Ep. 162: "The Temple of Music"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons

Host: The Fretboard Journal
Episode: 162 — "The Temple of Music"
Date: March 20, 2026

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Overview

In Episode 162, Skip Simmons and host Jason dive into the world of vintage tube amps, answering listener questions on amp repair, collecting, and restoration. This episode balances technical insights with playful banter, highlights from vintage Guitar Player magazines, and a heavy focus on tremolo circuits, Canadian amp lore, amp meetups, and practical tips for DIY amp builders. Memorable anecdotes and community-building ideas (like a potential barn sale) keep the tone lively and accessible, whether you’re an amp geek or a curious bystander.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Health & Life Updates, Vintage Flyers, and Magazine Nostalgia

• [00:15–01:24] Skip starts off under the weather, sharing his gripes about catching a cold from the “CEO.”
• [01:24–02:41] Mowing tales segue into fire safety and the challenges of rural amp life—plus mention of a punk club flyer from 1980s San Francisco (“Fab Mab”) featuring the Dead Kennedys and others.
• [02:47–06:47] Skip shares questions from a 1971 issue of Guitar Player magazine:
  • Technical Nugget: To slow down a Fender Super Reverb’s vibrato, try swapping the 3M speed pot for a 10M reverse audio pot.
  • Classic Reader Letters: From “acoustic vs. electric” guitar dilemmas to pleas for new guitar clubs (“Temple of Music” in Virginia Beach), and one fan daring to ask Guitar Player for Paul McCartney’s address.
• Quote:

  "If you don't know if you want an acoustic or an electric guitar, you might think about something else." — Skip [07:50]

• Discussion on how guitar culture and magazines once provided a “safe space” for all questions, contrasted with today’s often snarky online fora.

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2. Merch & Community: Giveaways, T-Shirts, and Meetup Rumors

• [08:27–10:26] Recap of a recent giveaway (amp-logo shirts) and musings about resurrecting classic T-shirt merch designs.
• [10:26–11:12] Skip admits, “That was the first time in my entire life I ever got any money for not actually doing anything,” referring to T-shirt sales.
• [11:26–12:10] Jason proposes renewed merch and Skip talks about recording ideas and carrying a notebook for future show notes.

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3. Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware in Amp Parts & EBay Finds

• [11:43–15:51] Skip runs a “Latin segment” on caveat emptor, warning about misleading eBay tube amp part listings:
  • Example: A UTC output transformer listed as suitable for 2x6550 (100w) amps turns out to be for ultrasonic frequencies, weighing a mere 16 ounces (“the most deceptive listing I’ve ever seen”).
  • Lesson: Always verify the specs—patience and catalog digging pay off.
• [15:51–18:54] Another cautionary tale: A boutique Fender reverb unit with a fundamentally wrong transformer (22K primary instead of the correct 5K for reverb units). Fixing the transformer brings a night-and-day improvement.
• Quote:

  "Come on, people. If you're going to build stuff…you better know something basic like that." — Skip [18:27]

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4. Sponsor Shoutouts & The State of Gear Journalism

• [18:54–21:54] Jason and Skip thank sponsors (Grez Guitars, Emerald City Guitars, Amplified Parts, MOD Electronics) and share a discount code for MOD Electronics (TAVA10MOD, valid through April 11, 2026).
• [22:01–22:49] Commentary on gear magazines, sponsored content disguised as editorial, and the creeping presence of AI-written content in media.
  • Quote:

    "If there's anything I hate worse than advertising disguised as content, I'm not sure what it would be except a bad cold." — Skip [22:41]

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5. The (Possible) Loma Rica Barn Sale & Community Amp Swap

• [24:26–39:17] Skip floats the serious idea of hosting a vintage amp and parts open house/barn sale at his place—potentially featuring lawn chairs, fried chicken, burritos, hayrides, and lakeside fishing.
• [32:01]

  "Live remote." — Skip, suggesting a podcast recording from the event.

• Jason and listeners brainstorm attendee perks, timing, and community-building intentions.

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6. Amp Questions & Listener Voicemails

Lead Dress & Kit Builds

• [26:15–30:23] Photo-diagnosis of a noisy Weber Princeton Reverb kit—culprit: excessive transformer lead length coiled inside, causing hum and oscillation.
• Takeaway: Clean, careful “lead dress” is critical; strive to wire your clone like Fender did.

Harmony H410 Output Impedance (Listener Lee) [39:59–43:47]

• Question: Is it OK to mismatch a 4-ohm amp and a 16-ohm speaker?
• Skip’s Answer: A 100% mismatch (e.g., 8-ohm load) is fair game for most little tube amps, but 4-to-16-ohm is pushing it. Always try it and listen, but avoid quadruple mismatches for long-term use.

Tremolo Issue in a Traynor Head (Listener Tim, Michigan) [44:09–49:43]

• Tim’s Trainer Custom Reverb tremolo loses volume as the intensity is increased.
• Skip’s diagnostic advice:
  • Swap the tremolo tube first.
  • Check electrolytics in the trem circuit.
  • Consult Jack Darr’s book for “troubleshooting the tremolo circuit” and use a voltmeter to observe the oscillation.
  • To slow the tremolo, raise the value of the speed pot or the circuit’s capacitors.
• Quote:

  “It is a little funny that I had to tell somebody that lives in Canada...to check out Traynors.” — Skip [45:30]

Variable Capacitors in Guitar Circuits (Listener Rue) [50:36–52:28]

• Idea: Using a variable cap in place of a fixed tone cap in a guitar for fine-tuning without soldering.
• Skip’s Take: Most variable caps are in the wrong value range, but if you find one appropriate, go for it! Lead dress and neat installation are essential.

Series Filaments in Tube Mixers (Listener Bruce, Nashville) [53:10–58:14]

• Q: Can you use a resistor to replace a missing tube in a series filament circuit?
• A: Don’t modify a rare Berlant tube mixer—restore it instead. Some vintage hi-fi gear uses sophisticated DC filaments; don’t hack what you don’t fully understand.
• Quote:

  "Hey knucklehead, you have a really cool Berlant mixer. Don’t make that into a guitar preamp." — Skip [55:08]

Gibson Falcon Mods (Listener Aaron, Missouri) [60:22–65:36]

• Q: Should you add screen resistors to 6V6s? Can you tweak away the “tone-suck” circuit?
• Skip’s Take: No need for screen resistors as stock. Each Falcon may have different wacky components; careful troubleshooting required, especially around Gibson’s infamous integrated circuit blocks.

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7. Tech Tips & Misc Amp Wisdom

• [65:41–69:18]

  • Discussion of Gibson’s Falcon reissue (disappointing), and insider tip: Adding a Hammond 154M choke between the rectifier and first filter cap helps lower B+ voltage in high-voltage Champs and similar circuits.
  • Quote:

    "If you have a little amp that was running too high of a voltage ... put that little choke in there and it will be." — Skip [65:57]

• [69:27–70:52]

  • Innovations to vintage Fender Champ circuits—Skip adds a re-voiced #2 input, making it genuinely useful for cleaner tones instead of the typical (ignored) Fender #2 input.

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8. Community Engagement & Listener Recipes

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe (Listener Bob, Boulder County) [74:13–78:36]

• Bob shares a sausage and garlic-forward red sauce recipe; recounts the improvement in flavor after freezing leftovers.
• Suggestion for Skip: Use a basic wifi-enabled smartphone to streamline amp photo-sharing for the show’s social media.
• Tremolo curiosity: In bias-modulating circuits, why does the speaker move with the trem, even when no note is played?
• Skip’s Answer: The tremolo is "always on" in some designs, and the bias modulation can physically move an efficient speaker cone (like a JBL) in time with the trem.

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9. The “Loma Rica Fest” & Final Listener Feedback

• [79:13–81:19]
  • The meetup event idea snowballs: possible potluck, open amp bench, and fishing in the pond.
  • Jason: “We could break a world record—the longest three prong cord plugged into an amp.”
  • Skip: "We just could be." [39:37]

The Garnett Herzog, Guess Who, and “Kale” Coincidence (Listener Tim, Arkansas) [82:21–84:30]

• Fun trivia: The Guess Who’s bassist was named Jim Kale. Garnett amps supplied the distinctive fuzz tone to “American Woman.”

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10. Engineering History: The Temple of Hi-Fi

• [84:38–88:34]
  • Skip shares an old-school hi-fi anecdote: The AR/Dynaco listening room in Grand Central Station, where live bands and stereo systems could be directly compared—no salesmen, just music lovers.

11. The Magic of Tube Hi-Fi

• [88:34–End]
  • Final philosophical riff: Vintage tube amp circuits aren’t just for guitars; they bring “air” and realism to music, compared to the compressed digital sounds of today.

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Memorable Quotes

• “If you don’t know if you want an acoustic or an electric guitar, you might think about something else.” — Skip [07:50]
• “Come on, people. If you’re going to build stuff…you better know something basic like that.” — Skip [18:27]
• "If there's anything I hate worse than advertising disguised as content, I'm not sure what it would be except a bad cold." — Skip [22:41]
• "Hey knucklehead, you have a really cool Berlant mixer. Don’t make that into a guitar preamp." — Skip [55:08]
• "We can't die with it... Can't do that." — Skip on hoarding parts [35:23]
• "The only downside is...if you turn volume up with nothing plugged in, it's quiet. But I think we cannot turn it up when nothing's plugged in that's not too big of a sacrifice." — Skip on amp mods [70:51]

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Timestamps of Notable Moments

• [02:47] — Reading classic questions from old Guitar Player magazines.
• [11:36] — Caveat emptor segment: eBay misleading listings.
• [15:51] — Fixing a botched boutique reverb unit.
• [26:30] — Diagnosing a noisy Weber kit build (lead dress lesson).
• [39:59] — Harmony H410 output impedance poetry question.
• [44:09] — Audio demo: Traynor tremolo issue diagnosis.
• [50:36] — Variable capacitor in guitar tone circuit question.
• [53:10] — Series heater wiring in tube gear.
• [60:22] — Gibson Falcon mods and troubleshooting.
• [65:41] — Using Hammond chokes to drop Champ voltage.
• [74:13] — Listener Bob’s spaghetti sauce recipe & tremolo speaker question.
• [82:21] — Canadian amp lore: the Garnett Herzog and “Kale” coincidence.
• [84:38] — The AR/Dynaco hi-fi listening room at Grand Central.
• [88:34] — Tube hi-fi appreciation: music reborn.

