A lot of good comments and a lot of knowledge being shared here. One thing about a variac is that if the wall voltage changes over the courses of the evening, what comes out of the variac is going to go up and down; and a Brown Box would do that as well. On my stage rig, (I play through a pair of Vibroverb clones-those being '69 Bandmaster Reverbs in single 15" cabinets), I take the house voltage into a Furman AR which takes the voltage to a filtered, consistent 120v and from there into a Brown Box and then to the amps. My ears aren't as good as they used to be, but from night to night my house sound is predictable (Which makes the soundman's job SO much easier), I play better because I'm comfortable with how I sound, AND I haven't had a single amp failure since I started running this rig. Thanks for the post Zac!
I've had mine for quite a few years and wouldn't light up my Fender '67 Super Reverb without it. It also brings out the best in my Dr Z amps and my Carr amps which are , of course, hardwired and that is where the Brown Box really shines.
First time I ever saw one of these was at my buddy Phil Keaggy’s house. We were talking about how heavy his AC30 was & he showed it to me & explained it to me. I’m a tweed amp guy so when I get back out I think this is a must! Good video!
Recommend biasing your amps at the lower voltage you like. I recently built a 6G6-B Bassman clone.. out ot the wall the plate voltages on the power tubes was 493 volts DC being fed with 120 VAC wall power. Dropping to 108 VAC using a variac or Brown Box brings the plates down to 446 volts DC. Rebiased at the lower level and it's working great. Same thing on a JTM 45 clone. One thing to keep in mind, if you do rebias at the lower level, make sure to use your Brownbox or Variac afterwards.. plugging into the wall voltage will drive the grid current pretty high.
I built a adjustable lock system on my old variac so you can't exceed more than 120 volts and also bought a cheap voltage meter so you get a constant readout of voltage, wattage, amps and etc. It was more affordable for me and that's just a suggestion if you can't afford a Brown Box, they aren't cheap! The Brown Box is very cool and sleek as you said, nice video and good info.
Nice paisley picking - more please! Digging the box - I’m on a quest now to find one. Why not? Parts are scarce and expensive. My old amps are precious to me. Thanks Zac!
Not everybody has been playing guitar since they, were 8 yrs old so some of us may not know about the Brown Box. And any # of other pedals and gear. I That's why it's good to talk about older devices, gear & pedals, etc... Some of us are new and don't know about this stuff.
Been using a variac but not only is it kind of dangerous because if the knob gets knocked it may spit out high voltage, but it's super heavy and ridiculous to carry around. So I just pulled the trigger on a Brown Box after watching this video, thank you Zac.
WOW!! No one, anywhere, has or attempted to educate or demonstrate how voltage impacts both the sound and longevity of equipment. I sincerely miss reading you monthly “Ask Zac” in Vintage Guitar Magazine. It was also refreshing to hear your honesty regarding the integrity of this magazine. Thank you for all you have done and continue to contribute to the guitar community.
I bought a brown box a few years ago!! Really helps and makes a difference in the tone as well!! My friend borrowed mine for a show or two then he bought himself one 😀 If you've invested money on a nice vintage amp or amps or even new vox or fender style amps its worth the money to get one!! I like running my tone King imperial on it which is newer amp but sounds the best around 117/118 instead of 120 to 122 to me so that's where I run it whether at the house or out somewhere else. Some places the voltage as Zac says can run as high as 125/126 so you definitely want to reduce that down going even into a newer tube amp.
One of the things a "brown box' does is keep the heaters at their proper voltage, which will make tubes last longer. Some of the vintage amps that will really benefit from reduced wall voltage include a lot of EL84 and 6V6 amps like the AC15/30, the Marshall 18 Watt, the Fender Deluxe Reverb, Fender Princeton Reverb and Fender Vibro Champ. Those amps already had stock plate voltages on their output tubes that were much higher than the maximum plate voltage recommended by tube manufacturers.
@@tiki_trash Hey Tiki. I own a 64 Deluxe reverb, A 64 Princeton reverb, and a73 vibro champ that was black faced by Blankenship. I also own a Blankenship 5Y3 tweed Deluxe. Lucky for me I stocked up on vintage tubes before the prices went crazy. I live in an old house that is not grounded in LA. My wall voltage never gets beyond 120. Im just trying to preserve what I am lucky enough to have. So I feel you. Thanks
I’d argue the brown box is good for any hand wired point to point tube amp! I use a brown box with a 5e3 and a Maz 18nr for years! A little sag is good! Little more breathy, can get under your fingers more, it’s lovely!
This is a nice multi-tap buck. The wonderful part is that it only needs to handle the wattage of the voltage drop X current, so for instance if you only need to drop 12 volts this transformer only needs to be 1/10 the size that would be required for a full-load transformer instead of just the "buck". I made one for $30 using two filament transformers, cheap case, jacks, switches and voltage display. That let me select -6, -12, -18, -24
I always knew about EVH playing with voltage levels back in the day. I learned about the brown box a couple years ago from a rig rundown video with Dave Cobb and got one for my '66 Princeton. As always great video Zac.
Mid 90's I giged with an early 70"s 100w Marshall SL. It was so inconsistent it was a nightmare. Being an electrician started measuring the voltage at each venue. My favorite local venue was downtown Ft Wayne, IN and it would usually be 127-129v. The old venue also had crazy grounding issues. During the day when all the big buildings were full of people and the grid was sagging just a bit, it would be 121-124v.
Yet again I hear this, and it must be true, and yet I had a late 60's Super lead. I played it at least once or twice every week for 15 years, and only once did I have a problem, when playing as a warmup for an international touring band, I suddenly lost all the top rnd of my sound. I was able to finish the gig and had the filter caps replaced, and continued to use the amp for another 4 years. This was in the early eighties, and the amp had nothing else done to it appart from having the tubes changed twice during the fifteen years I owned it. So here's the thing; maybe because in New Zesland our electricity is similar to that of England, where the amp was designed and built, this has some connection with the trouble I often hear about from americans from the US and Canada, having issues with brit valve powered amps. An experiment would be to run two amps that are the same but one from the wall at 120 or whatever, and one from a separate step-up transformer and still using its original european internal transformer. By comparing the two, and this could be done theoretically with the right software, much could possibly be learned about the variables in the tolerances of circuit components aws designed in the american or european valve/tube amp's behaviour under different voltages.
