire to do that at the moment. I'm really digging the range from clean to balls out crazy. And the main thing is if I could get a vintage MARCON 40/40 I will. And if it restores the tone I had, I will do it.

But in direct comparison, the feeling of flipping off the stand by and hearing the noise and cap failure, was terrible. I was of the belief that the mojo was gone. And it is to be honest. That 'thing' is gone. It sucks. But goes back to my first post here, the intro or 'tell us about yourself' thing. I led with 'Old Marshalls NEVER Die, they just keep on sounding better and better. I still believe that. My 'thing' is gone. Its a time span. You go through life loosing these spans of time. You never get them back , its on to the next thing.

Thats what this is. The next thing. The goal I have is to find out why or more specific, what caused the amp to sound that way. I now know for starters, that the Phase Inverter is WAY more sensitive than I thought. So I just want to learn. I want to be able to play the best music to share with my friends, the stuff and style never heard before and I want to be able to create the tones I get out of my amps for other people to enjoy. I think thats what great players and amp guys do. Some are here in this place and participating in this thread and for that I want to thank you!

 

[Matthews Guitars]

Good post. The point about having the right speakers and cabinet should hopefully not be wasted on anyone. Bad cabs and speakers just suck, trade them or sell them or put them by the street for someone to scavenge if they can beat the trash truck.

Unfortunately some parts that are tonally significant (And let's not kid ourselves, EVERY part matters...) just aren't going to last forever. When they've gone bad you have no choice but to replace them or put the amp on display as a non working but original example.

But I'm pretty sure that as the new caps get some run time on them, that mojo is going to slowly return.

 

[What?]

Thats what this is. The next thing. The goal I have is to find out why or more specific, what caused the amp to sound that way.

I still reminisce sometimes about an old twin reverb, believe it or not. It was just a silverface that a very notable tech had blackfaced. It had this overall warm, fat, and smokey sound character to it but with dimension (not even a hint of harshness, icepick, graininess, or thinness), and a very elastic feel when digging in and bending. It was set up for half power with inefficient Weber speakers, and it was not too loud at all running full tilt and sitting in front of it. It was a damn pleasure to play all night long. Definitely far and away from the sound, output level, and feel that people typically associate with twin reverbs. More than anything, I'll never forget the feel of that amp, like you push it and it pushes back. I described it at the time as a rubber band reaction, where I could feel the amp's response of pushing back in my fingers. I would love to find out how to get that sort of feel in another amp. But when I have talked to other guitar players and techs about it, they don't know what I'm talking about and give me this look like I'm smoking crack. Or: It's just rectifier sag. Nope. It was a solid state rectifier in that amp. It's something happening at a low frequency, even if you don't hear it, you do feel it. You don't get that kind of thing from higher frequencies. Playing that amp is what made me first realize that it's much more about the amp, not so much the guitar.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

I'd describe my silverface Pro Reverb about like that. I consider the Pros to be extremely underrated. I had, for a little while, as close to a matching pair of a silverface Twin and Pro as you can get. They both sounded incredible but I chose to sell the Twin because the Pro is just that much more lush, that more shimmery without being icepick-in-the-eardrum or shrill. The Twin was a bit more focused on midrange and probably cut better, but for solo play at home, the Pro was the hands down winner. Pros can still be found for very reasonable prices.

 

[What?]

I'd describe my silverface Pro Reverb about like that. I consider the Pros to be extremely underrated. I had, for a little while, as close to a matching pair of a silverface Twin and Pro as you can get. They both sounded incredible but I chose to sell the Twin because the Pro is just that much more lush, that more shimmery without being icepick-in-the-eardrum or shrill. The Twin was a bit more focused on midrange and probably cut better, but for solo play at home, the Pro was the hands down winner. Pros can still be found for very reasonable prices.

This amp was not shimmery at all. It was the anti-twin-reverb. Pushed into distortion, it didn't really sound like distortion. It was more like a smooth and fat clean but with distorted like compression. It had the sort of frequency response of a very warm bassman but with some smokey dimension to it and that unforgettable elastic feel. I almost couldn't believe it was a twin. The first time I played it my response was that it sounded too dark. Then I turned it up, then full tilt. It was even warmer up higher. And every note came through fat. Output level was much like my Super Reverb but much fatter and without the shimmery highs and tendency toward icepick with the wrong guitar. It sounded great with strat single coil guitars, but muddy with humbuckers. I do remember connecting it up to a pair of speakers in a modeling amp and beating the hell of them trying to get them to sound broken in, which was futile. Those speakers just sounded harsh.

Everything else aside, I'm still wondering where that elastic feel came from. It sure wasn't the rectifier (diodes), it had the stock output transformer, and I don't think it was the speakers either. I don't think speakers can give that kind of feel, but maybe they have to be able to relay it. I do think the speakers were responsible for much of the warmness though. I think that feel was something going on in the low frequencies. Maybe 60-80 hz or even lower. Actually, I'm pretty positive that it had to be. Having monkeyed around alot with recorded sound, I know what bass sounds like, and it had that bass feel to it. But it responded in a very cool way to digging in and bending.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

My Pro has that same sort of bounce to it. You don't really hear it, it's not like the volume bounces around but when you are playing it, you feel it responding to your dynamics. With the treble turned down it gets warm like you say. But I have yet to find a silverface that is by any means dull sounding.

My test for any old Fender is to turn bass, treble, and midrange (if it has midrange) up to 10 and see how it sounds at moderate volume. If it doesn't sound great, then pass and go find another one. Something's wrong with it.

 

[What?]

My Pro has that same sort of bounce to it. You don't really hear it, it's not like the volume bounces around but when you are playing it, you feel it responding to your dynamics. With the treble turned down it gets warm like you say. But I have yet to find a silverface that is by any means dull sounding.

My test for any old Fender is to turn bass, treble, and midrange (if it has midrange) up to 10 and see how it sounds at moderate volume. If it doesn't sound great, then pass and go find another one. Something's wrong with it.

Do you have any thoughts on what might be responsible for the bounce in your Pro?

My Super Reverb sounds nice from 2-10. Best around 7. It gets sweeter up to about 7, and gets wilder past that. Very shimmery and really nice with a strat. It's prone to icepick mids with humbuckers though.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

If I were to guess I'd suspect that it has something to do with the size of the choke. Other than that...no idea. The amp was recapped about 3 years ago so it wouldn't be weak caps.

 

[What?]

Just dropped an old Mullar

If I were to guess I'd suspect that it has something to do with the size of the choke. Other than that...no idea. The amp was recapped about 3 years ago so it wouldn't be weak caps.

Did a little experimenting with my plexi clone today. At heavier bass settings, lower gain, it has a decent enough feel to it. A decent dose of roundness and bounce, but not freakishly so like that old blackfaced twin that I mentioned. Feel is definitely something going on in the lower frequencies. I'm just thinking too, that old twin was an 80-100 watter (think they label them 85 watts), set up for 2 power tubes. So plenty of iron there for the bass end. But it didn't sound like a big overbearing walloping bass. Just warm and thick and smooth.