Mystery Knob on Back of Ed's Amp Was FET ?!?!?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ben Waylin
  • Start date Start date
Highly doubt that was a MV. Why would it be on the far left side? Not anywhere you’d mount a MV based on where it’s installed in the circuit. You’d have to come out of that pot over to the phase inverter which is in the middle of the board. Doesn’t make sense.

I have two Jose’s. They both have a pot in that exact same spot. And both of them engage the added gain stage from the added tube. However, this amp doesn’t have an extra tube.

Directly next to that pot on my Jose’s and,
on many others, is a rotary selector switch. It adjusts the plate voltage of the first gain stage. That doesn’t look like a rotary switch to me. I kind of doubt that was a Jose mod.

There’s not much close by to that pot to control in a stock Super Lead. It could have been as simple as a pot to balance the hum in the tube heaters.
 
RedPlated said:
Highly doubt that was a MV. Why would it be on the far left side? Not anywhere you’d mount a MV based on where it’s installed in the circuit. You’d have to come out of that pot over to the phase inverter which is in the middle of the board. Doesn’t make sense.

I have two Jose’s. They both have a pot in that exact same spot. And both of them engage the added gain stage from the added tube. However, this amp doesn’t have an extra tube.

Directly next to that pot on my Jose’s and,
on many others, is a rotary selector switch. It adjusts the plate voltage of the first gain stage. That doesn’t look like a rotary switch to me. I kind of doubt that was a Jose mod.
Click to expand...
This guy gets it.

pdOjmxH.jpg
 
Not sure how many were actually alive when VH hit the scene, his technique is definitely a HUGE part of the sound and success, for anyone who was alive as mentioned, there was no fucking amp that had that type distortion , even in the chords he was playing, not anything I could get anyways and nothing I heard on anything released in that era, Boston perhaps but that was studio vs raw edge IMO. He wouldn't tell anyone shit either. Send you on a goose chase and you still can't get that sound is what I remember. Other than the phase 90 and Flanger he spoke of in 1980 or so in GW. 40 + years later from 78 and we still dissecting his sound, lol it was a mark in guitar history and won't be repeated, copied, absolutely.
 
RedPlated said:
Highly doubt that was a MV. Why would it be on the far left side? Not anywhere you’d mount a MV based on where it’s installed in the circuit. You’d have to come out of that pot over to the phase inverter which is in the middle of the board. Doesn’t make sense.

I have two Jose’s. They both have a pot in that exact same spot. And both of them engage the added gain stage from the added tube. However, this amp doesn’t have an extra tube.

Directly next to that pot on my Jose’s and,
on many others, is a rotary selector switch. It adjusts the plate voltage of the first gain stage. That doesn’t look like a rotary switch to me. I kind of doubt that was a Jose mod.

There’s not much close by to that pot to control in a stock Super Lead. It could have been as simple as a pot to balance the hum in the tube heaters.
Click to expand...
Except you have simple easy access to the location. No worry about getting burned by power tubes and the amp looks correct from the front.
 
psychodave said:
Except you have simple easy access to the location. No worry about getting burned by power tubes and the amp looks correct from the front.
Click to expand...
Somewhere there's the 80s Letterman clip with Ed and his magic Marshall; playing at a pretty low volume with a TON of gain. No pedals to be seen; how would a 68 Marshall have all that gain at such a low volume?

Hmmm......
 
RedPlated said:
Highly doubt that was a MV. Why would it be on the far left side? Not anywhere you’d mount a MV based on where it’s installed in the circuit. You’d have to come out of that pot over to the phase inverter which is in the middle of the board. Doesn’t make sense.

I have two Jose’s. They both have a pot in that exact same spot. And both of them engage the added gain stage from the added tube. However, this amp doesn’t have an extra tube.

Directly next to that pot on my Jose’s and,
on many others, is a rotary selector switch. It adjusts the plate voltage of the first gain stage. That doesn’t look like a rotary switch to me. I kind of doubt that was a Jose mod.

There’s not much close by to that pot to control in a stock Super Lead. It could have been as simple as a pot to balance the hum in the tube heaters.
Click to expand...

Actually it's almost the same location where Jose would put the volume, just on the back rather than the front jack holes.

A rotary switch could be a possibility. I mean if it was resistor decade kind of thing to adjust/value swap the plate resistor that has the potential to give that kind of gain. Maybe Ed found the position he liked, and had Jose just solder that value in for the sake of reliability.
 
Wouldn't it be funny if it was just a random potentiometer, used to fill a vacate hole from a previous mod, from when it was the house amp at the Rose Palace?
 
CrazyNutz said:
Actually it's almost the same location where Jose would put the volume, just on the back rather than the front jack holes.

A rotary switch could be a possibility. I mean if it was resistor decade kind of thing to adjust/value swap the plate resistor that has the potential to give that kind of gain. Maybe Ed found the position he liked, and had Jose just solder that value in for the sake of reliability.
Click to expand...