Really love your videos. Just went out to your store and bought the amp schematic shirt to go along with my Ask Zac mug and It's a sickness shirt. Keep making more videos.
I love my Brown Box! All of my amps, vintage and modern, just sound right with correct voltage. Tweed actually sounds like tweed. You are the FDR of tone, and I enjoy your Fireside Chats...
I bought a brownbox about 5 years ago after picking up a 62 AC30 TB/6. It really does make a difference. I haven’t ran it as low as 112 yet but I will try that next time for sure. Usually I just dial it in to 115 or so. Sometimes I’m getting 125v out of my outlet so it’s nice to tame that before juicing a high dollar vintage amp. I also have a 65 TR and 65 Princeton and I use the brownbox with all of them.
Hi guys Just to have your possible comments on this, I'll share here the response I gave to someone asking for the BB for the 230/240 volts market.. and I would love to know your thoughts on my response ☺️. Please check it below and in the meantime greetings from Portugal 😎💪 They have the Eurovolt unit for the EU market which I happen to have and it works the same way 😉👌 Zac, one thing you should have been told and that my tech warned me about... You should not change the voltage on the brown box with the amp turned on or even in standbye mode. Ideally you should connect the unit, choose the voltage that you want and only after that you should turn the amp on or in standbye. That's the way it should be done and not changing voltage up and down while the amp is already on... My trustworthy tech explained to me that by changing voltage with the amp on or in standbye is a huge blow for the tubes on the amp and it's not good to do so.... Don't know if the new owners explained that or if Pat can be reached still in this, but it's something supported by the way the amps were designed and how they handle voltage.. so I follow that rule of thumb religiously and ever since I'm advising others to do it as well .. set the desired voltage and only after that turn the amp on or in standbye 😉 Thanks for the video and yes, brown box and Eurovolt box are absolutely marvelous pieces of equipment 😎👌💪💪
Awesome video Zac! I had no idea and will definitely be picking one up. Im fortunate enough to have my grandfathers ‘58 Harvard and appreciate that I will get better tone and protect the components. Love your channel.
I have 2 Brown Boxes , actually One Brown Box and One Brownie . I use then all the time with my vintage amps which I use at every gig and my sound is more consistent . I went to a club here a while back and the voltage coming out of the wall was 133 , Thank goodness I had the Brown Box with me (I always do ) To save the old 64 Deluxe Reverb from over voltage .....
Thanks Zac! I too have a vintage 1965 Vox tube amp that I mentioned a few months ago when you first talked about your gigging setup. I went in search and found the AmpRx Brown Box about 4 months ago. You should mention that the BB has multiple outlets.
You can buy variacs with digital readouts that will show the incoming voltage & also the voltage you set the variac to. That said, if you are gigging it is probably in your best interest to buy a brown box. I have an old variac in my home studio that I have set to around 112V for use with my 50's/60's Gibson & Fender amps. Great video Zac!
I use the "tone Preserver " Same idea at a lower cost. Keeps my 6v6gt's happy P.s. my wall voltage at its highest was 128 volts on a Saturday near Chicago.
I use Carl's first version of that, which he called the "Amp Preserver." Same thing, has a 6 volt and a 12 volt drop setting, plus straight through line voltage. Not quite as elegant as the Brown Box but mine has been in use for nearly 15 years and has been bulletproof.
Alternative product is now being made by a small company called Nocturnal Amplification . Same as the little box thing you have there. 115v and 108v inputs iirc.
Was a fan of "Vintaage Guitar," which I picked up each month at the great newsstand at the bookstore attached to the very first Tower Records in Sacramento, Calif. (Btw. Ted "Unabomber" Kacsynski reportedly used to browse magazines at the same store.)
Awesome Zac🎸《☆》I had to look😁on the back of my VOX AD50VT Valvetronix amp is a power level knob. It's calibrated in Watts up to 50W. I generally keep it wfo but I'll mess around with it next session. Thanks for the info Brother👍😎☮
I really like this idea. I think its worth the money to have both some say in the voltage to the amp in order to provide consistency and because you could actually run an amp at a lower voltage all the time and chip away at the wear problem at least a little bit. It might extend out the life of the components enough to really have an impact over time, especially in a frequent usage situation.
⚓️ Thanks Zac 😎 yep … the tech bag should include a good (Fluke) multimeter. Power- particularly at festivals…. Old ass venues like the converted movie houses where the electrical systems have not been maintained, is suspect.… the ten year wire terminal tighten up is really important, voltage losses from loose terminals is significant. Higher voltage is from utilities keeping a safety factor from the brown out… where the utilities may be liable for low voltage damage. 😎
Regarding the 230/240 volts market, They have the Eurovolt unit which I happen to have and it works the same way 😉👌 Zac, one thing you should have been told and that my tech warned me about... You should not change the voltage on the brown box with the amp turned on or even in standbye mode. Ideally you should connect the unit, choose the voltage that you want and only after that you should turn the amp on or in standbye. That's the way it should be done and not changing voltage up and down while the amp is already on... My trustworthy tech explained to me that by changing voltage with the amp on or in standbye is a huge blow for the tubes on the amp and it's not good to do so.... Don't know if the new owners explained that or if Pat the original designer of it can be reached still on this, but it's something supported by the way the amps were designed and how they handle voltage.. so I follow that rule of thumb religiously and ever since I'm advising others to do it as well .. set the desired voltage and only after that turn the amp on or in standbye 😉 Thanks for the video and yes, brown box and Eurovolt box are absolutely marvelous pieces of equipment 😎👌💪💪
Are you shure about this? I have a voltage regulation circuit in my amp and use that like a volume control all the time. (Going down to half the voltage if i like.)
@@snorrevonflake thanks for your message and explanation from your side and experience .. What was explained to me, and without being too much technical as I'm not a super expert on these things, is that the problem resides on the voltage being fed to the amp on the switching process of the brown box .. when you use the pots to change the drop or increase of the wall voltage, the tubes are getting a kick back and forth on that click moment on the brown box selector .. and that's where the sensitive electrical process happens.. and that's what may worn out faster the life span of the tubes of the amp connected to it, if on standbye or ON mode 🙄 Hope that this sheds some more.light on my initial comment and warning 😎💪👌
I own a Ho’s Electronics attenuator/reamper, it has a built in variac. I also own a load box he made for me, it also has a built in variac with 90, 110 and 120 settings. These were made in the early 90’s.
