I do miss my old TBX but the old C2 with your mod posts found around the net has made that baby sound as good as any Vox I’ve ever encountered. Kudos mate!!
I had Don Butler(Tone Doctor) go through my AC15TBX years ago and it sounds great, not knowledgeable enough to understand what he did but it's quiet and just rips. I am having a problem with either the trem tube or the pedal switch right now, so it may go to a tech soon
Thumps up to Lyle for pointing out that pin 2 and pin 8 are NOT the same on a 5AR4/GZ34 rectifier. There isn't much point in using a rectifier with an independently heated cathode (at pin 8) if you're gonna take the raw B+ off of the heater at pin 2. A filament type rectifier like a 5Y3 or 5U4 won't care whether you use pin 2 or pin 8 for the B plus; but you will lose some of the efficiency and lower voltage drop, as well as the a slower warm up time, of a 5AR4 if you take the voltage off of pin 2. Here's a tip for owners of small, relatively low-power practice amps with 5Y3 rectifiers: if you want to firm up the response a little and get a slight increase in power and headroom, you can replace the 5Y3 rectifier with a 5V4 rectifier (a sort of baby 5AR4) ---- assuming the tubes and caps can handle the modest increase in voltage, of course ---- ; however, the B+ really needs to be taken off at pin 8 for the 5V4 as well. Check the socket wiring itself beforehand, don't trust the schematic!
Is the rectifier tube wiring error the cause of so many of these amps eating rec tubes? I and many friends have killed rec tubes on this amp before we stopped using our standby switches. We just leave them in the on position now.
Been trying to reach you for months to send this tb6 amp but can’t so can you maybe just answer my most basic question? Putting aside all these grounding and utility (tightening, loops, buzz, noise etc.) and ONLY with regards to tone, making it a bit more “sweet” and “vintage” sounding, which are the most important capacitors/circuit components to change and to what values/type of capacitor to change? Again no issue with noise or ground hum or loose components, ONLY looking to make it a little bit sweeter sounding.
Not everything made after x date is crap. But that auto bias circuit in the Bass Breaker is beyond crap. When (not if) it fails you will have a mega expensive repair. Terrible design and an unnecessary "feature" - traditional bias circuits work well, are simple, and easy to repair. The auto bias was a designer trying to show off, but it is a bad joke among techs.
@@PsionicAudio I see that @allanrotoni has showed that the chasis is openable and the fix would be to simply change a Zener Diode IN5336B 39V 3.1A. sorry if I'm a little obsessed with my loved amp.
@@PsionicAudio Yes, of course, and you did a fantastic job of it! Thank you for the reply, I appreciate all of your hard work on these videos, the information is invaluable!
Flathead screws? In a British-made product, no less? What were they thinking? I friggin' hate flathead screws! . I'm surprised they didn't use Allen heads, or Posidrive, or at least Philips, for everything ---- or perhaps even Torx, in a newer-production amp.
I’m with you - but this would assume they are interested in improving their product. The reissue Vox’s are selling in large numbers because of their price point. As long as they (and other major mid budget amp builders) sell - only improvements you can expect are those the expedite manufacture. Spending time on Reddit /guitar amps for about 6 months has demonstrated to me that most people buying tube amps these days do not understand the basics of how to care and maintain their amps much less how they work. Therefore the demand for quality just isn’t there unfortunately.
Fixing a Vox TBX: Number 1: Rip that PCB out and throw it away. Number 2: Buy some Praxolin terminal boards and a bunch of quality parts. Number 3: Hand wire a better amp that is designed from the ground up without all of the Asian made Vox shortcomings. Bonus: Buy some Mercury Magnetics transformers and make a truly great Vox/Trainwreck style amp.
Dude. The TBX was made in the UK. And odds are the device you use to constantly bash Asian made devices was also made in Asia. I'm typing this on a Samsung and it will go through huge numbers of Asian-made components in various satellites and routers for you to read it on your own Asian-made device so you can disagree. But enough with the Asia bashing. It gets tiresome and especially when it comes to the TBX it's inaccurate. PS the PCB in the TBX is very high quality.
