A Touch of Class...Class5 Owners Welcome!

[benjammin420]

I'm no expert but, my answer would be 'not simply'. The internal circuitry is designed to kill the 10" when a jack is inserted into the Ext Out.

You could circumvent this at the speaker connectors, but you would then be messing with the impedance.

If you were to connect two speakers simultaneously, they would need to match the 16 ohms the output is expecting e.g. two 32 ohm speakers in parallel or two 8 ohm speakers in series.

The internal speaker is already 16 ohm, so you'd need to replace it and once done, you'd need to make your twin speaker solution permanent.

yes, that all makes sense thanks

The world will be a simpler place once the start making the Class 5 as heads

 

[Gtarzan81]

Class 5 'Stack' This chap has come up with a nice looking 'stack' by sticking a Vintage 30 in a Haze cab.

Thanks for posting this. It's one of the clips where it sounds like it should. It really does nail a good Led Zep or AC/DC tone when played with buckers. Thanks!

 

[benjammin420]

yeah, that video sounds great

I just realized I actually have the adaptor I was thinking of for attaching a 1/4" plug to the internal speaker that I can run into the attenuator, I can't wait to get home to try that (I'm at work now )

 

[DSL100 Dude]

Thanks for posting that. Sounds pretty decent for a you tube video.
I am going to try to get something done up this week. I am still working on smoothing out the highs.

 

[DirtySteve]

I've aso been ruminating on this for a few days.

I had a look inside and there seems to be a very simple solution, requiring only a small amount of cannibalism, but I'd be very grateful if someone with some experience of this could give me some feedback.

1. The internal speaker is hard-wired to the amp's circuitry
2. Inserting a jack into the 16 ohm speaker out kills the internal speaker
3. The same is true for the "Headphones" output
4. The internal Celestion G10F-15 has two additional solder points for spade connectors.

The plan would be simply to mount an additional "Speaker In" socket on the rear panel of the cab and wire it to the additional solder points on the speaker. That's it!

This would enable you to:

1. Connect the speaker to the amp using a jumper cable without having to remove the original hard-wired connection (pointless per se, but read on).
2. Use the jumper cable to connect the speaker through the Headphone to allow this trick to work with the internal speaker rather than an external one
3. Connect your chosen power attenuator between the "Ext Speaker" and the new "Speaker In" input. In fact, it might actually be feasible (probably using a replacement rear-panel) to integrate an attenuator into the cabinet...
4. Connect (with caution) a different low-power amp to the internal speaker e.g. I'd quite like to try a Tiny Terror and it would be cool to do so without needing a new cab for its exclusive use (the Celestion is rated 15W - I've got no idea how it would handle such treatment).
5. Use the amp in the manner originaly intended simply by removing the jumper cable.

This sounds almost too simple - certainly less invasive (and more cosmetically sound) than trying to create a master volume solution, with less tonal compromise and no significant financial outlay if you go with the US$55 Reyes Audio Output Tamer, the praises of which benjammin420 has already been singing here.

Can anyone identify any drawbacks with such an approach?

This is basically how I use mine,.. only I didn't see the need to wire a new jack. I just removed the wires from the speaker and installed a spreaker wire I robbed from my old avt 50 and hooked it up to the speaker. (The wire has a male plug on one end and spade clips on the other) I just unhooked the internal wire from the speaker and taped it to the bottom of the chassis and hooked the spade clips on my new cable to the speaker and just plug it into the ext. jack to play the amp normal, or I plug into the headphone jack (half way) and flip the switch to headphone to play attenuated.

Here are a couple of pics.... I wish I'd taken better pics with metal grill removed. I wasn't thinking, but the other end of that cable is attached to the speaker.

My only gripe is the headphone trick is not loud enough, and the full on is a bit too loud. I wish there was a half power option. I'll probably look for an attenuater. The one mentioned in this thread sounds like a pretty good option.

 

[Gtarzan81]

Ya the headphone volume thing has no volume whatsoever. I can barely hear the amp over the sound of the strings.

Sounds like so many bad youtube videos recorded in a bedroom......ching cha chig ching

 

[13eastie]

This is basically how I use mine,.. only I didn't see the need to wire a new jack.

There were a few reasons to create a new input socket:

1. My rear panel has no grill (it the one-piece kind with two windows) and I didn't want to have a permanently attached jumper cable flapping around at the back.
2. I wanted to leve the existing wires in place to make it easier to revert to the original state.
3. I wanted to use a stereo to mono cable for the headphone output, but I wasn't completey sure about using this for the 16 ohm output
4. I'm thinking of fitting an attenuator integrally and it just seems easier to be able to unplug it at the rear panel rather than fiddling around inside the cab.