Good for all tube amps. I use the Brown Box for my 66 Vibrolux as well as my boutique Retro King JTM45. Chuck the builder advised to use it. Said the amp would run best at around 110 - 115 volts. Even though it can run at much higher voltages unlike vintage Fenders that are meant to run no more than 117.
Chuck is great. I have his 18 watt plexi. I have been procrastinating on getting the Brown Box(es) as I also have a ‘74 Twin (w/the heavy as heck JBLs). Zac just shoved me hard off the fence. - Order 2 Brown Boxes ✅
Eye-opening, to say the least. I've been wondering why my newly-acquired '70s Vibro Champ has been running hotter than hell at times. An amp tech tried to explain to me the reason behind, but I didn't quite get it. I do now!
Few other added benefits: • It reduces any added noise and amp runs quieter• It also takes down the volume a hair which always helps. Great video-love my Brown box.
My oh my. My dream amp. I have a few that would be top tier/top 4 or 5, but the super'verb tops the list. The best 3 amps ive ever played thru and heard in person were a '72 silver face twin that had been modded some and among those mods were a jbl and a celestion that i cant remember exactly which. The headroom was unbelievable, the tone was beyond description, the dynamics in that wide clean tone were like nothing ive ever known. a tiny guitar volume change/ picking style/technique/etc would thicken or soften, sing like angel or honk and growl like a demon. However, it weighed a metric ton, and it was LOUD.there was no friendly volume. It was pristine clean up to like 6 but its zero-one setting on the volume dial was spinal tap-esque. My buddy, whom i readily admit bearing a covetous grudge against, was given an exquisitely mint, 110% original, gen-u-ine 1964 princeton. Its tone is best described as imagine the best intercourse of you life, now convert that to aural form. A rivera twin would fall in there as a dream does everything well acquisition too. Nobody realizes or talks about how many country icons played thru super verbs in the late 60s and the 70s on a ton of BIG recordings. Roy Nichols and James Burton come to mind in that regard. Waylon, however, might not be considered a virtuoso on the fretboard but his style was his unmistakable own and his tone, phaser,no phaser,dirty,clean, dont matter, it was PHENOMENAL!!!
Use the code ASKZAC to get $20 off B-Stock. They also have a mailing list signup code for free shipping. www.brownbox.rocks/shop/p/sale-brownbox-by-amprx-b-stock-limited-availability
I bought the BB 1 from Sweetwater and it blew out in a couple of months. I called Pat and he said he had some bad transformers get a BB 2 which I did but Sweetwater did not make it easy or very nice for me. And I had spent over 5 figures there .But BB 2 works fine. I like it a lot. Some SW folks are ok to work with some are not.
I have a 6G6B Bassman and its filter capacitors used to periodically explode due to excessive incoming grid voltage. Not a nice surprise. Living out in a rural area, at times I've had to deal with household wall socket voltages in excess of 130. Yikes. Takes the fun out of playing an old amp. The Brown Box lets me see what the local grid voltage happens to be and adjust this before it hits an old amp. I bought it mainly as a safety item, but I'm also interested in exploring the difference in sound and feel that results when those circuits are provided with the voltages they were designed to use.
Of all the variables vintage amp players obsess over, this seems like the best use of time and energy. Voltage is what your amp runs on, like gas for your car or food for your body! That said, there's a chance that your vintage amp was modified to fix the over-voltage problem during a re-cap long ago, and the brown box/variac won't help, since the B+ may have been adjusted with a resistor change. Great stuff, Zac!
I have been thinking about that last point. I have a brown box I use with a couple vintage Fenders. When my SFDR was last worked on by my tech, he said the 470 ohm plate resistors were cooked and out of tolerance, and he replaced them with 1k ohm resistors for that very reason (over 120V line voltage). I didn't have the BB yet when I dropped it off, so I wasn't yet thinking about this. Now, I run it at 115V and to me it sounds better, but I'm wondering if I need to swap the plate resistors back to 470 ohm if I'm going to use the BB with it.
I cant read what it says on the back plexi panel of my 1968 50w matshall plxi amp but i guess it would be 110volts? It is bone stock and real clean and has the original transformers im going to check this brown box and talk to my long time amp tech thanks good show !
Great explanation and demonstration, Zac -- I only have one vintage amp. The rest are somewhat newer (25 years old or less). But when I was living in an older house about 15 years ago, I noticed my amplifiers sounding noticeably different depending on each outlet I was using. I assumed this might be due to varying voltages, but I was never quite sure, as I didn't test the voltages coming out of each outlet (the wiring in the house was definitely sketchy!). I assume a BrownBox would have helped. Great info!
Jumping in to add one other thing I learned with old Fenders. They rarely indicated what the line voltage was that they then derived all the other voltages specified on the schematics. 5F6-A Bassman was an exception, showing 117vac. With my amps I learned that the sweetest voltage setting was the one that put close to the indicated 6.3vac on the heaters. Buck transformers work extremely well with the early solid state rectified Brown Fender amps, which I learned could have over 500v on the power tube plates if run at modern line voltages. Using a buck transformer to drop the voltage to around 110vac will bring the plate voltages down into the 440-450v range.
Jeez Louise! I was subscribed to VG for years....even before I owned anything vintage. I used to read your columns. I'm just now realizing you are the same Zac. I feel stupid. lol
Oh wow its got a NAME now* ;) I built a few of these as I was in a LOW voltage area, where I was previously had a pretty full 250+volts meant I needed to step DOWN (Note - Angus from ACDC is VERY fussy about what volts he gives his Marshalls) Theyre quite easy to make (DISCLAIMER:- ONLY if you know your stuff working with high line voltage - if youre not an engineer type, ASK YOUR TECH) Take a tapped low voltage transformer, connect the live in to the center tap.. A 9-0-9 volt type gives around +10 +(bypass) or -10 volts, multiple taps gives you more control... Remember a 100w amp, only needs a 15-20 watt drop transformer, due to to the voltage ratio Come to think of it I never tried it on my old AC30 (which I kinda wish I still had) I used pretty tough russian EL84s and I LIKED the sound of it 'hot' - I cant recall if I ever TRIED the variac on it tho:) Tubes suffer from both too high OR too low (cathode stripping) voltage.. AC30's and Traynors run tubes WAY= hot, and dont last long if over cooked ;)
I have a black and gold one, which was a limited edition that I bought new and I personally find it works on all of my amps, not just vintage. One thing that I haven’t done yet but want to is to compare the tone of the lowered voltage but by keeping the bias the same, so for example use 70% max recommended plate dissipation at both voltages, that way I’ll better understand if the tone shaping is more of a result of the lower plate dissipation or if it’s truly just a voltage thing, that’s something I have not yet seen anyone do or even discuss.