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Tone & Style

This episode typifies Skip and Jason’s friendly, humorous rapport. Technical answers are mixed with stories and practical jokes; their willingness to poke fun at themselves (and listeners) makes even dense content feel accessible. Listeners are treated as collaborators—every question, anecdote, and suggestion adds to the sense of a niche but very real community.

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Conclusion

Episode 162 delivers rich stories from the world of vintage amps, sharp technical advice, and plenty of laughs. Whether you’re searching for amp tips, history lessons, or just a sense of belonging among gear nerds, this episode has it all. And if you’re lucky, there may be pizza, burritos, and a barn full of hidden tube treasures at an upcoming meetup in Loma Rica.

Transcript

[Skip]

Are you there?

[Jason]

I'm here.

[Skip]

Okay, good.

[Jason]

How are you feeling?

[Skip]

Is everything. Ah, no one cares.

[Jason]

Oh, they do. You're sick.

[Skip]

I hadn't. Well, the CEO brought home a cold. Never hang around with people. People are bad. But anyway, she brought home a cold. Had it for a few days, pretty bad. And then towards the end I got it. So. I don't know, four days or something. Just the cold. I probably sound a little weird still, but it's just. It's like. What did I say? No one wants to talk about that.

[Jason]

Sure they do. Well, I'm glad you're.

[Skip]

I don't get. I don't get colds too often anymore now that I don't have kids around. But, you know, you're old. Everything takes so much longer, it seems like. Right. Hurt your shoulder or your knee. It's like. Dang it. It's been two months. It still hurts. But I'm getting over it. Plus, you gotta work. I did three hours of mowing a couple of days ago because if you don't, it gets out of control. 80s 90 over the last few days.

[Jason]

Here we're talking on March 20th. Westerners.

[Skip]

Yeah. So the. You know, the news was flipping all out about how we have to hydrate and. But of course, it probably won't be like that. It'll probably rain again and have some more typical spring weather. But we did have some heat, so the weeds grow crazy. And here in fire country, you got to have that under control. And the more. The longer you wait, the harder it gets and the more beefy equipment and time you need to get it under control. You've been here, you dig? I got a big old. A big field that I have to take care of. But the Ferguson fired right up. Working great. Mowers working great. Can't complain. Looking at a. Speaking of the CEO, how about this? How about this flyer that somebody took down off a telephone pole? The club is the Fab Mab in San Francisco, which I remember from the 80s. Like a punk club. Dead Kennedys, Husker Do, Toxic Reasons and Church Police. July 31.

[Jason]

Some Good Band names there. Even if you don't like deities who

[Skip]

do at the same show. Toxic Reasons were around. They play. I remember that band, but I never heard of Church Police. But that's a great one too, right?

[Jason]

That's great. So.

[Skip]

And. And then I'm. Then I have some great questions to open the show that I forgot to do last time. Yeah.

[Jason]

Oh, wow.

[Skip]

So. So I have a 1971 issue of Guitar Player magazine.

[Jason]

Sure. I've heard of that.

[Skip]

Buddy. Buddy Merrill, Jerry Reed. But they have a questions thing where people can write in questions. And you and I both will. Can relate very well to some of these. The. I'm going to read the normal one first. Is there any way I could slow down the vibrato speed on my Fender super reverb?

[Jason]

Oh, yeah.

[Skip]

That's the kind of thing you want in your question, especially if you know the answer. Nowadays we usually mess with the value of the capacitors in the tremolo circuit. But how about this? The easiest and most satisfactory method is by replacing the existing 3 meg vibrato speed control. That's the potentiometer. Right. With a 10 meg reverse audio potentiometer, which can be obtained at most local electronics parts houses. I've never heard of that. So they're saying replace the 3 meg speed pot with a 10 meg reverse audio pot and the tremolo will go slower. Good luck finding that pot right. At your local electronics supplier or anywhere, because that's a pretty obscure value. But that's good stuff. I've never heard of doing that.

[Jason]

Wait, just to be clear, this was not advice from Buddy Merrill. He was.

[Bob]

No.

[Jason]

This has amateur amp tech. Who was. Who gave this advice?

[Skip]

This is from the questions column. Questions, question mark. Where you could write to Guitar Player magazine.

[Jason]

I know, but was it some famous amp tech of the day?

[Skip]

Oh, who's given the answer? Yeah, it does not say who's given the answer. I think. I think that might be offender like something that originated at Fender. Although why they didn't just use a 10 meg in the first place, but somebody needs to try that and see if it makes it go whoa, whoa, whoa, even slower. Right, but that's just the normal question. Are you ready for the stuff that you and I can really hang with? How about this one. I'm having. Donald Beardsley Hampden, Connecticut writes, I'm having a difficult time trying to decide whether to buy an acoustic or an electric guitar. Can you please tell me the advantages and disadvantages of each? That's where the guy who has the question column is going to shoot himself in the head. Right. But it gets. Oh, it gets better.

[Jason]

It gets better.

[Skip]

Okay, it gets better. Carol Hamblin of Virginia Beach, Virginia writes, is there any guitar club other than the Temple of Music Guitar Club in Virginia Beach, Virginia? If there is, where may I get in touch with it? Carol obviously had some problems with the Temple of Music Guitar Club, Virginia Beach. They didn't like her cupcakes or something. And she is bent and she wrote to Guitar Player. Is there any other one besides this one? Oh, that's.

[Jason]

So what did they tell her? I'm dying to know.

[Skip]

We do not know of any. However, Guitar Player will accept registration from any guitar club in the usa. No, of course they didn't know. Here's a. Here's a little mention where they talk about the Electric Guitar Amplifier Handbook by Jack Dar and the pinnacle Mike Hall. Chelsea, Oklahoma writes, I would like to know if. If you have the mailing address of ex Beatle Paul McCartney and if so, would you please send it to me? I have several songs I have written and arranged and would like to send them to him to see what he thinks.

[Jason]

Oh, that's a great idea.

[Skip]

Hi, it's Paul. I hear you're a guy that wrote some songs. All right, that's it. I'm going back to bed now.

[Jason]

I hope you have more than one issue from that era because these are amazing.

[Skip]

I have a few and they are kind of amazing in that it was a lot more Fretboard Journal than it is now. There's a column in there by Buddy Emmons for pedal steel players. And you know, Carlos Montoya is in there and John Lee Hooker and Ry Cooter and Buddy Merrill. How about Hoyt Axton? I'm telling you, things were just more. Less. What, do we just tend to pigeon. I don't know. How can we say it? It's just we tend to like, narrow the interests. That's one thing groovy about Fretboard Journal. It's not just plaid shirts, beards. There's other stuff.

[Jason]

I. I mean, can you imagine anyone asking the should I buy an acoustic or an electric? On any social media guitar forum, they would get raked over the coals. Like it's. I don't know, like it was a safe space back in the day. Guitar Player and how could you be so dumb?

[Skip]

How could you expect someone. Well, sit down, let me fix you dinner and we'll talk for two hours and play a different guy. If you don't know if you want an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, you might think about something else.

[Jason]

Maybe. Maybe if you join a guitar club, they'll walk you through all that.

[Skip]

Not, not that. Not that guitar club, though.

[Jason]

No, different.

[Skip]

Not the Temple of Tone or what was that thing called? Something about the. Oh, my goodness. All right, well, I'm slightly delirious, but those letters just cracked me up so hard. And last, I couldn't quite put it together. So here we are.

[Jason]

Here we are episode 162 of the Truth About Vintage Amps podcast. Send us questions, everybody on whatever is keeping you up at night regarding your Tube amps [e-mail] is how you can be a part of the show. We had a giveaway in episode 161. A giveaway thanks to our buddy Chris from Exile Guitar store in Vancouver, as well as he's also the proprietor of Union Tube and Transistor. It was a couple of shirts that had. One of them said CSA with a cool logo. LR24510 was one of them. And it was kind of a baffler. What the hell does this shirt mean? And what it meant was a very Canadian specific thing, which is the amps up there in Canada have a certain logo that's by the Canadian Standards Association. And one of these shirts was for Trainer and one was for Garnett. And the winner was Brian, who doesn't live in Canada. He lives in South Carolina. So, Brian, your shirts are in the mail.

[Skip]

Just like their underwriters laboratories, right?

[Jason]

Yeah, exactly. It was. It's sort of a cool. If you really want to feel like you're part of an insider club, you wear this shirt and maybe if somebody actually knows what it is, you've got a new friend. So that's pretty. It's like the two prong hat we used to have back in the day.

[Skip]

Yeah.

[Jason]

Whatever happened to that two prong hat guy?

[Skip]

Whatever happened to the T shirt guy? He life got a hold of him. I. Maybe I should reach out to the company that he used to work with and see if they might still have.

[Jason]

I'm on the.

[Skip]

Some of the artwork and see if we could maybe redo some of the more popular ones. That cool champ schematic that had.

[Jason]

I know, from Eric Daw.

[Skip]

That's right. That was Eric. Well, I don't know, maybe nag us a little bit about that or else we'll just go, why do we even want to do T shirts?

[Jason]

No, we'll get merch going again.

[Skip]

I'll tell you why I want to do it is that was the first time in my entire life that I ever got any money for not actually doing anything. In fact, I don't think. Well, except for like the, you know, sponsors and the. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I have ever since. But that's all right. Yeah.

