V-Plex modded to HG Jose type circuit and CCV features

  • Thread starter Thread starter scottosan
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harddriver said:
I have re-listened to the clips and it really sounds like alot of the pre-brad CCV's IMHO... while your previous CCV clones with the Classic tone transformers sound very good but those versus this amp with the Mercury Magnetics transformers seems to really deliver a more authentic Cameron CCV grind, tightness and tone. I also tend to agree with the "CLEAN GAIN" description of the gain structure.

What Cathode caps did you use in the this amp, just curious?
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This circuit is really blowing my mind. I’ve done 7 now with this base circuit and it is insane how sensitive it is to voltages and components. In each of those, I rolled parts for days and weeks to find sweet spots and preferences. In my mind, in the previous builds I tweaked to get the best out of them, but felt the were close, but just a little lacking in the grind compared to some of Cameron built amps. On this one, its got that grind for sure and I’m fighting the temptation to tweak it closer to my other amps since that’s what I’ve become accustomed to, but I have to remind myself that this translated better to capturing that tone.


The clippers seem to have more effect the lower the amps B+ Right now I’m at 16v at medium clipping and 5v high clipping.
 
scottosan said:
This circuit is really blowing my mind. I’ve done 7 now with this base circuit and it is insane how sensitive it is to voltages and components. In each of those, I rolled parts for days and weeks to find sweet spots and preferences. In my mind, in the previous builds I tweaked to get the best out of them, but felt the were close, but just a little lacking in the grind compared to some of Cameron built amps. On this one, its got that grind for sure and I’m fighting the temptation to tweak it closer to my other amps since that’s what I’ve become accustomed to, but I have to remind myself that this translated better to capturing that tone.


The clippers seem to have more effect the lower the amps B+ Right now I’m at 16v at medium clipping and 5v high clipping.
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I would blueprint the voltages and components that you have now, document it before you start swapping other parts tonechasing. I think this Vplex amp is the most authentic CCV tone you have achieved yet. I'm not knocking your previous tone achievements but this incarnation has the specific characteristics that I hear in the original CCV's and Psychodaves Cameron Marshall which is my benchmark for Cameron amp tone.
 
harddriver said:
Cool...I just looked at your earlier pics and those are the generic Polyester foil caps, I am really impressed with how they sound as cathode caps, they definitely have the aggressiveness/clarity in the realm of the MPW polyprolpylene caps which I like as well.

Yeah I sent you those RIFA's, those have alot of clarity as well.
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A lot of people don’t like these OD 715ps, but I love them. They were in my Roccaforte as well. A few takeaways:

MC10H choke really shines in this circuit

The bright caps are really vital to the overall tone, but I feel that people don’t know how to best utilize them. In this circuit and standard audio taper pot, the can sound really shrill at 12:00 and worse lower. The CCV uses linear taper gain pots, making it hard to dial in bad tones at the expense of an even taper when adjusting gain. As Psychodave has previously commented, you have to treat the gain knobs as bright controls instead of gain. That’s why I’ve added the CCV switches. You control the gain the switches and mids through the gain pots.

Since B+ affects the sensitivity of your tone controls, I find the the higher the B+, the less affects of the clipper. I could never do 5v on the Roccaforte with it’s 400v b+. On this the 5v feels like 16v on the Roccaforte.

The correct Cameron punch circuit is s must
 
Sounds really good Scott, if you’re using the 560pf treble peaker for the higher voltage you might try using a 430pf or so for the 400v to give it the same feel, rock on brother.
 
Sounds absolutely incredible. Very, very well done. In addition to great technical chops with a soldering iron, you also have an excellent ‘ear’ for what sounds right. That’s the sound that you could play all night.
 
scottosan said:
This circuit is really blowing my mind. I’ve done 7 now with this base circuit and it is insane how sensitive it is to voltages and components. In each of those, I rolled parts for days and weeks to find sweet spots and preferences. In my mind, in the previous builds I tweaked to get the best out of them, but felt the were close, but just a little lacking in the grind compared to some of Cameron built amps. On this one, its got that grind for sure and I’m fighting the temptation to tweak it closer to my other amps since that’s what I’ve become accustomed to, but I have to remind myself that this translated better to capturing that tone.


The clippers seem to have more effect the lower the amps B+ Right now I’m at 16v at medium clipping and 5v high clipping.
Click to expand...

Out of all the amps I've built, the Jose style circuits are the most sensitive to parts, and voltages. It can be frustrating, but fun at the same time.

As for OD polypropylene caps, I've tried to jive with them, never could. One day, I guess when my wizzard clone gets finished. Luckily I already had all the OD's I need for that build from all the times I tried to cap an amp with them. LOL

I also hated the wima's, but are now finding them pretty nice on cathode bypass spots.
 
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