Blackstar. Got no QC? :o HT-20mkII...

I'd be willing to bet good money that the average concertgoer couldn't tell the difference between a PCB-based and a point-to-point amplifier with the same circuit topology. I see the "but-you-can't-repair-a-PCB-amp" argument coming, and I don't care. I have no problem with cheap-and-sounds-good. (Except from companies who copy existing designs exactly to bypass R&D costs.)
 
PCB amps can be repaired, if they have SMT it requires special tools and skills, but a competent tech can repair thru hole PCBs. As far as quality, we have PCBs in space, much harsher environment than here, hotter, colder, radiation, etc... It comes down to the quality of the PCB, yes there is crap out there, and there are good designs.

I do agree about booteek, it's pretty much the amplifier middle and upper middle class now.
 
No argument here about the repairability of PCB, it is. How many times though? How hot can it get when something fails before the board goes conductive? 30 years, 50 years, sure if they are closet stuffers, but I would bet there are not many 50-year-old PCB amps that are still rolling without some sort of workaround due to lifted, burnt, or torn traces.

When was the last SMT amp you had repaired by anyone? A qualified tech can fix anything, the question is will they and will it cost more than the amp was when it was new? The cost of good techs is going to go up as they become further and fewer between. An $85 bench fee will be nothing when it costs 3hrs. at $95 an hr. to fix your $300 amp.

I wasn't trying to tell anyone how to spend their money or where to place value in it, I was simply saying that one design type has a downside.
 
Agreed on the SMT, usually cheaper to just replace the PCB or the amp, higher $ amps will probably not have SMT unless it is a daughter board with MIDI or some other digital funtions.

You can spec the thickness of the copper on a PCB and insulator materials and thicknesses for PCBs that will last, like I said, we do it all the time, not saying all amp mfrs do, but they can.
 
going to start checking out how the amp is tomorrow,

sorry I don't have replacement spare tubes,

but I got my multimeter, and will look for any burnt marks or off stuff. :)

-E
 
I have no problem with cheap-and-sounds-good. (Except from companies who copy existing designs exactly to bypass R&D costs.)


So you don't like Marshall or Fender? Both of them copied existing amplifier designs with their earliest models . . . likely in order to bypass R&D costs.
 
Not everyone has 3 grand or is willing to drop 3 large on an amp. And not everyone knows/ cares about the technical might going on inside the amp. Some people just want to play and make music whether it's with PCB or non PCB amp.
 
I wonder if I'll ever get a next amp;

or just stop giving a damn about electrics and all that fuzz :/

...and just get a good acoustic classical/spanish guitar.

:)
 
I think some of you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying only buy $3k amplifiers that are made by quirky individuals who actually believe the direction the wire is connected matters. I am saying that because of the buying habits of people, the market has adjusted to take advantage, and you as a buyer have to shift your mindset and expectations for the purchases you make.

If you buy a $200 modeling amp and it quits working, you get a little upset, and you should be. You look for ways to fix it, but it is FILLED with NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS. So the only way to fix your amp is to pay someone to do so. Anything over $100 will make it a total loss, and often you abandon the amp and spend money on a new one. But you just got this amp to futz around with, so no big deal right? This is buying behavior #1.

The other buying characteristic is the buy once, cry once mindset. You spend significant money on an amp you intend to keep for a long time, perhaps forever, or at least with no intention of letting it go. So you spend what is for you a significant $$$ amount. Your expectations are high. You expect this purchase to last, work for a reasonable amount of time and give you some ROI. This $$$ amount is different for different people. $4,000 is a lot for anyone, doesn't matter if it's a 5E3 copy or if it's a Diezel Herbert. What are the expectations? If you buy a $200 amp with the buy once, cry once mindset, you are not living in reality. Your purchases have to align with your expectations.
 
I can remember seeing some pcb boards from the 60's and 70's. They were stout. The trend towards miniaturization has rendered them much less robust. But that's why they're cheaper to just replace.

Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk
 
UPDATE:

Opened up the amp;

Saw no burnt resistors, or leaking caps. Loads of tiny surface-mounted parts tho :/, and the pots seem to be of mediocre quality. (Tiny, flat things).

The output tubes though, looked burnt? Atleast black, like- soot stains on the metal and the glass. I suspect they might have been very very hot.


Unfortunately I don't have any replacement tubes around; and a matched set is quite expensive.... but I need to get the amp working anyways.!