[Jason]

And you do work on this show, believe it or not. It's not. You do field amp questions and take time out of your day. So I appreciate that.

[Skip]

I think about it a lot when we're not doing it because I see something like that, I say, you know, that could be interesting. Sometimes later I look at it, I write it down, right? Any picture of me, you're going to see like a little notebook in my pocket. Because it's just how I deal with it. And sometimes I look back like we often do and say, that was a stupid idea. No one's going to know. And you cross it out, right? But if it sits on there for a week, then I say, yeah, I can bring it up. Like I can say, what about our little Latin segment? We haven't had a Latin segment in quite a while, have we? Caveat emptor.

[Jason]

Have we ever had a Latin segment?

[Skip]

Well, we're having one now.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Doesn't that mean buyer beware, basically?

[Jason]

I believe so, yes.

[Skip]

Someone, probably some. One of my pals sent me something that was for sale on ebay. And one of the first, maybe the first thing I do is see sellers, other items. Are we dealing with somebody that just bought a storage shed, has Barbie dolls or are we dealing with somebody that has tons and tons of audio? Right? Because it makes a difference. So I looked and one of the very first things was a. There's a company called utc, United Transformer Corporation Company something. And they made really high quality transformers, including output transformers for the hi fi set going back into the late 40s, maybe even older UTC, one of the really fancy brands. So here's this little picture and it says UTC output transformer for two 6550amp. That means push pull. 6550 is like a 50 watt amp, like a Marshall head, right? This is a cool vintage utc, what you call potted, where they put it in like a really cool case that doesn't have a bunch of screws and stuff holding it. And I know a guy who could remain un. Unnamed, Bill Kernard, who likes really high powered stuff. I would never mess with that. But I saw and I said oh man, that's pretty far out. And it was really inexpensive. Like no, no bids on it at $50 or something. You know, it's pretty cheap or something like that. Okay, So I go and I look at it. Remember this guy has tons of tube stuff and the description says this is an output transformer for 265 50s in push pull. Like 100 watts, I believe it said. And I'm thinking, well that's pretty cool. But then I look down, wait a second, it weighs 16 ounces. What a 50 watt output transformer you could throw through a plate glass window. The thing is like 2 or 3 inches high. And I'm going what? And it took me quite a while but I dug through all my old catalogs and I found that thing. It was for amplifying sound that's ultrasonic. In other words, higher than humans can hear. Right. And we know that low frequencies are what takes the big transformers, you know, the big iron. If you're going to only amplify like 100kC or something and above. Apparently you can get 100 watts of juice out of a little tiny transformer. And that's what this thing was. Either the guy's an idiot possible or he knew that and he's just hoping some. Could you imagine getting the box and you're going to put this on your 50 watt amp and you go what the hell? It was some of the most deceptive listing I've ever seen. And because the guy owns a ton of tube stuff. Come on. He's holding it in his hand. He knows it can't be a 50 watt 6550s output transformer for a big amp. He knows that. But he's not going to tell you that. So what was our Latin section caveat? Emperor? I'm not going to out the dude, but just pay attention, fool. Right. And I almost was like going to send it to this guy and say hey, look what I got. But I looked a little further and looked a little further and on vintage transformers, if you're patient enough and it's a big time brand you can usually find. You know I found the catalog. Right. There it is. That's the part. And this is what it's for. But it sure wasn't going to do much on your 50 watt Marshall.

[Jason]

Yeah. What would it have actually done if you.

[Skip]

I have no idea.

[Jason]

Someone's going to buy this thing.

[Skip]

It wouldn't pass audio above that certain. Probably above that certain frequency. Like the wire inside or however they made it. It was only decided designed to amplify. Is it quite right though? Isn't quite the word. But to allow frequencies that we could hear through it. It might not even do that.

[Jason]

But your dog would be able to hear your guitar like never before.

[Skip]

So just watch out. And yeah, you know we always trust people who seem like they know what they're talking about. But I got sharing the bitterness today. Beautiful handmade copy of a Fender reverb unit. Okay. Beautifully made and the guy had owned it for a long time. And the builder was. I won't out. But he's a manufacturer, you know, somebody. Somebody who made these things, you know, and sold them. And he said it just was noisy and stuff, you know. And I turned, I cleaned up the tube sockets and I lit it up and I said, reverb on this thing isn't very strong. Sounds okay. It's got reverb, but it's not like a reverb unit. Well, I take the thing apart. Fender outboard reverb units use a power tube like a 6V6, only it's called a 6K6. To drive a transformer, to drive the tank. It's an output transformer, like something we'd see on a champ, you know, it's basically the same thing. Because remember, that whole reverb deal came from the Hammond Organs with speaker driven reverb. Well, I look, and this thing has a reverb transformer from a reverb amp, you know, from a twin reverb. Now, everybody knows that those things just use a preamp tube 12 at 7 to drive the re to drive the tank. Sorry. To drive the transformer to drive the tank. The reverb transformer for a fender amp with reverb is 22K primary. The reverb transformer in a reverb unit that's being driven by a 6K6 is more like 5K. This manufacturer had put in a part that was so wrong that I just went, what the hell? I couldn't believe it still was working. I put the right transformer in it and it's like. And this guy's had it for 10 years. He's not going to know what to do. It's like, there's so much more reverb. So caveat emptor number two. Come on, people. If you're going to build stuff, I mean, this thing had a cover with the name of the company, and it's like, really beautifully done. You better know something basic like that. Like that output transformer is. Is not going to work in your amp if it's only 3 inches tall. And that transformer that was apparently the only one this guy could find is not the right part. And it sure does help to hear something that's. You know how many reverb units I've heard, right? I turned that thing on and I just went, well, yeah, it has reverb. But why is the mix and the dwell like way up to half before it starts sounding reverb? And it was all because of that. I changed that one thing and boom. I'm looking forward to having that guy get it back. He's gonna go, huh, that's what it was supposed to be all along. And of course he paid, I don't know, fifteen hundred dollars for it or something years ago. And I don't know, I'm bitter. Maybe we should talk about our sponsors and get into a more cheerful mood.

[Jason]

Oh, sure. Yeah, of course. We are brought to you today by a few brands that truly get us and that we truly love. First off, Grez Gu over in Petaluma, California. Please everybody, if you've been listening to the show, you've heard me talk about Barry forever. We've worked with him for pretty much the entirety of this whole show. His guitars are just absolutely beautiful. Don't take my word for it. See what Jeff Tweedy and various other great players are playing. You know, I never even want a bass, but his Mendocino bass, he just posted one with Novak pickups that looks like it's just this like straight out of the 60s thing. It's so beautiful. Follow Grez guitars on Instagram. Come to the Fretboard Summit. See Barry in person. Tell them the truth about vintage amps sent you. We're also brought to you by our friends at Emerald City Guitars. I often tout how great their amp collection is here in Seattle, Washington. We often talk about the super high end stuff. We've got a story with Trevor Boone, the proprietor in our next issue. But right now they have a 1971. This is not going to be tube everybody. 1971 Standel Studio 24200 watt twin for just $600 more watts per dollar. I mean, and also it's probably really heavy too, but where else are you going to find an amp that vintage for $600? That's a great deal, right? If you're like a steel player or really want to be heard.

[Skip]

One of my many, yeah, one of my many failings is that I don't know how to work on the classic solid state stuff. And some of it was junk, but some of it has stood the test of time quite well. And some of it you plug into. And you don't just go, well, this isn't. I can't deal with this. You should try a custom with a K like Fogarty played in Credence or a Standel. You know, you plug into that thing and it probably sounds a lot like a twin reverb, except that when you start really leaning on it, it just keeps getting louder. It's even more powerful. Yes, that's a cool deal. Yes, thanks to our sponsors. We also.

[Jason]

Wait, we got one more. We got a discount code. So don't leave sponsor corner yet. We've got our friends at Amplified Parts who also are behind mod electronics. Modelectronics.com I'll include a link in the show. Notes everybody. Between now and April 11, 2026, the code TAVA10MOD gets you 10% off all MOD Electronics parts products. Amp kits, reverb kits, pedal kits, reverb tanks, speakers, all. The entire mod line just for you. All for listening. Again, modelectronics.com, the code is TAVA10MOD and it shows that you're listening to the show, you can stock up on parts and projects. Get you through the summer.

[Skip]

Absolutely.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Our friend Barry at GRE managed to get a little mention. Should I say.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

In a new magazine. That's like a. It's a. I guess you'd say it was a vintage guitar magazine.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

However, front. Front cover, you know, or something. That New Gear. New Gear showcase he got in that. I was a little shocked that of the 10 things which are basically ads, sure. Four of them were amps from the same company. Out of like there's 10 things in the new. In the New Gear showcase and four of them are amps from brand new amps from the same company. That's something fj. If there's anything I hate worse than advertising disguised as content, I'm not sure what it would be except a bad cold.

[Jason]

We've never done that. We've never done had AI write anything on our website or in our magazine. And I'm very proud of that. I know that going forward, I'm not naming names, you're going to see a lot more AI written articles in the news space and guitar space. And it's sad, but I'm trying to fight the good fight over here. And speaking of Barry, I mentioned he's going to be at the Fretboard summit that's taking place August 20th to 22nd. Truth event. Truth about Vintage amp's room is coming back. Thanks to Brian McAllister. It's probably going to be bigger than ever. We also are going to have a pedal room. I'm looking at the list of exhibitors and beyond. We've got Benson back, we've got two Rock, we've got Brown amplification back. Our friends at Chase Bliss are going to be there. Josh, Scott, what else? I'm just going down the list here. Henriksen Amplifiers, of course. Been there every single year. And I don't know, I'm looking at an old list, but all those people have already confirmed Voltic is coming from Delaware again. What else? Tone Ranger's going to be there. Zoe Jett, who works with Barry at Grez Guitars, sometimes makes her own guitars. She's going to be back and a whole lot of other people. So I'm not going to list all 80 names here, but.