I use the blue european version of the Brown Box....The EuroVolt....infact I have two of them....one of the best things Ive ever bought....it was the answer to all my problems....I tend to get 246volts out of the wall and it just makes everything that wants 230v or 220v hard and stiff....it was a nightmare.
At what point did amp design for "vintage" AC voltage change over to being designed to handle "modern" voltage? Would there be an improvement, or any change, in the sound of a 1960 Brown-face, Cream Tolex, Fender Showman top? It was designed to play very clean. Could lower voltage make it even cleaner? ( Or, would it depend on the speaker load? )
Zac, I have a brand new Monoprice Stage Right 15 watt tube amp, it has 5 tubes, I want saturation, sag and spongy sound, voltage drop at low volume, can I get that effect with the Brown box or do I need something else? I've tried digital compressors like the Boss CS3 and others but I'm not satisfied with them.
I built my own “brown box” buck transformer using a 12 amp Hammond 6.3v filament transformer. It’s in a large cast aluminum Hammond enclosure with a digital display. The display has current, voltage, watts, line capacitance and power factor all measuring the output. It’s fused with an IEC jack on the input and an amp style fuse holder on the output. I get 112vac and 116vac @120vac line on the outputs, which are switchable. You can get different voltage transformers to drop to a specific number, higher or lower. Whatever you do, build or buy, you do need a way to reduce the voltage going into amps designed for 110/115/117vac.
Awesome episode love the show the only thing I would add is if you know the sweet spot at the end you should buy us the tubes to match that voltage so if they like 110 or 111 or 113 if it really matters if you buy us the tubes to match the Barry egg numbers
This is a great idea. There is a potential issue if you are not careful though. When you lower the input voltage you are also increasing the Bias current. Just like overvoltage is not good for an amp, overcurrent (Biased too hot) is going to reduce the life of your power tubes. If your amp was biased medium to Hot with normal wall voltage, you should check that the amp is not biased too hot when you find your sweet spot voltage. Power tubes have gotten very expensive in the last year, there is no need wear them out unnecessarily. I wouldn't want my amp to be the test subject, but using a variac, I believe you could lower the voltage so much that you could watch your power tubes die in seconds?
Wonder if I should get one of these to protect my 1960 Gibson Skylark GA-5T. I don’t move it around, but it sometimes crackles… and the tremolo circuit has blown up once before.
Truetone didn't they used to be Visual sound effect? Best service ever, sent them my old angry fuzz. Don't know what they did, it came back improved vs what it was before?!?? People always judge craftsmen boutique stuff but these guys are passionate about what they do and the service after warranty is always there, free of charge. Including Baratza for coffee aficionados. Dave F is the only one who never sent my amp back in 13 years
Love my BrownBox! Makes my Princeton and JTM45 sing! Also noticed you have the Music City three banger string tree on your tele... recently got one for my K-Line tele (on your recommendation) and it's a winner. Someone told me that on amps built for 120v, that scaling the voltage down will run the tubes hotter. Do you know if that's true?
Derek Underdown was Dick Denny's boss at Vox. He came over to L.A. about 2008 for the launch party of my friend Jim Elyea's Book: "Vox Amps: The JMI Years". Derek told me never to run a`60's JMI era amp over 110v. The other voltage taps are fine, it's just the 120v tap that's off..
A lot of good comments and a lot of knowledge being shared here. One thing about a variac is that if the wall voltage changes over the courses of the evening, what comes out of the variac is going to go up and down; and a Brown Box would do that as well. On my stage rig, (I play through a pair of Vibroverb clones-those being '69 Bandmaster Reverbs in single 15" cabinets), I take the house voltage into a Furman AR which takes the voltage to a filtered, consistent 120v and from there into a Brown Box and then to the amps. My ears aren't as good as they used to be, but from night to night my house sound is predictable (Which makes the soundman's job SO much easier), I play better because I'm comfortable with how I sound, AND I haven't had a single amp failure since I started running this rig. Thanks for the post Zac!
Hey there, what specific furman unit are you using? AR is coming up with many models.
I've had mine for quite a few years and wouldn't light up my Fender '67 Super Reverb without it. It also brings out the best in my Dr Z amps and my Carr amps which are , of course, hardwired and that is where the Brown Box really shines.
EXCELLENT TOPIC - I've been teetering on this for a year, but am ordering one now for my 63 Bassman and 64 Super Reverb - thanks Zac.
First time I ever saw one of these was at my buddy Phil Keaggy’s house. We were talking about how heavy his AC30 was & he showed it to me & explained it to me. I’m a tweed amp guy so when I get back out I think this is a must! Good video!
Recommend biasing your amps at the lower voltage you like. I recently built a 6G6-B Bassman clone.. out ot the wall the plate voltages on the power tubes was 493 volts DC being fed with 120 VAC wall power. Dropping to 108 VAC using a variac or Brown Box brings the plates down to 446 volts DC. Rebiased at the lower level and it's working great. Same thing on a JTM 45 clone. One thing to keep in mind, if you do rebias at the lower level, make sure to use your Brownbox or Variac afterwards.. plugging into the wall voltage will drive the grid current pretty high.
At 112 the amp cleaned up really nice. Thank you for sharing. Stay safe and be blessed
Thanks 👍
I built a adjustable lock system on my old variac so you can't exceed more than 120 volts and also bought a cheap voltage meter so you get a constant readout of voltage, wattage, amps and etc. It was more affordable for me and that's just a suggestion if you can't afford a Brown Box, they aren't cheap! The Brown Box is very cool and sleek as you said, nice video and good info.
What an eye opener! For us non electricians and electronics people! Thank you!
Nice paisley picking - more please! Digging the box - I’m on a quest now to find one. Why not? Parts are scarce and expensive. My old amps are precious to me. Thanks Zac!
Not everybody has been playing guitar since they, were 8 yrs old so some of us may not know about the Brown Box. And any # of other pedals and gear. I
That's why it's good to talk about older devices, gear & pedals, etc... Some of us are new and don't know about this stuff.