-E
 
Tubes do die. Burned looking tubes will need to be replaced, but it's probably worth taking things to an amp tech first to make sure that there isn't something else wrong. You don't want to buy a new set, plug them in, and then immediately burn them out too.
 
Typically the tell-tale sign of certain tube death has a more white-looking appearance. The getter ( the silver-looking coating in the tube ) is a metal that reacts highly to oxygen and when the tube goes gassy ( cracks, losses vacuum, and or has atmosphere introduced into it ), the once shiny, silver coating will turn white.

As I mentioned EL84's are often subjected to abuse. It isn't the fault of the tube at all. The designers keep subjecting them to extremes. EL84 tubes will often look pretty burnt because they are run harder than a $2 corner worker on pay-day..... They are the kind of tube that simply sound amazing getting flogged to death, and do so until they give up the ghost, which is generally pretty quickly.

The only way to solve that problem is going to be by reducing the bias and I would also plan on increasing the screen grid resistor value to at least 1kohm or 1.5kohm if there is only a single screen grid resistor. 3 watt or higher.
 
Thanks Ewizard. :)

I thought I had a box with three pairs of El84's somewhere, though can't find it. Anyways, paycheck is coming , and I guess I'll have to get a new pair . Though economy is tight.

Does it matter much if the tube pair is "matched" or not? There is a 25USD difference per pair from "my" norwegian supplier.

I found the bias adjustment pot, seems very easy to adjust ;

Also I've been thinking about the screen grid resistor. If I find out which one it is, I could prob. read its value from the color markings. And send the amp to a tech, if the tech isn't horribly expensive /which they are over here.

Fixing things myself often seems to be bound to go wrong ;). Even just changing out a component or two.

thanks alot for your replies, appreciated

-Erl
 
I don't find too much value in having a matched pair, although I will spend reasonable money for that option if it is available. Doubling the price of the tubes is not reasonable. El84's can be had for about the same price as 12AX7 tubes ( about $15 each ). A matched pair shouldn't cost much more, perhaps $10-15 more fairly, beyond that you are getting ripped off. It only takes a moment for some person to stick the tubes into a machine to measure them. And with a properly set up system, a computer program will tell them which tubes to put with which at the end of the batch. There is nothing special about matched tubes, they are simply measured and sold with another tube that is close in performance. It takes only a couple of minutes for that match to be made, so spending much beyond an hour's wage for that is silly.

I kind of figured that the amp was fixed bias, so I am not surprised there is a bias knob in there. You are looking to bias at around 70% of the tube's peak output. So realistically you are shooting for about 7-8 watts per tube or roughly 14-16 watts of total dissipation from the pair. This link: https://robrobinette.com/How_to_Bias_a_Tube_Amp.htm

has a very good primer on several different methods of biasing. I too prefer the method that Rob prescribes ( the output transformer resistance method ) and find it to be rather easy to expedite and very accurate with reasonable safety. The center tap is usually the RED wire that comes from the output transformer. The primary wires of the transformer are typically BLUE and BROWN.

My years of experience have made it so that I can bias pretty much by looking at the tube. I generally start with the bias as cold as it can be. This is easy to see with the amp on ( and connected to a speaker ). I play the guitar while I slowly increase the bias. At some point, one of two things will happen, the sound will change slightly, and or the tubes will red plate. Obviously, red plating tubes are bad. I look for the point where the sound is as good as it can be while still being as cold a bias as I can get away with. I find this generally will place me in the 60-70% dissipation range. Below 60% dissipation, the sound is generally sterile or lacking in character. It will sound ok, but just not full-bodied. It will also sound thinner, brighter, and even perhaps have a little bit of grit on what should be a clean sound. When you get above 70% of dissipation the sound often gets fuller, warmer, and bigger sounding. The volume and self-noise also increase a bit. The tubes will often look as if they are running hot with visible blue emission and more heat production. It may be right on the verge of red-plating at this point. This is too hot. If you look into the tube and can see the grids glowing blue very clearly, you may still be too hot. You are shooting for a faint blue glow from the grids. Using the above method to set the ideal dissipation, you can get an idea of what the tubes should look like at normal operation. I do agree that 70% is a max ideal setting, so err to the cold side of biasing if you are not certain. A cold bias will ensure the tubes last longer, don't hurt the sound too much, and has less self-noise. I guess you could say if you are not certain, err to somewhere between ideal and too cold. If the tubes are not red-plating when you have the amp cranked and you have been playing for a while, you are ok. If the tubes even think of red-plating when you are not playing, you are way too hot.