[Skip]

Yeah, well, that's why no one cares if you're sick or what's going on in the world, because you just got to get back. I forgot about you having to do the summit again. Yeah, I'd barely be recovered from the last one.

[Tim]

Right.

[Skip]

And same here. I mean, I was sick for a few days and all of a sudden there's like 15amps and a guy drive from Boulder, Colorado and drop off an amp and he brought sourdough French bread that his wife made that's just oh, the ultimate. And like I'm foggy with my cold. He brought an amp for listener Bob.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

An ampeg crazy thing with speaker driven reverb in it. He's the guy apparently that said says it's reverb and not reverb.

[Jason]

What?

[Skip]

And wanted us to know that. So, you know, you just gotta do it. I forgot you had that summit. I mean, deadlines, baby.

[Jason]

You can be late on many things, but throwing a guitar festival for 500 people coming? Yeah, you can't be late on that. It's gonna be great. I'd love to see everybody there. And reach out to me podcastritboardjournal.com if you have any questions or want to bring an amp to the amp potluck. That is the truth about Manage amps room. Have a lot of fun there.

[Skip]

So I have the solution. Yeah, the other periodicals and you and FJ has been around for so long that now you can do this. You're reading along and it said this article originally appeared in, you know, 1916, 2016 or something like that. You know, like you can just start reprinting stuff from the first issues and just making it content. Oh, I swear they. I swear they do that. Just. Oh my gosh.

[Jason]

That is done too.

[Skip]

I can't do everything. So anyway, good, we covered the sponsors.

[Jason]

Yeah, we're raring to go. We've got amp questions from a whole bunch of people.

[Skip]

Okay.

[Jason]

You though sent me something that I have yet to post on our Instagram or Facebook group, which is an amp kit. I don't know that it was one of these model electronics amp kits. I don't know who is the originator of this kit.

[Skip]

And it was a Weber.

[Jason]

It was a Weber. And someone forwarded this to you and said, why is my amp noisy? Is that correct?

[Skip]

Basically, I built this amp from scratch. He didn't say that it was his first amp he'd ever built from. From a kit.

[Jason]

Sure.

[Skip]

But probably was. Why doesn't it work? Yeah, I. I rebuilt the engine on my Honda and never done it before. And kind idle's kind of rough. What do you think's wrong with it? Right. But he sent a picture and all you'd have to do is take a look at it. So there's a million wires that come out of the power transformer. They all have AC on them because they're basically connected through the transformer to the wall voltage. They haven't been rectified into DC or anything like that. AC causes noise. Hum. You know, that's why if you put your cell phone up next to your amp, it goes, you know, there's like. There's noise that can be generated by that. Well, this guy left the transformer leads factory length. However, they came like a foot long. And he just coiled them up inside the amp. So one side of the amp just looks like a bolus colored spaghetti, just tons. And his question was, why does it oscillate? Which means why does it make noises it shouldn't? And it was a little arrogant, you know, like, how could you make me some bread? Right? It won't be like that sourdough that Bob's buddy from Boulder brought here, because it just won't. Maybe on the 10th try, if you're lucky. Supposedly the sourdough starter in that bread is like 100 years old. It's been a life. That's pretty cool too, huh? So I wrote the guy back and I said, well, compare your amp to pictures, which I'm sure you can find, of a real Princeton reverb. And note that there isn't a whole ton of wire all balled up in one corner. He wrote. I said, start with that. He wrote back. And he redid it all and said that cured it.

[Jason]

Okay, I won't out him. I don't even have his name or Instagram handle or anything. But we will share the photo just for.

[Skip]

Just show the photo. Lead dress is important. Yeah, lead dress stress is important. And like anything there's, there's. Don't be arrogant, you know, assume that you know better. And I would think that if you were going to build an amp from scratch, you'd want to start with an amp that already works. That's called a Fender. And you'd want it to look approximately like a real one. I've told this story many times. Thirty years ago, I go, well, I'll make one of these Tweet Deluxe's. There's no big deal. I got the schematic now and I just wired it all together without putting the parts all exactly where there's where they are in a real tweed amp. That thing didn't work at all. Or I mean, it turn on and it would just make crazy noises. If you turn the treble up, it would start going berserk. Some circuits you can build that way, some you can't. And if you're going to do a Fender thing, you got to pay attention to what they call the lead dress. You get too much wire running around in there in the wrong positions, and it just picks up all sorts of noise like a of bunch big radio. Because it is a very primitive circuit. A lot of new stuff has millions of little capacitors to ground in it that eliminate any kind of noise. In the late 60s, early 70s, when the Fender wiring got crappier and crappier, as Lupe and Lily retired, they started putting capacitors in there to keep the thing stable and not have problems with high frequencies and stuff. And it's true. If you very carefully took an amp like that and redid all the wiring in the older way, you wouldn't need those capacitors. Lead dress.

[Jason]

Lead dress.

[Skip]

Next. Next.

[Jason]

Probably some early episodes where I said lead dress and got mocked. But we'll let you find those in the first 40 episodes.

[Skip]

Reverb.

[Jason]

I've never said that.

[Skip]

Everybody goes to reverb.com and everyone knows about a twin reverb. No, I think it's because he figures reverberation as a word. So reverb should be the word. I think we can move on. We have more important things to discuss.

[Jason]

Okay, again, everybody, podcastritboardjournal.com, how you send us questions can be a voice memo that you record on your smartphone. We have a few of those. It could just be an email that you typed out. It's probably a way to text me on that number or that email. I don't know. Skip, what is on your bench right now? You've been sick. You mentioned that you've been working. Anything unique, interesting, Probably.

[Skip]

I. I haven't been down there for like four days. There's the usual big crazy pile of stuff. I still haven't figured out how to make my outboard tremolo. Pedal work. So there's that.

[Jason]

I still write into Guitar player.

[Skip]

Yeah, I still have a ton of cool. I can't believe I still have a ton of cool stuff because I didn't go to the guitar show and flag the tape. I guess it's probably not a tape, but someday, believe it or not, I'm starting to ponder some kind of like two day barn sale.

[Jason]

I was gonna just suggest that. Would you be open to a little open house garage sale that we promote on the show?

[Skip]

Two. Two words. Live remote. Yeah.

[Jason]

All right.

[Skip]

Not that you would have to be here, but I can see I'll be there. Or we could sit out in a lawn chair with the laptop on my lap and like watch people dig around looking for crap. But. But why? To expand our fame and to have fun.

[Jason]

Because community is important and you have too much stuff in your garage.

[Skip]

First part, I guess community is what brought me this cold. But the second part, I got too much stuff, man. I mean, I could. I could give somebody 20 tested EL34s for $5 apiece. What, what's the hold up here? You know, somebody wants a big gigantic organ chassis filled with the stuff. Like the parts. Not parts, the parts. Speakers that are blown here free. Take it, take it, take it. You come to my house, you buy something, like something for okay, money. And you can bet I'm going to say here, here's some beautiful maps of. Or here's some of this. Here's a whole box full of that. And it's just going to have to be done because it's still a little out of control in there. There's just. The stuff keeps coming. Of course you can have a free typewriter.

[Jason]

My goodness. And so this sounds amazing.

[Skip]

No, it sounds terrible for you, for everybody else.

[Jason]

We'd be really excited when thinking about this. When would be the best time of year? Easiest on you to do this.

[Skip]

Yeah, sometime when the weather would get hot here. Gets hot, baby. So if it wasn't raining and it wasn't hot, that's fine. I mean, you know, it could be cold and foggy in December. Right? That's fine. We could have a burn pit. Only good thing I could think of is getting rid of some stuff and maybe I could drink without having to worry about driving home.

[Jason]

Yeah, we could give out pizza dough from that one hack. We'll get it from the local place. Isn't there a Mexican restaurant that you love in Loma Rica?

[Skip]

Not right in town, but very close.

[Jason]

We'll have an RSVP sign up And I'll buy burritos for everybody. So this could be like. Are you thinking May, or is May too hot already?

[Skip]

No, no, no, no, no. This is.

[Jason]

Well, I'm pinning you down in Tolkien, right?

[Skip]

There's those trees that take, like, a century to decide to do anything.

[Jason]

20, 27.

[Skip]

But I wouldn't have brought it up if I wasn't serious about it, because it's something that's not gonna go away. It's not going to get better. It's like the grass is going to get taller and something is going to have to be done. And I was always hoping that once a month, some lunatic. I got one coming at the end of the month. Doug Wolf from Washington up by you somewhere. He wants some old project thing to make a Fender amp out of, but not a Fender amp, you know, like a PA head or something like that. I thought more people would come for that sort of stuff, but it's been kind of. I don't know. Am I. So. It's not like I don't encourage people. I know I'm somewhat grumpy, but I'm just saying, I have a lot of stuff, literally, a lot of stuff.

[Jason]

And

[Skip]

we got to distribute it. Can't die with it, right? You won't part with yours either. Fender ad campaign preacher over the casket reading, we could see the Stratocaster peghead sticking out of the casket. You won't part with yours either? No, we can't. We can't do that. So I'm not ready to say a date, but okay, I said it, and if you'd have brought it up, and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. But since I brought it up, you can be pretty sure I'm going to do it. And it won't be five years, that's for sure. It'll be, I think, in the fall or the winter would be kind of cool, but I don't know, people can give me some ideas, you know, of course, hotels are in the area. Going to fill up quick. They will.

[Jason]

Andrea Estates. Well, I know from making this drive once, if 30 minutes south of you is actually a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

[Skip]

Sacramento is pretty dang close. You know, I try to be accommodating, and I don't know, maybe if somebody said, well, you know, I got to visit my family in such and such a month, then we do it. Then I don't know.

[Jason]

Should I run a poll on our Instagram page?

[Skip]

You should hype it all you want. I mean, you know, the reason why the pot we could have.