Been using a variac but not only is it kind of dangerous because if the knob gets knocked it may spit out high voltage, but it's super heavy and ridiculous to carry around. So I just pulled the trigger on a Brown Box after watching this video, thank you Zac.
WOW!! No one, anywhere, has or attempted to educate or demonstrate how voltage impacts both the sound and longevity of equipment. I sincerely miss reading you monthly “Ask Zac” in Vintage Guitar Magazine. It was also refreshing to hear your honesty regarding the integrity of this magazine. Thank you for all you have done and continue to contribute to the guitar community.
You should checkout Uncle Dougs youtube channel.
Wow, thanks!
Uncle Doug is great
Thanks for the heads up on Uncle Doug!👍🏻
yea they have...you just weren't paying attention
Great idea; and you guys are right; these things were designed for a certain voltage. EVH was experimenting with that also for sounds back in the day.
I bought a brown box a few years ago!! Really helps and makes a difference in the tone as well!! My friend borrowed mine for a show or two then he bought himself one 😀 If you've invested money on a nice vintage amp or amps or even new vox or fender style amps its worth the money to get one!! I like running my tone King imperial on it which is newer amp but sounds the best around 117/118 instead of 120 to 122 to me so that's where I run it whether at the house or out somewhere else. Some places the voltage as Zac says can run as high as 125/126 so you definitely want to reduce that down going even into a newer tube amp.
I love mine and use it for all my amps, even my new ones. Our wall voltage often exceeds 120V.
Zac. Even if the brown box did not make an obvious tone difference, It is about preserving your vintage amps, and tubes.
One of the things a "brown box' does is keep the heaters at their proper voltage, which will make tubes last longer. Some of the vintage amps that will really benefit from reduced wall voltage include a lot of EL84 and 6V6 amps like the AC15/30, the Marshall 18 Watt, the Fender Deluxe Reverb, Fender Princeton Reverb and Fender Vibro Champ. Those amps already had stock plate voltages on their output tubes that were much higher than the maximum plate voltage recommended by tube manufacturers.
@@tiki_trash Hey Tiki. I own a 64 Deluxe reverb, A 64 Princeton reverb, and a73 vibro champ that was black faced by Blankenship. I also own a Blankenship 5Y3 tweed Deluxe. Lucky for me I stocked up on vintage tubes before the prices went crazy. I live in an old house that is not grounded in LA. My wall voltage never gets beyond 120. Im just trying to preserve what I am lucky enough to have. So I feel you. Thanks
Pat Geraghty is a genius and gift to ALL us twangers with “priceless” transformers!
I’d argue the brown box is good for any hand wired point to point tube amp!
I use a brown box with a 5e3 and a Maz 18nr for years!
A little sag is good! Little more breathy, can get under your fingers more, it’s lovely!
This is a nice multi-tap buck. The wonderful part is that it only needs to handle the wattage of the voltage drop X current, so for instance if you only need to drop 12 volts this transformer only needs to be 1/10 the size that would be required for a full-load transformer instead of just the "buck". I made one for $30 using two filament transformers, cheap case, jacks, switches and voltage display. That let me select -6, -12, -18, -24
I bought one from the first batch from Pat. It is still running great. Does the job. My '68 champ sounds much happier with it.
I always knew about EVH playing with voltage levels back in the day. I learned about the brown box a couple years ago from a rig rundown video with Dave Cobb and got one for my '66 Princeton. As always great video Zac.
Very cool!
Mid 90's I giged with an early 70"s 100w Marshall SL. It was so inconsistent it was a nightmare. Being an electrician started measuring the voltage at each venue. My favorite local venue was downtown Ft Wayne, IN and it would usually be 127-129v. The old venue also had crazy grounding issues. During the day when all the big buildings were full of people and the grid was sagging just a bit, it would be 121-124v.
Yet again I hear this, and it must be true, and yet I had a late 60's Super lead. I played it at least once or twice every week for 15 years, and only once did I have a problem, when playing as a warmup for an international touring band, I suddenly lost all the top rnd of my sound. I was able to finish the gig and had the filter caps replaced, and continued to use the amp for another 4 years. This was in the early eighties, and the amp had nothing else done to it appart from having the tubes changed twice during the fifteen years I owned it. So here's the thing; maybe because in New Zesland our electricity is similar to that of England, where the amp was designed and built, this has some connection with the trouble I often hear about from americans from the US and Canada, having issues with brit valve powered amps. An experiment would be to run two amps that are the same but one from the wall at 120 or whatever, and one from a separate step-up transformer and still using its original european internal transformer. By comparing the two, and this could be done theoretically with the right software, much could possibly be learned about the variables in the tolerances of circuit components aws designed in the american or european valve/tube amp's behaviour under different voltages.
Very informative! I've always wondered about voltage adjustments on amps. Long time Vintage guitar reader, miss your column!
Just bought mine. Thank you Zac for the great info and discount.
Glad to help
Really love your videos. Just went out to your store and bought the amp schematic shirt to go along with my Ask Zac mug and It's a sickness shirt. Keep making more videos.
Thank you so much, Doug!!!
I love my Brown Box! All of my amps, vintage and modern, just sound right with correct voltage. Tweed actually sounds like tweed. You are the FDR of tone, and I enjoy your Fireside Chats...
Thank you!
I bought a brownbox about 5 years ago after picking up a 62 AC30 TB/6. It really does make a difference. I haven’t ran it as low as 112 yet but I will try that next time for sure. Usually I just dial it in to 115 or so. Sometimes I’m getting 125v out of my outlet so it’s nice to tame that before juicing a high dollar vintage amp. I also have a 65 TR and 65 Princeton and I use the brownbox with all of them.
I've been thinking about picking one of these up for my 65 AC30 for quite a while, I think you pushed me over the edge!
Do it. Run it at 112
Thanks for the tip, Zac. I can tell the difference even over the internet. 👍🎸
Thanks for the awesome video Zak. We really appreciate it and what awesome information!