No, it was not a volume that Jose put on the back. I have two original Jose’s and have seen numerous others in person. The MV was placed on front where the presence is. The presence then moves to the rear in a speaker jack hole. Sometimes the MV is where the pilot light is. But I have never seen one on back.

The pot in the back is for the extra tube stage. Pulling it engages the stage. Turning it up or down controls the amount of gain in that stage. Clearly not the case here.

I doubt it’s a rotary as it’s got a nylon shaft. Same for a push pull. The specific push pulls he used were metal shafts.

If it was a master with zener diodes on it that means the amp was converted to a pre-tone stack master. Not only do I not hear this in his tone at all, again it’s physically unlikely as to where the master is placed in the amp.

The drop in gain on 1984 has been attributed to Eddie’s pickup shorting and eventually only outputting partially on one coil. I think that’s a lot more likely than worn diodes.

I’ve seen may Joses as I previously mentioned. He always placed pots nearest to their respective circuits. When presence was moved, it was moved directly to the rear, as close as possible to the original location. Same with the other controls.

I just don’t see running from the V2b cathode to the back corner of the amp and then back to the treble pot for a Jose master with diodes on it. I don’t see any see any reasonable rationalization for placing it there. Especially when Jose put the presence in/ next to the speaker jacks. If there was a concern of hot power tubes he wouldn’t have done that. I don’t personally think the power tubes had anything to do with the thought process on that.
 
If that amp was stock, we’d have gut shots of it by now. There is no reason not to. It would corroborate all the stories we’ve heard.

But too many people know about the red dye solder and innards of these amps to know what is stock and what isn’t.

That amp ain’t stock or at least wasn’t in the 70s and 80s
 
Racerxrated said:
Somewhere there's the 80s Letterman clip with Ed and his magic Marshall; playing at a pretty low volume with a TON of gain. No pedals to be seen; how would a 68 Marshall have all that gain at such a low volume?

Hmmm......
Click to expand...


the variac at 89v or whatever supposedly brings 100w into the 20something watts??


 
RaceU4her said:
the variac at 89v or whatever supposedly brings 100w into the 20something watts??


Click to expand...

I use one with my 72, and @90v it'll still rip your face off to get that kind of gain. WAY too loud for the Letterman show, which is more like a small club 'quiet' volume.
 
I look at it like this, we know vh wanted distortion at lower volumes as did everyone of that era. And he was sneaky and super protective of his tone.
A master volume on the back of the amp would do both for him, and it being on the right side would allow him to fiddle with it while playing.

Another though is Jose did a push pull 1959/2203 with a master on the back. Not sure what year the pot was added but the mv might allow ed to retain the Marshall sound which he always favored. Then when he stopped playing small clubs and got a studio he removed it.

Or he’s a master troll
 
RedPlated said:
No, it was not a volume that Jose put on the back. I have two original Jose’s and have seen numerous others in person. The MV was placed on front where the presence is. The presence then moves to the rear in a speaker jack hole. Sometimes the MV is where the pilot light is. But I have never seen one on back.

The pot in the back is for the extra tube stage. Pulling it engages the stage. Turning it up or down controls the amount of gain in that stage. Clearly not the case here.

I doubt it’s a rotary as it’s got a nylon shaft. Same for a push pull. The specific push pulls he used were metal shafts.

If it was a master with zener diodes on it that means the amp was converted to a pre-tone stack master. Not only do I not hear this in his tone at all, again it’s physically unlikely as to where the master is placed in the amp.

The drop in gain on 1984 has been attributed to Eddie’s pickup shorting and eventually only outputting partially on one coil. I think that’s a lot more likely than worn diodes.

I’ve seen may Joses as I previously mentioned. He always placed pots nearest to their respective circuits. When presence was moved, it was moved directly to the rear, as close as possible to the original location. Same with the other controls.

I just don’t see running from the V2b cathode to the back corner of the amp and then back to the treble pot for a Jose master with diodes on it. I don’t see any see any reasonable rationalization for placing it there. Especially when Jose put the presence in/ next to the speaker jacks. If there was a concern of hot power tubes he wouldn’t have done that. I don’t personally think the power tubes had anything to do with the thought process on that.
Click to expand...
Totally understand where you are coming from; but it 'might' be that Ed wanted everything on front to remain the same. Or, when/if Jose did put a master in, this was years before he would come up with a more common location on future mods. Even if the location was inconvenient.
 
RedPlated said:
No, it was not a volume that Jose put on the back. I have two original Jose’s and have seen numerous others in person. The MV was placed on front where the presence is. The presence then moves to the rear in a speaker jack hole. Sometimes the MV is where the pilot light is. But I have never seen one on back.
Click to expand...

I've seen them with the MVC in the presence hole, the indicator light hole, and in one of the input holes.

He was not afraid to put it in all the holes :hys:
 
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