[Jason]

We could have Keith Carey or Larry Chung jamming in the front yard.

[Skip]

I was thinking Keith Richards, but sure, if he's still alive. Yes, there could be some of that for sure. One reason why this thing keeps going on is because people keep writing questions, right? If somebody. If people nag me a bit, like, if I'd have had five people over the last six months, say, hey, I hear you have some PA heads that you built that are just sitting around, which is pretty rare. They'd be gone, right? Man, I have this RCA single ended 6L6 with a master volume that actually works like, you'd think like a little jcm800 where you can make it just go at low volume. It's awesome. I've had it for a few months, but you know me, I don't tell people about stuff. The most I'll ever do is maybe somebody brings over a repair and I say, hey, take this home and try it out. You know, I had a stereo preamp I made that was just fantastic sounding and I had it for months.

[Jason]

So anyway, I'm so excited.

[Skip]

That's a dream I think we can make come true. You know, I had an amp. I had an amp class once years and years ago.

[Jason]

Well, we tried to. Yes. And there's an offer from a mutual friend to have another amp class on the California coast.

[Skip]

I don't think I would want to do. I think what I would want to do is rest and recover from the two weeks I spent psyching up and getting ready for the barn sale and just sitting in like a chair with a lamp, you know, and watching. I think that's what I'd want to do. But I wouldn't want to have to work super hard once it was going because, believe me, I'd be beat by that time. There'd be a lot of organization going on because, you know, it's kind of messy.

[Jason]

I'll come down a day early and help you sticker stuff. Now, does the. Does the Ferguson tractor. Could we have like hayrides like at a pumpkin patch? Or is it just for one person at a time?

[Skip]

We'd have to have some. We'd have to have a trailer for that.

[Jason]

Yeah. Okay.

[Skip]

And I'll sit on the tractor. Danger enough. Dangerous enough for one person. Okay, we'll have a trailer with a keg and then we'll drive around on Bevin Road, go down to the Gold Eagle, get some fried chicken on the.

[Jason]

We can go to the. Oh, man, we gotta have. This has to happen. Yeah, we probably have shirts made for this. And they'll only be available for those of you who show up in person.

[Skip]

If you. If you bring your gear, you could. You could do a little fishing for black bass in the pond across the street.

[Jason]

We could go fishing.

[Skip]

I'll.

[Jason]

I'll lead a trail. Run. Whatever we'll do. It'll be great. We could break a world record. The longest three prong cord plugged into an amp, like, exactly.

[Skip]

We just could be.

[Jason]

Yeah. Okay. Well, there's still more to this show, everybody. We have questions.

[Skip]

Let's have one.

[Jason]

Yeah. We're going to have a poll, though, so follow us on Instagram. Best month to have this at Loma Rica.

[Skip]

We almost filled the whole thing and I haven't had a question yet. I know I'm not on medicine. I did drink a bunch of coffee this morning.

[Jason]

It's great. You're doing great. This one is. This is. It says subject line Harmony H410. But then I'm supposed to read this as though we're at a poetry slam. Yeah. Jason and Skip. I think the answer is just plug it in, turn it up and count it off. But a good pondering never hurt anyone. You've relieved the burden. That is a long commute. And for that I thank you. I've started listening from the beginning again and I find myself blurting out the answers to the posed questions. It's nice to feel like a kid again, eager to share all they've learned. I've got a question about a Harmony H410. You know, a cheap tweed Princeton thang volume tone with the tremolo. An EL84.5Y3 12AX7 and a 6 AU something. It rips with a telly. It came with a little old speaker. I think you know where this is going. But the output impedance is 3.2 ohms. What gives? I think I know what I'm supposed to do with this. Jensen P12P but 150% mismatch on a matchbox ot chop it up to a rounding error. Maybe there's a better way to marry this pair. Or should I just count it off?

[Skip]

Lee, did he write it like that? In like. Sort of like a.

[Jason]

He. He wrote it like that and then with a lot of hard returns. And then he asked me to read it like that. Nice. And he's in. Lee's in North Carolina. Not that it matters.

[Skip]

That's pretty cool, Lee. I have heard a few people say that. They listen. I always say if you're digging a ditch you might try listening to it, but I guess the modern equivalent of that is sitting in traffic somewhere. So glad we could do that for you.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

3.2 ohms. That was basically what they called a 4 ohm speaker back in the old days. Now the only thing I'm confused about is he's throwing out something about a Jensen P12 something or other. Those are usually 8 ohm, which would be fine to run with your 4 ohm essentially amp, we know 100%. But if he's saying it's 150%, I think he's implying that his bigger groovier speaker might be a 16ohm speaker. I don't know. That's a little much. I. I wouldn't run a little tiny amp that was 4 ohms into a 16 ohm load. That's 4 times, isn't it? So, so we're. I'm a little confused about. About the question, but basically if you take a little dinky ass amp with one EL84 and you disconnect the little 8 inch speaker and you hook it up to a different 10 or a different 12, if it just kills, then it's fine, right? If it sounds bad for some reason, then it's not. It was the tweed champ hooked up to the speaker in a tweed deluxe almost 40 years ago that made me say, wait a minute, I don't have to have a 4 ohm speaker on this amp. And then of course, you know, decades later, we know that a lot of stuff, tube stuff, can pretty well easily handle a 100% mismatch. So I say count it off and try it. And if you want to get back to us, it would be, what's the ohms of this 12 inch thingy that you want to hook up to it? It'd be odd for it to be 16 ohm, unless it was one of those old movie projector speaker boxes. Some of them are right. Follow me. Yeah, follow me.

[Jason]

That was great. Yeah. And never make me read poetry like that again.

[Skip]

Oh, I thought it was cool. Yeah.

[Jason]

One, one and done. We have a patreon for the show. I'll include a link to that in the show notes. You can get to the front of the line, support the show. And Tim did just that. And he has a question about. We were just talking about Canadian amps. Here's one from Tim.

[Listener]

Hi, Skip and Jason. Tim here in Michigan with a tremolo question. First, a word of gratitude to both of you for your work with this podcast. And Jason, your work at the Fretboard journal, all things F.J. bring me joy. So thank you. The amp in question is a 69 trainer custom reverb head I picked up as a direct result of listening to Skip. It sounds great and I love it. But the tremolo has an issue that's better demonstrated than described. I'll keep the speed dial at zero and slowly turn up the intensity pot. Tremolo cuts in between 1 and 2, and as I go above 2, I'm up to 5. The sound just totally cuts out completely. So my questions are, what's going on with the intensity pot and what fix should I pursue? And second, how can I slow down the speed? That's it. Thanks again, guys.

[Skip]

Whoa.

[Jason]

You know, we've done 160 something of these. No one ever sends us sound clips. But he did. Thank you, Tim.

[Skip]

And that was actually when he said he was gonna do that. I was going, oh, no. Because, you know, most of the time people want to say, you know, what do you think of the tone of this? Yeah. On their laptop. And I'm going, this, this isn't helping. But that was actually pretty, pretty good. Could have said that. The more I turned the intensity up. Well, first it sounded great. I was about ready to jump in and say, well, quit messing with it. That sounds pretty cool, right? But the fact that you keep turning it up and eventually it all washes out and apparently is killing the gain, you know, lowering the volume of the amp. Right. It is a little funny that I had to tell somebody that lives in Canada who's a guitar player to check out trainers. Gotta say, come on, that's like, you know, come on, number two, it's not the intensity pod, it's the whole circuit. You know, that tremolo is a tube trainer. Trainer. I think it uses an opto coupler gizmo like a later Fender does not. Some of those trainers have bias modulating tremolo. I've mentioned that before. And that's where power tubes are actually having their bias changed. And that's what creates the trim. So I would say the answer would be if you knew what you were doing. I'd start with an ESR test on all the little electrolytic capacitors in that tremolo circuit and see if any of them are bad. I try to fix the tremolo circuit first. Oh, and always try another tube. You know, figure out which tube is the tremolo tube and try another one. Ooh. An embarrassingly short time ago, maybe a month, two months ago, I spent a half an Hour on a tremolo circuit, messing with it when it was the tube. Dang it. I could have just changed that at the beginning. And I would have said, so check the tube. Jack Dar would tell you that. By the way, Jack is where you'd go to see. I think it's called troubleshooting the tremolo circuits. Could that be any more direct?

[Jason]

No.

[Skip]

And basically it'll tell you how you can take a voltmeter in there and you can see the oscillations. You know, the voltage is going up and down, up and down, up and down. So you can get in there, troubleshoot that tremolo circuit, check the tube. If you don't know anything, then refer to your local tech and just live with it. What was that last thing? Canada Tremolo. Lost it.

[Jason]

I lost it.

[Skip]

Yeah, I lost it. Those are cool. Very under undervalued. Why the tremolo is not working right. I'd have to have the schematic in front of me, see if it's bias modulating or if it's all working in the preamp. Make sure that that tremolo has good tube, doesn't have any bad electrolytics. Not that you should just change them all and hope, but if you had a tool to test them, that'd be good. And hopefully we can get this fixed. And you're welcome to call me sometime. I still think there was one more question.

[Jason]

Well, I mean, he's. I'm looking at the photos. There was like a rodent's nest in this thing.

[Skip]

Yeah.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

It could just be a servicing issue too. So. Yeah, so basically he just said loves, Loves listening on the long commute. And trainer is really cool. Oh, slowing it down.

[Jason]

Oh, yeah, slowing it down. Just like the guitar player column, just

[Skip]

right from the thing. Depending on the type of tremolo circuit it uses, you could take that little piece of advice. If it uses a 2 or 3 meg speed control pot, you could try a high value if you could find one. And then a more common way of doing that is to alter the value of the capacitors. There's three in every tremolo circuit that are hooked together. It goes from one to one to one. Look at the schematic, you'll see them. If you start raising the values of those, it will slow the trim down in most cases. So you're going to have to experiment and report back. We're going to have to have our own special trainer tremolo update. Yes.