Hi guys
Just to have your possible comments on this, I'll share here the response I gave to someone asking for the BB for the 230/240 volts market.. and I would love to know your thoughts on my response ☺️. Please check it below and in the meantime greetings from Portugal 😎💪
They have the Eurovolt unit for the EU market which I happen to have and it works the same way 😉👌
Zac, one thing you should have been told and that my tech warned me about... You should not change the voltage on the brown box with the amp turned on or even in standbye mode. Ideally you should connect the unit, choose the voltage that you want and only after that you should turn the amp on or in standbye. That's the way it should be done and not changing voltage up and down while the amp is already on... My trustworthy tech explained to me that by changing voltage with the amp on or in standbye is a huge blow for the tubes on the amp and it's not good to do so.... Don't know if the new owners explained that or if Pat can be reached still in this, but it's something supported by the way the amps were designed and how they handle voltage.. so I follow that rule of thumb religiously and ever since I'm advising others to do it as well .. set the desired voltage and only after that turn the amp on or in standbye 😉
Thanks for the video and yes, brown box and Eurovolt box are absolutely marvelous pieces of equipment 😎👌💪💪
Thanks Zac I've been looking for something like this. I hadn't heard of this company.
Wow I do hear the difference, its definitely smoother and not spikey with the brown box at lower voltage , Im sold!
Awesome video Zac! I had no idea and will definitely be picking one up. Im fortunate enough to have my grandfathers ‘58 Harvard and appreciate that I will get better tone and protect the components. Love your channel.
Thank you
I would love to have a tweed Harvard, but my Victoria Ivy League is probably as close as I’m going to get.
Need to check one of these out for my old amps
Yeah I have a 61 Princeton and a bunch of combo's from the mid 60''s as well so probably a good idea Thanks Zac
I have 2 Brown Boxes , actually One Brown Box and One Brownie . I use then all the time with my vintage amps which I use at every gig and my sound is more consistent . I went to a club here a while back and the voltage coming out of the wall was 133 , Thank goodness I had the Brown Box with me (I always do ) To save the old 64 Deluxe Reverb from over voltage .....
Thanks Zac! I too have a vintage 1965 Vox tube amp that I mentioned a few months ago when you first talked about your gigging setup. I went in search and found the AmpRx Brown Box about 4 months ago. You should mention that the BB has multiple outlets.
I should have. It has 2
You can buy variacs with digital readouts that will show the incoming voltage & also the voltage you set the variac to. That said, if you are gigging it is probably in your best interest to buy a brown box. I have an old variac in my home studio that I have set to around 112V for use with my 50's/60's Gibson & Fender amps. Great video Zac!
Vintage Sound Workbench Amp Maniac
A high quality line conditioner really is the ticket.
I use the "tone Preserver "
Same idea at a lower cost.
Keeps my 6v6gt's happy
P.s. my wall voltage at its highest was 128 volts on a Saturday near Chicago.
I use Carl's first version of that, which he called the "Amp Preserver." Same thing, has a 6 volt and a 12 volt drop setting, plus straight through line voltage. Not quite as elegant as the Brown Box but mine has been in use for nearly 15 years and has been bulletproof.
Alternative product is now being made by a small company called Nocturnal Amplification . Same as the little box thing you have there. 115v and 108v inputs iirc.
I bought one. It is the real deal. Makes all my vintage amps (fender/gibson/marshall) sound killer!
Great video Zac!! I would also recommend to bias the amp with the voltage that your are going to use.
Good point thats what i was wondering about !
Good call!
spot on= the tubes are not seeing wall voltage to begin with, and can be adjusted in bias. Great video!
Great stuff man.. Ton of excellent knowledge!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Was a fan of "Vintaage Guitar," which I picked up each month at the great newsstand at the bookstore attached to the very first Tower Records in Sacramento, Calif. (Btw. Ted "Unabomber" Kacsynski reportedly used to browse magazines at the same store.)
Awesome Zac🎸《☆》I had to look😁on the back of my VOX AD50VT Valvetronix amp is a power level knob. It's calibrated in Watts up to 50W. I generally keep it wfo but I'll mess around with it next session. Thanks for the info Brother👍😎☮
Interesting.Thanx 4 the info!!
I really like this idea. I think its worth the money to have both some say in the voltage to the amp in order to provide consistency and because you could actually run an amp at a lower voltage all the time and chip away at the wear problem at least a little bit. It might extend out the life of the components enough to really have an impact over time, especially in a frequent usage situation.
Thanks for the incredible video!
Never heard of this pedal before. Thanks for the heads-up. First time viewer, new subscriber. Keep up the nice work.
Welcome aboard!
Huge difference even through my phone on yt … to bad I don’t have a sweet vintage tube amp but this is good to know my friend 👍😎
Wow! A noticeable difference for sure! You can hear it with headphones
⚓️ Thanks Zac 😎 yep … the tech bag should include a good (Fluke) multimeter. Power- particularly at festivals…. Old ass venues like the converted movie houses where the electrical systems have not been maintained, is suspect.… the ten year wire terminal tighten up is really important, voltage losses from loose terminals is significant. Higher voltage is from utilities keeping a safety factor from the brown out… where the utilities may be liable for low voltage damage. 😎
Although I risked damaging my Blackface Super, I would sometimes run the veric at 90 volts. I was able to get the "brown sound" at a lower volume.
Wow, that's very cool. I've got a 1957 Gretsch, I might need one of those. Thanks man!
Any time!
Regarding the 230/240 volts market, They have the Eurovolt unit which I happen to have and it works the same way 😉👌
Zac, one thing you should have been told and that my tech warned me about... You should not change the voltage on the brown box with the amp turned on or even in standbye mode. Ideally you should connect the unit, choose the voltage that you want and only after that you should turn the amp on or in standbye. That's the way it should be done and not changing voltage up and down while the amp is already on... My trustworthy tech explained to me that by changing voltage with the amp on or in standbye is a huge blow for the tubes on the amp and it's not good to do so.... Don't know if the new owners explained that or if Pat the original designer of it can be reached still on this, but it's something supported by the way the amps were designed and how they handle voltage.. so I follow that rule of thumb religiously and ever since I'm advising others to do it as well .. set the desired voltage and only after that turn the amp on or in standbye 😉
Thanks for the video and yes, brown box and Eurovolt box are absolutely marvelous pieces of equipment 😎👌💪💪
Are you shure about this? I have a voltage regulation circuit in my amp and use that like a volume control all the time. (Going down to half the voltage if i like.)
@@snorrevonflake thanks for your message and explanation from your side and experience ..
