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I have a question for all 5E3 owners

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4/2/2005 3:47 PM

William Jahnkow

I have a question for all 5E3 owners

I just built mine out of a donor amp , an old fender MM .
What I want input on is are these things really this loud ?
If I put the vol past 2 it is real loud , I find I need to turn the guitar volume back to get a good level I can control .
Plus it is much more sensitive to the position in the room as to picking up noise .
I use strats with vintage pickups nothing hot rodded .

4/2/2005 3:56 PM
William Jahnkow	I wanted to add the cab has two twelves , an eminence tonker and a weber silver bell . I swear you could keep up with a hotrod deluxe no problem . This is not bragging , I wanted to be able to play this thing at home at a low volume , I can if I don't dig in and turn the guitar vol down .

4/2/2005 4:28 PM
Steve L	One of the odd (and wonderful) things about a 5e3 is the way it crunches so early. You'll find that the amp is pretty much at full volume by the time it gets to 5. After that, just more crunch. And they are loud little mothers for such a small wattage. Enjoy it! Steve

4/2/2005 4:55 PM

William Jahnkow

Steve ;
where do you plat to get it up to 5 , I can get to 5 if I back the guitar volume down to 4 or 5 .
Maybe I just have'nt had a good amp in so long I forgot .
I always leave my strats on ten with my pro jr and musicmaster bass amp and my silver face champ and still I can adjust the amp to a low level on all my smaller tube amps . This amp if my strat is on 10 and the amp on 2 it is really LOUD ! I have'nt touch a guitar vol in so long I forgot it was there .
Does this sound normal to you ?

4/2/2005 5:24 PM

That is how the amp is designed. You get nearly all of your volume by the time you get to 3. That is why I asked the people in the group and they came up with the channel isolation mod. Chris put together a schematic, and I added a couple labels to it to make it easier for me to read. It will make the volume taper more usable and gradual, and also cleans up the amp a little bit. It will still rip your head off if you crank it, just it won't do that on 3!

It is detailed in the last few posts in the "5E3x2 completed - Now modding" thread in this group. I have a pictures of the mod too if you look into the links in the thread. It will cost probably less than $10 for the parts to make the primary changes, and if you don't like it you can easily put it back to stock and use the extra parts for your next project. I wound up changing tubes, a few caps, and other stuff, but the biggest difference was after the mod listed.

If you want the stock 5E3 sound, that is a great sound! You just get it hard and fast. I wanted that same sound when I turned it up, but a lot of other sounds in between I could not coax out of the stock 5E3. I think the mod fixes most of that issue.

4/2/2005 5:53 PM

William Jahnkow

Then I'm not crazy at least .
I never played through one of these to know much . I have played througbn alot of fenders , even a black face deluxe but it was not as loud or punchy as this tweed circuit .
Tear your head off , it will break windows and permanently deafen the cats .
How many watts are these amps .

This all started out as a way to use two Allen amp transformers I had and a MM bass amp that was loud enough but lacked pick sensitivtly and that used the same two 6V6's I have in there now and had a transformer PI .
I got alot more than I bargained for here , not that I don't like the tone but I like my guitar vol wide open to get the highs and I can do this only if the amp is a hair below 2 .
It does have alot of different tones if you play with the guitar and amp volume .
I will check out the mod you did and see what that involves , and I thought I needed 6L6's for clean headroom for the home , was I out of my mind ?

4/2/2005 6:53 PM

I think it puts out around 12 watts, but mine is way louder than I was expecting as well. It seems like as soon as the volume comes on, I'm past "eviction volume". I bought a Weber Mini Mass to be able to get away with playing it in my apartment. The Mini Mass not only lets me play at 2 without problems, but I can crank it all the way to 12 and keep my neighbors from getting upset.

An attenuator may be another option to consider. In my current situation, it makes my amp usable (and it is soooooo usable!!!).

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