[Jason]

I'm just daydreaming about this. Loma Rica meetup. It's going to be so much fun. You can have El Pado can. You could sign El Pado cans. It'd be so.

[Skip]

I want to. I want a. I want a galvanized big tub full of ice with, you know, Paps Blue.

[Jason]

Yeah, we could have that. And if you have any projects, like we, you know, we need to raise a barn or anything, we could do that and.

[Skip]

Oh, no, that sounds terrible. More like a. More like a bench where people could bring something that they brought. And I would say, well, here's your problem, dude.

[Jason]

Doesn't that cannibalize your sales, though? Oh, what they've. I see what you're saying.

[Skip]

Not if they brought their own Princeton Reverb or some clone thing that they made that doesn't work. You know, just like a little on the spot. Maybe I can tell you what you did wrong. Table. Maybe.

[Jason]

Maybe.

[Skip]

Next.

[Jason]

Okay, subject line, possibly silly question.

[Skip]

Rue.

[Jason]

Hi, Jason and Skip. I was looking at variable capacitors on amplified parts. I used to see them in tuners. Has anyone ever tried it in a simple electric guitar tone circuit? Would that work? I can wait until Tava, if you don't want to type out this long email, which we didn't do. Okay. That's from Rue.

[Skip]

That's pretty interesting. There are little gizmos, electro gizmos, that are capacitors, and they have a screw adjustment and when you turn it, the capacitance changes.

[Jason]

Wow.

[Skip]

Very, very common in radio. When you turn to. When you turn the knob to tune in a station, you're actually moving a variable capacitor. So his question is, instead of putting a 0.05 in his guitar, could he put a variable capacitor in place of it and then dink around with it by turning it and trying different values without having to unsolder stuff?

[Jason]

Sounds fun to me.

[Skip]

Could be. I think most of those variable capacitors you'll find are way out there in the range where we don't live. Like tiny amounts of capacitance below the values of anything we would run into. But if you found a variable capacitor that was below and above a normal capacitor value that you wanted to try, well, go for it. Let the good times roll.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

It's a long shot, but it's possible. Oh, and lead dress in guitars, especially like single coil guitars, you can't have a whole bunch of wires going all over the place. Like you couldn't alligator that clip thing into your guitar. Because every time you put Your hand down there by it, it would go, you know, through the pickups. So you'd have to install it pretty cleanly. And to experiment, maybe you could have a little hole in the pickup.

[Jason]

Oh, that sounds cool.

[Skip]

Yeah. Who's that guy that's been in FJ who made those really far out looking modernistic guitars with like the. The pickup with the X shape to it?

[Jason]

Oh, my gosh. Is that island? No, who he was in fj.

[Skip]

One of these guitars had like a

[Jason]

David Torn plays one. Yeah.

[Skip]

So you have a little hole in the pickard and you can put a little screwdriver down there and you can turn that variable capacitor to do some amazing thing. Send the check to 4824 Ben Row.

[Jason]

Yeah, well. Or just come to our meetup and bring it in person. One of those big ones like on a game show.

[Skip]

Oh, yeah. Good times.

[Jason]

All right. This question is from listener Bruce Subject line series Filaments Skip Jason. In my boneyard is a cool Berlant ConcertOne MCM2 4 input monotube mixer. I have some ideas about what to do with this, but first a question. The circuit uses four 12 AX7s and a 12 AT. But dang it, man. The tube filaments are wired in series. If you pull one tube, they all go dead. In episode 160, we learned that some people can't stand an unused triode. Well, I can't stand an unused triode and I want to pull a couple of the 12 AX7s, maybe three. So I was wondering if you just happen to know, if I were to pull one of the tubes, can I replace the filament load with a resistor to preserve the series filament wiring? And if so, what would be the value? I know you hate to do math, but how do I apply Ohm's law to solve this puzzle? I guess I could always replace the power transformer or add a filament transformer and rewire the filaments. But soldering in a resistor would take a fraction of the effort. P.S. i appreciated your celebration surrounding my egg fried on a paper plate recipe. Also in episode 160. And though it may seem like it, I'm not single. Rather 47 years under yoke. Our secret. The wife is the opposite type that tirelessly tolerates an unused triode. Your listener and fan Bruce in Nashville Sweet at the end.

[Skip]

Yeah, well crafted. And I love a question where that's not the ant. That's not even the question. Like, the answer is not how to do some math. And this and that in this case. All right. Berlant B R L A N T A Berlant concert tone. That is some kick ass, serious high end audio. There's like broadcast stuff made by Berlant.

[Jason]

Really.

[Skip]

So the answer to the question is. Hey knucklehead, you have a really cool Berlant mixer. You're not. Don't make that into a guitar preamp. Come out to the barn barn fest and get a little chassis that you could make a preamp out of. Don't wreck that thing. And then we'll talk about filaments. I wouldn't be surprised if that Berlant didn't have DC filaments. All our Fenders just run on two wires that come out of the power transformer. So it's AC unrectified but really fancy hi Fi stuff. They run all the heaters on D.C. which means there's a rectifier and basically capacitors like a power supply strictly for the heater. Voltage. No classic noisy guitar amps ever did that. But lots and lots and lots of studio and hi Fi gear did. And I would not be surprised at all if that Berlant mixer didn't have that. So a. Don't mess that thing up. Send it to me and I'll. That thing's worth a few hundred. 400? Oh yeah, it's a Berlant. Made a bunch of other stuff that's a little more limited. They tend to be the electronics that go with tape decks. And people buy them thinking that they're going to get a cheapo mic preamp, which they kind of are. But the mic preamp in there is just a little tiny part of it. There's all this other stuff. Well, this guy got lucky. He got the small mixer. Four in one out, right? And I just say that's too good to make a guitar preamp out of. Which I think that's what this guy wants to do and how the heaters are wired. He's saying that if you take one out, the whole thing dies. I think that thing has a really sophisticated filament supply and that's why it's doing that. So the answer is don't. Not to sound like Joe Biden. Don't. No, don't. Don't do it to that. I'm not going to tell you how to make a guitar type preamp. But basically you got to start with the right type of thing. Like some. Most of the stuff I make were preamps from back in the 50s and so they already are kind of what we want. But this little mixer would just be too good to change that much. Here's the answer. Restore that burlamp and make it work like it did, like it was supposed to. Okay, then I bet you we could do some little mods to one of those channels and make it sound pretty good for guitar instead of just gutting the thing to make something else. That thing might be all balanced inputs, you know, like XLRs with transformers and stuff like that. It's just too good. Call me and I'll send you. I'll sell you a little tiny preamp that has the right transformer and only a tube or two and is like much closer to what you want to end up with.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

How's that?

[Jason]

That's great. I I looking at that thing is very unassuming. I didn't realize that it was so coveted.

[Skip]

Well, it's just too good. Too good to do that too. Okay, I would say. And too hard. Yeah. If you that thing has a 12 at 7. I think it has a cathode follower that that's like almost like one of those bogan RP2 mic preamps that I'm very well known for that. Lots of studios have that say this thing sounds awesome. Even though I have this racks and racks of other gear. You wouldn't want to take one of those and make it into some little guitar preamp. Just too good. So maybe you could add Photon Power Control to it. What do you think? Yeah, I was looking. I was. Schematics. If you learned to read them a little bit, they're endless source of. Huh. So there's an epiphone amp called an EA65, the Rivoli R I V O L I. And of course, as you might have guessed, it has Photon Power Control patent applied for. And you might say, well, what the hell is that? But if you look at the schematic and you know how to read schematics a little bit, you would see it's a compressor. It takes signal or a limiter takes signal from the output transformer from basically from the speaker. It runs that signal back into the preamp where it's connected to a light dependent resistor as used in Fender Tremolos. And I'm sure basically what happens is the louder you play, it reduces the volume in the preamp somehow to keep it from overloading is what they say. It allows more or volume without distortion. I immediately said harp players. I wonder if this would control feedback. Maybe it will. So Photon Power control and the EA65 Rivoli. If you're, you know, getting cocky and you've looked at enough Fender circuits, check that thing out.

[Jason]

All right.

[Skip]

For your. For your circuit geeks.

[Jason]

Yeah. All right. Aaron is in Missouri, has a question on Gibson Falcons. We used to talk about Gibson Falcons all the time on the show. We haven't in a while. Skip, when doing your Gibson Falcon Magic, do you add screen resistors on pin four of the 6V6s? I just noticed. What did you say?

[Skip]

No.

[Jason]

No.

[Skip]

Okay.

[Jason]

He says, I just noticed on the schematic there aren't any. Probably a hell no. I did not add any to mine. However, if you care to. Attached are the changes I made to my 1963 Gibson Falcon to make it sing. I forwarded that to you. You probably didn't look at it. I've been tinkering with it.

[Skip]

I looked at it. That was just this morning. I read it.

[Jason]

I have been tinkering with it for a few months off and on. Sounds killer now. Skip is right. They are tricky. Not sure he would approve of any of these changes compared to what he does. A previous tech had tried and failed to make this Falcon sing. They had replaced every electrolytic in the amp filter and cathode bypass caps with 47 microfarad caps, I guess to try and get the base back. Anyhow, that text 47microfarad mods got a big hell no from me. I enjoy the podcast and as many truths. We usually agree every once in a while. I yell at the radio though while listening. That's from Aaron in Missouri.