What was explained to me, and without being too much technical as I'm not a super expert on these things, is that the problem resides on the voltage being fed to the amp on the switching process of the brown box .. when you use the pots to change the drop or increase of the wall voltage, the tubes are getting a kick back and forth on that click moment on the brown box selector .. and that's where the sensitive electrical process happens.. and that's what may worn out faster the life span of the tubes of the amp connected to it, if on standbye or ON mode 🙄
Hope that this sheds some more.light on my initial comment and warning 😎💪👌
I own a Ho’s Electronics attenuator/reamper, it has a built in variac. I also own a load box he made for me, it also has a built in variac with 90, 110 and 120 settings. These were made in the early 90’s.
Good for all tube amps. I use the Brown Box for my 66 Vibrolux as well as my boutique Retro King JTM45. Chuck the builder advised to use it. Said the amp would run best at around 110 - 115 volts. Even though it can run at much higher voltages unlike vintage Fenders that are meant to run no more than 117.
Chuck is great. I have his 18 watt plexi.
I have been procrastinating on getting the Brown Box(es) as I also have a ‘74 Twin (w/the heavy as heck JBLs).
Zac just shoved me hard off the fence.
- Order 2 Brown Boxes ✅
@@kmajor44 Chuck makes great amps. I would definitely advise getting yourself a Brown Box. Peace of mind.
Who is Chuck?
@@greg3030 Chuck Dean. He owns and builds Retro King amps. Boutique Marshall's and some Fenders. I have his JTM45.
love your channel Zak!
Thanks Zac, I think I may pull the trigger on one of these...
They are offering a discount code for B-stock ASKZAC
Eye-opening, to say the least.
I've been wondering why my newly-acquired '70s Vibro Champ has been running hotter than hell at times. An amp tech tried to explain to me the reason behind, but I didn't quite get it. I do now!
Few other added benefits: • It reduces any added noise and amp runs quieter• It also takes down the volume a hair which always helps. Great video-love my Brown box.
Sounds better when you kick it in. 👍
My oh my. My dream amp. I have a few that would be top tier/top 4 or 5, but the super'verb tops the list. The best 3 amps ive ever played thru and heard in person were a '72 silver face twin that had been modded some and among those mods were a jbl and a celestion that i cant remember exactly which. The headroom was unbelievable, the tone was beyond description, the dynamics in that wide clean tone were like nothing ive ever known. a tiny guitar volume change/ picking style/technique/etc would thicken or soften, sing like angel or honk and growl like a demon. However, it weighed a metric ton, and it was LOUD.there was no friendly volume. It was pristine clean up to like 6 but its zero-one setting on the volume dial was spinal tap-esque. My buddy, whom i readily admit bearing a covetous grudge against, was given an exquisitely mint, 110% original, gen-u-ine 1964 princeton. Its tone is best described as imagine the best intercourse of you life, now convert that to aural form. A rivera twin would fall in there as a dream does everything well acquisition too. Nobody realizes or talks about how many country icons played thru super verbs in the late 60s and the 70s on a ton of BIG recordings. Roy Nichols and James Burton come to mind in that regard. Waylon, however, might not be considered a virtuoso on the fretboard but his style was his unmistakable own and his tone, phaser,no phaser,dirty,clean, dont matter, it was PHENOMENAL!!!
I’ve been meaning to get a couple of these for the longest time
Use the code ASKZAC to get $20 off B-Stock. They also have a mailing list signup code for free shipping.
www.brownbox.rocks/shop/p/sale-brownbox-by-amprx-b-stock-limited-availability
I bought the BB 1 from Sweetwater and it blew out in a couple of months. I called Pat and he said he had some bad transformers get a BB 2 which I did but Sweetwater did not make it easy or very nice for me. And I had spent over 5 figures there .But BB 2 works fine. I like it a lot. Some SW folks are ok to work with some are not.
I have a 6G6B Bassman and its filter capacitors used to periodically explode due to excessive incoming grid voltage. Not a nice surprise. Living out in a rural area, at times I've had to deal with household wall socket voltages in excess of 130. Yikes. Takes the fun out of playing an old amp. The Brown Box lets me see what the local grid voltage happens to be and adjust this before it hits an old amp. I bought it mainly as a safety item, but I'm also interested in exploring the difference in sound and feel that results when those circuits are provided with the voltages they were designed to use.
Of all the variables vintage amp players obsess over, this seems like the best use of time and energy. Voltage is what your amp runs on, like gas for your car or food for your body! That said, there's a chance that your vintage amp was modified to fix the over-voltage problem during a re-cap long ago, and the brown box/variac won't help, since the B+ may have been adjusted with a resistor change. Great stuff, Zac!
Great point!
I have been thinking about that last point. I have a brown box I use with a couple vintage Fenders. When my SFDR was last worked on by my tech, he said the 470 ohm plate resistors were cooked and out of tolerance, and he replaced them with 1k ohm resistors for that very reason (over 120V line voltage). I didn't have the BB yet when I dropped it off, so I wasn't yet thinking about this. Now, I run it at 115V and to me it sounds better, but I'm wondering if I need to swap the plate resistors back to 470 ohm if I'm going to use the BB with it.
I’ve found the Brown Box great for any tube amp!
Thanks for the video. I have a 61 Bassman, 71 Bandmaster and a 81 jmp . Took your advice and ordered one.
Rock on!
@@AskZac just blew a rectifier tube, should have done it sooner. Again I thank you for your knowledge.
Hello, Zac! I hope you're having a great day!
I am! I hope you are too
How many ask zac-ers are planning on digging out there multimeters to check voltages in their music rooms & studios tonight?
I cant read what it says on the back plexi panel of my 1968 50w matshall plxi amp but i guess it would be 110volts? It is bone stock and real clean and has the original transformers im going to check this brown box and talk to my long time amp tech thanks good show !
How do slight changes of say +/- up to 10% or so in line voltage affect the reliability and sound of the amp ?
Great explanation and demonstration, Zac -- I only have one vintage amp. The rest are somewhat newer (25 years old or less). But when I was living in an older house about 15 years ago, I noticed my amplifiers sounding noticeably different depending on each outlet I was using. I assumed this might be due to varying voltages, but I was never quite sure, as I didn't test the voltages coming out of each outlet (the wiring in the house was definitely sketchy!). I assume a BrownBox would have helped. Great info!