Six and two threes...

Anyway, I said I'd post an evaluation:

Frankly I'm not hugely impressed with the sound using the headphone trick. It gets the job done re. volume reduction, but it sounds very murky and it asks a huge task of the EQ to get it sounding at all acceptable. I don't know if this is because this output is already EQ'd differently for headphones (obviously, an attenuator on the other output would resolve this) or if its just because the speaker is not being driven hard enough.

Ya the headphone volume thing has no volume whatsoever. I can barely hear the amp over the sound of the strings.

Sounds like so many bad youtube videos recorded in a bedroom......ching cha chig ching

My experience differs. The headphone trick delivers a substantial reduction in loudness (and audio pleasure), but cranked up this is still pretty loud, nonetheless - controllable feedback, whole room shuddering, too loud to use in a flat etc.

 

[DSL100 Dude]

I was wondering if that was the case for the headphone thing. I reckon it is a great idea if you have parents that don't appreciate music or if you live in a place where you have some one who would complain if you even played an acoustic.

I will count myself as lucky. I can run the thing wide open pretty much anytime I play so really the main thing I may do is get one of those attenuators that Ben loves and run that with the internal speaker like we have been discussing. The one gig I do would actually benefit from that setup.

 

[poeman33]

When I do the headphone trick and put it into my 4x12 it sounds pretty good. Not real loud, but certainly loud enough so that I'm not hearing the strings. It's loud enough to record, and I have done so. You'd never know it was bedroom volume.

 

[DSL100 Dude]

Ok fellas, I have been bouncing the idea back and forth about using a low watt stereo combo.

I have a red Class 5 that is on order so I could use that with my black one but I am now also wondering about the Vox AC4combo.

Thoughts?

 

[benjammin420]

Ok fellas, I have been bouncing the idea back and forth about using a low watt stereo combo.

I have a red Class 5 that is on order so I could use that with my black one but I am now also wondering about the Vox AC4combo.

Thoughts?

I run my Class 5 and Champ together all the time, it sounds great to me, but the C5 would sound better with something else british, like an Orange or Vox (or another Marshall of course )

 

[Gtarzan81]

Ok fellas, I have been bouncing the idea back and forth about using a low watt stereo combo.

I have a red Class 5 that is on order so I could use that with my black one but I am now also wondering about the Vox AC4combo.

Thoughts?

I did play both at GC before I bought my Class 5. You know which one I went with. Let your ears be your guide.

I'd say grab something Fender-esque for great cleans, which the Class 5 doesnt have.

 

[DSL100 Dude]

Maybe it is just a little case of GAS. Who is it that has a Vox?


Dual Class 5's are bound to sound awesome though.

 

[Gtarzan81]

Dual Class 5's are bound to sound awesome though.

In stead of having a dual channel amp, you can have dual amps.
I've yet to see any 1 amp that can do it all. There's always tradeoffs in a circut, for whichever way you tune it.

 

[DSL100 Dude]

Very true. I love my DSL for what it does, I miss my 2204 for what it did, I still like my Mesa/Boogie .50 Cal. + for what it can do, and this little Class 5 just tickles the crap out of me.

I know for much better guitarist then myself the C5 could be very versitile. For me it is great classic Marshall crunch at a volume that doesn't get most folks ticked at me.

 

[Gtarzan81]

Very true. I love my DSL for what it does, I miss my 2204 for what it did, I still like my Mesa/Boogie .50 Cal. + for what it can do, and this little Class 5 just tickles the crap out of me.

I know for much better guitarist then myself the C5 could be very versitile. For me it is great classic Marshall crunch at a volume that doesn't get most folks ticked at me.

You used that word "tickled" 2x in 1 post. The fruit police will be along shortly to issue you a warning

 

[DSL100 Dude]

I must be getting tired. UUgggghhhhhh!!!

 

[Gtarzan81]

I must be getting tired. UUgggghhhhhh!!!

On the bright side, I did discover the social group for Class 5 owners and joined it just now.

 

[benjammin420]

Dual C5s would be cool, but on one I'd use different speakers/cabs and tubes for each. just to vary the sound a bit

 

[DSL100 Dude]

Great idea. Maybe I will load that Greenback in to one of them. That should make a difference.