[Skip]

We usually agree. Thank goodness. That's something I don't tell people how to do. Yeah, and it's not because it's top secret. That's my ab box and some of the other stuff I do. But the reason why I don't tell people how to do that is because there's so many different ones. It's that ugly Falcon secret. Everybody knows about that. I think there's even an Internet name for it. There's like a resistor and capacitor integrated circuit antique thing that they stick in the circuit that kills the gain of those amps. And if you get rid of it and just basically replace it with a capacitor, they get way louder and sound way better. Okay, great. But there's a boatload of others. I've seen four or five other things that they do to those falcons to make them sound terrible, and it's pretty hard to know which ones you have in there. Of course there's Only a couple schematics, but there's like six different versions. So you'd have to look in there and see all the electrolytics in a Falcon or almost any Gibson have to go because they used a type that are almost always bad. So that's a good start, but making it sound really great. There was a Falcon here recently where somebody must have decided that that resistor capacitor thing, the tone suck part, whatever the Internet calls it, was bad. And he rebuilt it from individual parts. It's like three resistors and two capacitors I think, all in this little chip looking thing with a bunch of wires coming out of it. And he. I look in there and he had made a new one with a bunch of brand new parts. Needless to say, AMP sound terrible. So it's not that I'm trying to keep top secret, it's just that those things can be a pain. Also, I love this writer that love all our fans, but I don't really want to know what somebody else does most of the time. You know, that's what keeps me off the Internet. I don't really care if somebody says, well, this is what I did to my tweet deluxe and it sounds a lot better. If it was Jim Camp Longo, I'd be listening. But otherwise I just don't need any more info. I only need wisdom, you know, or knowledge. Like a schematic, you know, so I could look through there and see what the guy did and what I thought of it. But I'm not sure how valid any of that would really be. I don't use different value capacitors in those things. I always get rid of that crazy capacitor resistor thing if it has one. And remember the early style falcons with the 7199 preamp tube? They don't have it and they sound pretty dang good by themselves. So if you have one like that, we're not talking to you, we're talking about one of those later ones that sounds like it only goes up to two and the tone control goes from thin to blah. If you got one like that, then not only are you going to have to repair it, service it, replace all the electrolytics, but you're going to have to get rid of at least some of the things that Gibson did to make them sound terrible, some of them have inverse feedback from the output transformer. Bet you didn't know that Some of them have inverse feedback within the preamp, which is not on any schematic. So you just have to send it to me. How often I used to say that? All the time. If you want it to work, you just bring it to me. Otherwise I'm not that way anymore. But when it comes to a Falcon, just keep slugging away. And don't forget, if it sounds fun and you can burn the dinner because you're enjoying playing with it, then it doesn't matter what you did, you got it sounding great. And that's the goal really, isn't it?

[Jason]

That is the goal.

[Skip]

That is the goal. Burn the dinner.

[Jason]

I, I was. I know the news travels fast these days, but remember when Gibson reissued a quote unquote Falcon? That was only two years ago. That feels like it was like five years ago or 10 years ago.

[Skip]

Remember when the guy called me, I swear it's almost in tears from Gibson telling me that, about how the boss walked in and said, don't worry about what you guys are doing. We're gonna have these all made by Boogie. And, oh, they wanted to make a Skylark, which is a classic little champ. And big companies do some, do some things once in a while that you gotta wonder, you know, Gibson turned their back on a huge, huge, A viable chunk of customer by doing things that way or by not producing an amp that a certain crowd would want. Because I can guarantee you our homeboys are not into anything that they did with that Falcon. I mean, unless you're getting it. By the way, check the prices on those things secondhand, right? Hope you didn't buy it brand new. I mean, if you found one somewhere, you got a good tone off of it, great. But it isn't really anything to do with a Falcon at all except the name. So. Yeah, that was a little bit discouraging. They are awfully complex, but I think somebody good, somebody serious, those milkman amps come to mind. They could, they could make something like that and have it be the real deal. Yeah, they wanted to, but it isn't easy. It's, it's a more, a little bit more complex than a Princeton reverb, say, for instance. So here's, here's a, here's an excellent tech tip that just jumped into my brain. Sure, there's a, there's a. You know, Hammond is a company from Canada, not affiliated with Hammond Organs. They make a huge percentage of all the transformers that we use and can get from like amplified parts. Well, they have a choke, which is a little transformer looking thing that's just a coil of wire. So it has one lead coming out and another lead coming out. It's called a 154M like Mary. It's two Henry's. I think it's 100 milliamps. And if you had a little amp that was running too high of a voltage because it was old or just because of the design, if you put that little choke in there, it lowers that voltage. That's part of the thing on those 8 watt champs I've been making using the sour sound output transformer. Get that B plus down and they're 15 or $20. You know, they're really inexpensive. A show or two ago, we talked about an amp I saw where there was a filament transformer wired up in this trippy way permanently in the primary to lower the voltage that the amp is seeing from the wall. This move just drops the high voltage of the dc and just adding that little choke to say, a silver face Champ would lower the B plus and make it sound better in a lot of cases. And I didn't realize that it was so inexpensive and so available. But that's definitely. You make your own little Champ clone and you're going, yeah, everything's groovy, but man, it's 400 volts on the plates. I wish it was 360 or 380. You put that little choke in there and it will be. So just a little something that might be helpful for where.

[Jason]

Where would you put the choke for those of us that goes between.

[Skip]

That goes between the rectifier tube and the first filter cap?

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

Yeah. Right at the beginning of the DC power supply.

[Jason]

You know, when we have this meetup, I can bring my champ down and you can do whatever mods you were going to do to it.

[Skip]

Yeah, we'll change it. You got to have the high, low input. Did you ever think I would ever say that? I thought of something that was better than what Fenders are? I've never said that. But no one uses the number two. No one. I can't get anybody to tell me they've ever. No, I've never used the number two input jack. Well, if you have this number two input jack, you will use it. And the only downside is that if you don't have a guitar plugged in and you turn the volume up, they hum because they can't have those. My circuit can't have those little shorting jacks that Fenders always have. That makes. Makes it. So if you turn volume up with nothing plugged in, it's quiet. But I think we cannot turn it up when nothing's plugged in that's not too big of a sacrifice. And people with the champs and some few other things have been telling me, oh yeah, the number two, you know, the. The champs are pretty hairy. You know, if you are. If you're a hard hitter, they distort pretty soon. And if you have an opportunity to plug into the new number two jack, which of course, as listeners know, it's exactly the same as the number one, but there's no cathode bypass cap on the first triode. If you plug into that number two, you still have all the highs and it's quieter, but it isn't dopey sounding. Like the number two jack on a Fender normally is very useful. Very. So we could put. We'd want to put that in there, you know, for when some more jazz bow guy wants to play it. Right?

[Jason]

Yeah, I love it.

[Skip]

Yeah, that'd be good.

[Jason]

Larry Chung just posted on the Facebook group that he wrote. He did? I guess Google searched a Masco MA8N and AI referenced you. The AI reply talking about the. We'll invite AI too. AI can come to the Loma Rica party.

[Skip]

I don't want to know that. A sticker. What's that? Oh, ostrich. I didn't start my own ostrich party. I can't take all the too much input. You know, I make sure not to read the paper or anything until like a couple days afterwards. Right. Yeah, I just. I know. I know so many people who ride the wave of politics and information and stuff, and some of them, I'm always telling them, hey, man, go work in the garden or something for a while. You know, it's. I'm not sure we're cut out for that, unless that's your business. You know, I think it just keeps you too. Keeps you too much on edge. So I don't think I want to know that AI is referencing the podcast.

[Jason]

No, not the podcast. Just you.

[Skip]

Oh, really?

[Listener]

Yeah.

[Jason]

Well, just you.

[Skip]

Fabulous.

[Jason]

I figured you'd be excited about that.

[Skip]

I am thrilled. I'm more thrilled about Chuck Wayne. Yes, he is a fabulous. But hardly anybody's ever heard of him. Guitar player. If you like jazz guitar. He was in Red Norvo for a few years. Right. That's the really cool vibes player. But Chuck Wayne, Morning Mist is one and String Fever is another, and they're both recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's. Right. So the sound is just like what? And that if you like jazz guitar and you haven't heard Chuck wayne, those. Those CDs are reissued and they're easy to find and they're really inexpensive. And that is some stuff right there. That guy. Remember the first song on first song on the first side at the very end, it's only guitar, bass and drums. Yeah, it is. So it's super, super spare. And he hits the last chord and then he does like a delay, but he actually plays it. So the last chord is like each one quieter and quieter and quieter and quieter. And you know, they didn't do that with an echoplex. He did it by hitting the chord and then hitting it a little softer and then a little softer and then a little softer. Oh my God. And the bass and drums are pretty unobtrusive and almost all of that stuff. And he swings. So Chuck Wayne instead of AI yes,

[Jason]

it's a good policy. All right, we've got a couple more. Again, everybody be a part of the show [e-mail] please tell our sponsors how much you appreciate them sponsoring the show. Emerald City Guitars, Grez Guitars, Amplified Parts. Use that mod electronics discount code while you can join our Patreon. Come to the Loma Rica hangout as well as Fretboard Summit. This next one is from frequent contributor Bob let's play it I Skipping Jason,

[Bob]

It's Bob in Boulder County, Colorado, following up on episode 161.

[Skip]

Reverb.

[Bob]

I'm going to do this in reverse order. I'm going to start with the recipe. Then I'm going to make a comment about the podcast. Then I'm going to end with my question.

[Skip]

Thanks for telling us.

[Bob]

First, the recipe. This is a recipe that I use to make a meat red sauce, tomato sauce for Italian pasta. You could call it spaghetti sauce. I start with a pound of bulk Italian sausage. I like to use the spicy stuff. I slowly cook it down until there's no more pink or red left. And then I like to get rid of the fat that gets rendered off before I move on with the recipe. Then I use a lot of garlic, five or six large cloves in a garlic press. A garlic press will give you the most intense flavor of garlic rather than chopping or slicing or using whole cloves. You can add the garlic to the sausage right at the very end while it's cooking and it will make it, as they say, fragrant. Then I add a 24 ounce jar of what I buy as strained tomatoes. I think this might be the same thing as crushed tomatoes, but anyway, the 24 ounce size works well for me in this recipe. Then I add about A quarter cup of red wine, whatever you got in the house works great. I simmer that slowly, generally almost fully covered for three or four hours. Then I add a lot of dried basil and dried oregano. This is more than you think. It's at least a tablespoon tablespoon full of each. It looks like a lot, but trust me, it's not. Stir that all together, and that's when you adjust the salt to make it the way you like it. This goes great over a plate of spaghetti and is always better if you freeze what's left over. I don't know why, but the freezing makes it taste better the next time you warm it up. Now, my comment on the podcast is this. I know Skip does not do anything within with smartphones whatsoever. He doesn't text, none of that stuff. And he always says Mrs. Simmons takes care of the photos. Well, my suggestion is we get Skip an old iPhone that connects to the WI FI network. I'm sure he's got WI fi in his shop.