As for the screen grid resistors, they are the ones that will be connected to pin 9 of the EL84. Typically they are 100ohm to 470ohm resistors. If they ( Blackstar ) did good, they will already be 1k or higher. There is often only 1 per pair of tubes, and in an ideal case, there is one for each tube. So you will have either 1 or two screen grid resistors. They will be higher wattage too, so should stand out pretty clearly as some of the largest resistors on the board. Generally, they range from a 3-watt to a 5-watt resistor. I doubt they used 5-watts ( large ceramic box looking resistors ) though. If they don't look burnt, it is still wise to measure them anyway. They should be very close to the stated value, if not, they should be changed.
 
Thank you again very much Ewizard, for this priceless valuable information! :) And taking your time to help me and others out , with your experience.

I asked an US tube supplier for what they'd recommend-

they agreed that many El84 amps are very hard on tubes, and actually writes of some of their el84's that "these are not suited to high current amps like the AC30"

instead, they had the Military grade Sovteks, at 25USD per piece. It would take the most beating of their assortment, they wrote.

Described as being a premium hi-fi tube, but maybe stiff and hard to overdrive in a guitar amp; I'd still go for reability; if a 25 dollar tube lasts twice as long as a 15d one, it's already cheaper. :).


The tips for biasing are very helpful. I think i will do it like you said;

as far as the screen grid resistors; - I will research this, and do something about it.

... the potentiometers used on my amp seems to be crap aswell :/. So those must have to be changed aswell, (can't be too expensive). :).

Hoping to have this amp a while. As long as none of the tiny surface-mount components go bad; it is a great sounding amplifier for the price. Especially the clean channel is pretty;
and the overdrive isn't bad either.

(as the nightmare example I remember the lead guitarist of my first serious band, and his Randall solid state combo amp. Ouch, what a sound! I had a really nice Marshall combo at the time, with spring reverb and all... the blackstar is somewhere in-between in terms of tone.)

:)

Thanks and rock on! \m/

-E
 
This is great information, Ewizard. Thanks for continuing to share this knowledge.

Erland, before replacing pots, take some contact cleaner and spray it inside them from the back. There should be a small spot to spray in two quick bursts through the little straw the spray cans come with. Then move the pot back and forth a bit to work the cleaner across the entire contact range and the wafer. That'll save some money right there. It's also a good idea to do that with your guitar pots every so often.
 
This is great information, Ewizard. Thanks for continuing to share this knowledge.

Erland, before replacing pots, take some contact cleaner and spray it inside them from the back. There should be a small spot to spray in two quick bursts through the little straw the spray cans come with. Then move the pot back and forth a bit to work the cleaner across the entire contact range and the wafer. That'll save some money right there. It's also a good idea to do that with your guitar pots every so often.

yeah, the pots are working allright... but look so flimsy and cheap inside the amp :/

bound to fail sooner than a real CTS or similar. :(

though... Im playing a mass produced, built-for the masses, robot assembled thing with USB output :(

It has rubber grommets for the preamp valves, and retainers for the output ones, well sized transformers...

and , well- sounds /rather/ nice when dialed in correctly:

-with the mids on FULL, bass and treble at 1/4, it sounds like a marshall with everything at noon EQ wise...

:/ I often boost the mids with my EHX Allied Overdrive though, to get that 80's kind of distortion.

Not a bad amp. But I am dissapointed its built to burn its tubes when played at full volume, even just for 30 seconds.! :o
and all the surface mounted components make me... anxious.
-E
 
The higher-grade tubes they want to sell you are surely nice They are either an EL84M or a 7189. EL84M's are not as common and are a newer tube technology. The M version is basically a more ruggedized Military version of the EL84. The 7189 IS the original military version of the EL84. They are now sold as either NOS ( expensive and old ) or as reissues ( recent production ). I would love to use them more in my amp designs, but they are expensive and harder to come by ( most places are out of stock ).

I have an EL84 amp that I just recently finished the design of. I wanted very badly to use 7189's or other ruggedized EL84 versions, but every time I looked for a set, they are either sold out or back-ordered. It is not prudent ( in my opinion ) to design an amp that uses a tube that is either hard to find, prohibitively expensive or both. Part of the reason I am not a fan of recent Dr. Z and Matchless offerings. It doesn't matter how good they sound, if you can't find a replacement tube, the amp is useless. They do last longer and are able to handle the abusive voltages many designers subject them to though. End Rant...