Jumping in to add one other thing I learned with old Fenders. They rarely indicated what the line voltage was that they then derived all the other voltages specified on the schematics. 5F6-A Bassman was an exception, showing 117vac. With my amps I learned that the sweetest voltage setting was the one that put close to the indicated 6.3vac on the heaters. Buck transformers work extremely well with the early solid state rectified Brown Fender amps, which I learned could have over 500v on the power tube plates if run at modern line voltages. Using a buck transformer to drop the voltage to around 110vac will bring the plate voltages down into the 440-450v range.
my 65 deluxe reverb says 117vac right on the back of the amp
@@loopdawgg I was referring to the schematics.
Jeez Louise! I was subscribed to VG for years....even before I owned anything vintage. I used to read your columns. I'm just now realizing you are the same Zac. I feel stupid. lol
Thanks for coming over!
There is definitely a different sound Zac, less strident is spot on 👍👍
Thanks 👍
Oh wow its got a NAME now* ;) I built a few of these as I was in a LOW voltage area, where I was previously had a pretty full 250+volts meant I needed to step DOWN
(Note - Angus from ACDC is VERY fussy about what volts he gives his Marshalls)
Theyre quite easy to make (DISCLAIMER:- ONLY if you know your stuff working with high line voltage - if youre not an engineer type, ASK YOUR TECH) Take a tapped low voltage transformer, connect the live in to the center tap.. A 9-0-9 volt type gives around +10 +(bypass) or -10 volts, multiple taps gives you more control... Remember a 100w amp, only needs a 15-20 watt drop transformer, due to to the voltage ratio
Come to think of it I never tried it on my old AC30 (which I kinda wish I still had) I used pretty tough russian EL84s and I LIKED the sound of it 'hot' - I cant recall if I ever TRIED the variac on it tho:)
Tubes suffer from both too high OR too low (cathode stripping) voltage.. AC30's and Traynors run tubes WAY= hot, and dont last long if over cooked ;)
Vox being a UK company works very well at 220V
What about modem reissues? I have a 65 deluxe reissue is it designed to run on the modern higher wall voltage?
I have a black and gold one, which was a limited edition that I bought new and I personally find it works on all of my amps, not just vintage. One thing that I haven’t done yet but want to is to compare the tone of the lowered voltage but by keeping the bias the same, so for example use 70% max recommended plate dissipation at both voltages, that way I’ll better understand if the tone shaping is more of a result of the lower plate dissipation or if it’s truly just a voltage thing, that’s something I have not yet seen anyone do or even discuss.
That Paisley Tele is just gorgeous !
Thanks!
I use the blue european version of the Brown Box....The EuroVolt....infact I have two of them....one of the best things Ive ever bought....it was the answer to all my problems....I tend to get 246volts out of the wall and it just makes everything that wants 230v or 220v hard and stiff....it was a nightmare.
with a 1969 SVT I thought I better snag one of these .So I just did.Thank you :>)
Although my work amps are much more recent, I have several early '60's Fenders, so there's a Brown Box in my future!
At what point did amp design for "vintage" AC voltage change over to being designed to handle "modern" voltage? Would there be an improvement, or any change, in the sound of a 1960 Brown-face, Cream Tolex, Fender Showman top? It was designed to play very clean. Could lower voltage make it even cleaner? ( Or, would it depend on the speaker load? )
Zac, I have a brand new Monoprice Stage Right 15 watt tube amp, it has 5 tubes, I want saturation, sag and spongy sound, voltage drop at low volume, can I get that effect with the Brown box or do I need something else? I've tried digital compressors like the Boss CS3 and others but I'm not satisfied with them.
Thoughts on how the Brown Box can be used if you have an old British (Selmer Zodiac 30) that must be plugged into a 220 step-up transformer first?
Man that tele is sweet as
I built my own “brown box” buck transformer using a 12 amp Hammond 6.3v filament transformer. It’s in a large cast aluminum Hammond enclosure with a digital display. The display has current, voltage, watts, line capacitance and power factor all measuring the output. It’s fused with an IEC jack on the input and an amp style fuse holder on the output. I get 112vac and 116vac @120vac line on the outputs, which are switchable. You can get different voltage transformers to drop to a specific number, higher or lower.
Whatever you do, build or buy, you do need a way to reduce the voltage going into amps designed for 110/115/117vac.
Thanks
Awesome episode love the show the only thing I would add is if you know the sweet spot at the end you should buy us the tubes to match that voltage so if they like 110 or 111 or 113 if it really matters if you buy us the tubes to match the Barry egg numbers
I use a different make of buck transformer that accomplishes much the same thing. Worth every cent if you have vintage amps.
This is a great idea. There is a potential issue if you are not careful though. When you lower the input voltage you are also increasing the Bias current. Just like overvoltage is not good for an amp, overcurrent (Biased too hot) is going to reduce the life of your power tubes. If your amp was biased medium to Hot with normal wall voltage, you should check that the amp is not biased too hot when you find your sweet spot voltage. Power tubes have gotten very expensive in the last year, there is no need wear them out unnecessarily. I wouldn't want my amp to be the test subject, but using a variac, I believe you could lower the voltage so much that you could watch your power tubes die in seconds?
Wonder if I should get one of these to protect my 1960 Gibson Skylark GA-5T. I don’t move it around, but it sometimes crackles… and the tremolo circuit has blown up once before.
Perhaps. The amp may need a checkup too
I have a hot rod deluxe l.e. blue. Not sure how old it is. It was made in mexico i believe. Would the brown box be worth buying?
Truetone didn't they used to be Visual sound effect? Best service ever, sent them my old angry fuzz. Don't know what they did, it came back improved vs what it was before?!??
People always judge craftsmen boutique stuff but these guys are passionate about what they do and the service after warranty is always there, free of charge. Including Baratza for coffee aficionados.
Dave F is the only one who never sent my amp back in 13 years
Welcome back!
Thanks!
Love my BrownBox! Makes my Princeton and JTM45 sing! Also noticed you have the Music City three banger string tree on your tele... recently got one for my K-Line tele (on your recommendation) and it's a winner. Someone told me that on amps built for 120v, that scaling the voltage down will run the tubes hotter. Do you know if that's true?
I don't know about that....
Derek Underdown was Dick Denny's boss at Vox. He came over to L.A. about 2008 for the launch party of my friend Jim Elyea's Book: "Vox Amps: The JMI Years". Derek told me never to run a`60's JMI era amp over 110v. The other voltage taps are fine, it's just the 120v tap that's off..
Great info