[Skip]

And.

[Bob]

And when he comes across something cool that walks in the door, he can snap a photo on the phone and just share it with Jason. It's real easy. And I think we would get a lot of cool pictures for the Instagram if we could get Skip to do this. The phone, of course, would not be connected to a phone network, just the WI fi. Now, finally, my question relates to Tremolo. As was discussed on the last episode, I have owned two amplifiers that I believe use the bias modulation on the power tubes for the Tremolo. One was an old brown Fender Deluxe and one is a 90s Fender dual professional custom shop hardwired amp. What I've noticed. And you can see it when you have a JBL in there because you can see the dust cover on the cone. The speaker moves in time with the speed of the Tremolo. Even if you're not playing a note on your guitar. I find this a very interesting phenomenon, and maybe Skip can shed some light on why it does this. So that's it for today, guys. Sure enjoy the podcast. Always look forward to everyone that comes out. Take care.

[Jason]

Wow, that's long.

[Skip]

Whoa. Should have started with that one. It took it. The spaghetti sauce, of course. Fab. Of course, it almost took three or four hours to get through that recipe of simmering. But no, that's. That's pretty off. You can tell that guys, that guy's been making it for a while. And then that is the guy who sent the ampeg via the guy from Boulder who brought the sourdough bread just the other day. That is the guy. Bill. Bob.

[Listener]

So

[Skip]

the Brown Deluxe does use bias modulating tremolo. I don't know about the other new Fender thing, whether it does or not, but most of the time if the tremolo circuit is operating, it isn't turned off like via a foot switch. It's on all the time. And like when you turn up the intensity, you're just kind of allowing that effect to bleed into the sound and add more and more of the tremolo effect. And if you got a really hyper efficient speaker, like a jbl and you can see it really good because it has a shiny chrome dome on the front that. Yeah. Even when you're not playing, you can see that thing moving a tiny little bit in time with the trim. Not surprising. And what was the last thing? Oh, I pick. A lot of times I'll be down there in the shop and I'll just go, holy crap, would you look at that? Pinch me. Like, there's just like a row of like really fab stuff, you know, And I think I should take a picture. But nothing's worse than pictures. That junk. How long, how many times have you had to sit there with the guy on his phone going, here, let me show you a picture of my blah, blah, blah. So I usually end up not doing it, but I need to change my concept a little bit and do more pictures for the Instagram. And I can do it via an old school flip phone. I've done it before.

[Jason]

You have done it.

[Skip]

And they're not the ultimate. It's not fretboard journal worthy, but they'll catch it. And I just have to keep reminding myself that even though I've seen. How about when I had the Princetons 45, 48 and 50 all sitting there, the woody one. Right. I guess people would like to see a picture of that, but I don't know. Just. I'd rather see a picture of a person holding the amp or a picture of an amp and a little story that this was used by this guy or the other guy or something like that. But I'll try to do. I'll try to do better on that and try to do. Maybe a weekly or bi weekly, like, podcast is coming up. Have I sent a, an Instagram photo to Jason? Well, if not, I will because there's always something, something groovy here. The ampeg. What's that thing called? The rever. The superb reverb. They wanted to call it super reverb, but Fender had Some thoughts about that. So they changed it to superb Reverb. And it's like a blue check Ampeg combo, but with a 15 in it instead of a 12. Very cool.

[Jason]

Yeah, yeah.

[Skip]

So I'll try to do better on that. Bob.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Mr. Reverb,

[Jason]

come to our meetup. Make your spaghetti sauce. All right, we got one more.

[Skip]

Now we're talking.

[Jason]

We've got one more. This is from listener Tim. Thanks, everybody, for tuning into the show. Please, please, please keep the questions coming, whether they're silly or deep or in the weeds, whatever. It's what makes the show the show. And here's Tim.

[Tim]

Hello, Jason and Skip. It's Tim from Arkansas. I'm calling in because I've learned something really disturbing. I don't even know how to say this exactly. So, of course you know that Garnett Ampson from Winnipeg, Manitoba, were the preferred amp of Randy Backman and the guys in the Guess who back in the American Woman days. In fact, that great distorted guitar tone was from a Garnett Herzog. Well, I don't know if you knew this, but their bass player for all those classic hits was Jim Kale. That's right. Kale. K A L E. Coincidence? I think not. Thanks a lot. See you guys.

[Jason]

Wow. See, I will play anything that just

[Skip]

like a little Bob Newhart, like there. There actually isn't a joke. It was just the presentation, Right? Like so. Oh, that's dry. I, of course, know all about the Herzog. And I've told y' all to build your own Herzog. And I made one for someone really well known. Someday maybe I'll be able to talk about that. We'll see. And yeah, it's a little tiny amp, like a Champ amp, but instead of a speaker, you just put a big old resistor. In other words, like a dummy load. And then you take signal off of that. And that's the super distorted on. On American Woman, right, where it's just like that. And I've even made outboard boxes where you could plug this thing in to your little champ and convert it to a fuzz. So don't tell me about the Herzog. And of course, the Garnet book, if it's still available, is fabulous. And someone told me that they even have a shout out to Tava. Because when we first brought it up, I mean, they probably sold 10 or 15 or 20. I don't know, they sold a few copies of that book. And it's pretty expensive, but it's a. It's a fun one. And it's it's definitely worthwhile.

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

And they're undervalued, like trainers. What.

[Jason]

What a tremolo and Canadian amp centric episode we just had.

[Skip]

No kidding. So can't. By request of Kevin from Ohio, who I owe a lot, done a lot of things for me. He loved this story. He thought you should know. In the olden days, I'm not sure what year, but I would say late 50s, early 60s. There was a hi Fi company called Dynaco. Yeah, they made kits and stuff. And their stuff, specs wise, was way up there, like Macintosh. But it was like fraction of the cost because it was a kit. And it was made a lot simpler, but they made some good stuff. And there was also a company called Acoustic Research ar. They made one of the very first really simple, lightweight, affordable turntables with really good specs called the AR Turntable. They also made some really good speakers. Well, back then you could go to Grand Central Station in New York City and while you were waiting for your train, you could go upstairs to the Dinoco AR listening room. No, no sales made in the listening room. But you could go up there and you could play music on this AR Dynaco rig. And they also had a little stage on one side of the. Of the room and they would get like a string quartet in there and they would put like a curtain in front and they do AB tests between the hi Fi and the live band. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine a company just having a free place to go hang out at the airport and listen to their gear? No salesman.

[Jason]

So cool.

[Skip]

That's good times right there. So. Hi, Kevin.

[Jason]

I told that story as though we needed a reminder the world was once a better place. Oh, well, the Dinoco's live on and the AR turntables, I've seen those.

[Skip]

Yeah, those are. They're very elegant, very Scandinavian minimal. On, off, switch only, you know, no needle lift. You had to go over there, put it down. But that was the basis of the cool hi Fi. For people that didn't have endless amounts of money, you'd have Life magazine selects, you know, the best hi Fi systems in 1961. And they'd have the cost, no object, you know, Macintosh and stuff like that. And then down at the bottom would be the, the little jewel, the Grom's little jewel and a Gerard turntable. And somewhere in the middle would be all that Dinoco and AR stuff. And hi Fi was really popular for a while. And it's not anymore. I'm sorry, most. Most hi Fi guys are into really exotic, really expensive stuff and mostly modern stuff. And not that many people are into old Fisher and Scott and McIntosh. And I've. I'm sort of surprised. I hope it doesn't go the way of antique radios because that stuff's way too cool for that. But enough. We won't go off on a hi Fi tangent. Except a good tube amp sounds way better than whatever you're listening to unless you've got something really, really good. Just something to keep in mind if you get bored with guitar amps. Trust me. You just hook a record player up to a Fender and play a record on it and you just won't believe it. You'll just go, what the heck? Even something that you've heard a million times, you'll go, wow. I never. I didn't ever even know there was another rhythm guitar in that thing. And it's not because Fender amps were made especially for hi fi. But a decent circuit with tubes just brings it all out. And most of the music that we hear today is so compressed and so digitized that you just can't hear the air in it anymore. You know, it sounds like it exists in the headphones as opposed to existing in a room. Does that make sense?

[Jason]

Yeah.

[Skip]

Yeah. All right. Well, I guess we did it.

[Jason]

We did do it.

[Skip]

Thank you. Yeah. No, lay down for a while.

[Jason]

Okay.

[Skip]

No, but I can't. I gotta. I gotta go. Get back to work. Slowly but surely. And thanks for being patient with me over the last few days. And as long as those questions keep coming, we'll keep doing it.

[Jason]

All right? And we'll have a meetup in Loma Rica. I'm excited.

[Skip]

It's something that I will allow nagging about.

[Jason]

Okay. That's all we needed to hear.

[Skip]

If it's six months and nobody ever says to us, hey, you know, that's a good idea, then I don't know. Maybe not. And at any time, anybody from anywhere, you come over here, you spend an hour, I'll find you something that you want, and I'll give you a great deal on it. Cheaper than you'd ever find on ebay or something like that. Plus a bunch of advice. And, you know, you can throw the ball for Junior if you want. All right. We did it.

[Jason]

Thanks, Skip.

[Skip]

Thanks for all you do, Jason.