I doubt that your amp as designed will be able to properly bias those tubes though. Because they can handle a higher HT plate voltage, they will have less current flow ( dissipation ) at the current supplied bias voltage. This means that you will probably find that you can't turn your bias up enough to get the M or 7189 version to bias up to 60-70%. You just won't know until you load a set in there. It may work just fine? I doubt it though and I suspect that you would have to modify the bias circuit.

As for the pots, if they are scratchy and noisy, there are ways to clean them without removing them from the amp. A good cleaning will often quiet them down.

It isn't so much that the designers purposefully try to burn the EL84's up, it is that 50-60 years ago the circuits of interest that used them were copied and pasted so many times in subsequent designs without addressing the voltage issues. If you have a power transformer designed to vintage specs, it will produce higher voltages today than it would have 50-60 years ago. Wall voltages in that era were closer to 110v. Add another 10-12 volts to the wall and the transformer will produce an extra 20-60 volts depending on the transformer. It isn't that AC30's were grossly destructive to EL84's in the '60s, it is that they biased them to near class A operation with a power supply that was running them at near their limit to begin with. Modern reproduction PTs just never really dealt with the voltage increase from the wall. So now we end up with modern designs that simply run EL84's to within an inch of their life. It's all the copying and pasting of old designs. There is gross negligence and there is simply no other option. I am not able to just pay to have a custom transformer made to my spec. So I have to work with what I can find. Other companies have a goal in mind and throw caution to the wind in order to get to that goal.

Blackstar probably started with what was more or less an AC15 type design with a more modern preamp design. My guess is that they were having fizz issues at higher volume levels and decided the only way around that was to go fixed bias. This different topology drops less voltage from the HT line and because of how it works, allows for more wattage dissipation to occur through the tube. This allowed them the 20-watt designation. That extra 3 watts of potential output is because of the significantly higher HT plate voltage and being fixed bias.

I am just as guilty. My amp design uses a PT from an 18watt Marshall. My amp design has about 340 volts on the EL84 plates. Not egregious, but certainly not going easy on them either. There are some designs that have 360 volts or more on the plates! Now that is a bit much. I suspect that your amp is one that has about 360v on the plates. My amp design is cathode biased and I have the tubes biased right around 95% at idle ( pretty close to class A at idle ) but for the amp design I have this is actually pretty easy on the tubes. As you play louder and louder, the bias cools down more and more. Playing at bedroom levels is harder on the tubes than playing at show level. The tubes I have in my test mule for the design have lasted over two years and I play the thing at ALL levels pretty much every day. I have been trying to torture test the thing to see what fails. So far the only weak link in my amp was the rectifier and I think I have that issue worked out. I got rid of the standby function and use reverse current protection diodes on the rectifier. Since then the rectifier has been solid and there have been no issues. Prior to that, the amp would randomly pop fuses when the rectifier arced. Further proof that standbys are a bad design idea, that was the major root of that issue. The amp does not need a standby ( it is tube rectified ) and the safety diodes for the rectifier I put in were just to ensure that if the rectifier fails, the PT would be protected. I have a mute switch that simply kills the audio as opposed to cutting the HT voltage. I always thought it was weird to cut the HT voltage to mute an amp. Turning on and off the highest voltage in the amp is kind of a silly way to do that function.
 
Ewizard:

People like you. Who share their knowledge, for others positive gains; inspire me alot :).

I am going to place an order on the M-spec tubes, they said they are awaiting a new batch in stock soon. As far as bias issues- I think my amp came biased rather hot when i got it, and i can turn up the pot adjustment alot.

I like the idea of things running cool and steady, instead of cooking. I hope I won't lose the beautiful chime it has, around 4-5/10 on the master volume. :/

If I had the money, I'd go for a PTP wired Princeton clone, with a 12". Or one of those Ampeg 15/7w combos with spring reverb-. that were produced in very very limited numbers :(. Just when I had the money to order one, it was discontinued... now they are very very hard to find used, and expensive as heck. The nicest sounding amp I have ever heard though...

6v6'es are my favourite by far.

Thanks for your information,

wish you the best.

-Erlend
 
Back
Top