I don’t know how you find the time to make all the videos and make progress on all the amps you repair, but thank you for doing it.
I do miss my old TBX but the old C2 with your mod posts found around the net has made that baby sound as good as any Vox I’ve ever encountered. Kudos mate!!
I had Don Butler(Tone Doctor) go through my AC15TBX years ago and it sounds great, not knowledgeable enough to understand what he did but it's quiet and just rips. I am having a problem with either the trem tube or the pedal switch right now, so it may go to a tech soon
Thumps up to Lyle for pointing out that pin 2 and pin 8 are NOT the same on a 5AR4/GZ34 rectifier. There isn't much point in using a rectifier with an independently heated cathode (at pin 8) if you're gonna take the raw B+ off of the heater at pin 2. A filament type rectifier like a 5Y3 or 5U4 won't care whether you use pin 2 or pin 8 for the B plus; but you will lose some of the efficiency and lower voltage drop, as well as the a slower warm up time, of a 5AR4 if you take the voltage off of pin 2.
Here's a tip for owners of small, relatively low-power practice amps with 5Y3 rectifiers: if you want to firm up the response a little and get a slight increase in power and headroom, you can replace the 5Y3 rectifier with a 5V4 rectifier (a sort of baby 5AR4) ---- assuming the tubes and caps can handle the modest increase in voltage, of course ---- ; however, the B+ really needs to be taken off at pin 8 for the 5V4 as well. Check the socket wiring itself beforehand, don't trust the schematic!
You didn't mention what the tube number is for the rectifier.
Or how the power switch works.
Is the rectifier tube wiring error the cause of so many of these amps eating rec tubes? I and many friends have killed rec tubes on this amp before we stopped using our standby switches. We just leave them in the on position now.
Been trying to reach you for months to send this tb6 amp but can’t so can you maybe just answer my most basic question? Putting aside all these grounding and utility (tightening, loops, buzz, noise etc.) and ONLY with regards to tone, making it a bit more “sweet” and “vintage” sounding, which are the most important capacitors/circuit components to change and to what values/type of capacitor to change? Again no issue with noise or ground hum or loose components, ONLY looking to make it a little bit sweeter sounding.
Will you please make a "level up" for Fender Bassbreaker ?
That's called a dumpster. Or a bin, depending on your location.
@@PsionicAudio why is that? I like mine for reasonable volume and good fx loop. I guess the electronics are not acceptable?
I just find it weird that everything made past 1980 is crap.
Not everything made after x date is crap. But that auto bias circuit in the Bass Breaker is beyond crap. When (not if) it fails you will have a mega expensive repair. Terrible design and an unnecessary "feature" - traditional bias circuits work well, are simple, and easy to repair.
The auto bias was a designer trying to show off, but it is a bad joke among techs.
@@PsionicAudio I see that @allanrotoni has showed that the chasis is openable and the fix would be to simply change a Zener Diode IN5336B 39V 3.1A. sorry if I'm a little obsessed with my loved amp.
I'm trying to find an amp tech in the UK who can do this stuff, but it's not so easy. I have a 1995 TBX and I want some mods done.
Is it worth it to change the tube sockets to better quality ones, like Beltrons?
Yes, but I was trying to show simple inexpensive fixes in this video.
@@PsionicAudio Yes, of course, and you did a fantastic job of it! Thank you for the reply, I appreciate all of your hard work on these videos, the information is invaluable!
Flathead screws? In a British-made product, no less? What were they thinking? I friggin' hate flathead screws! . I'm surprised they didn't use Allen heads, or Posidrive, or at least Philips, for everything ---- or perhaps even Torx, in a newer-production amp.
I hope the VOX people are watching and making case studies ;-)
I’m with you - but this would assume they are interested in improving their product. The reissue Vox’s are selling in large numbers because of their price point. As long as they (and other major mid budget amp builders) sell - only improvements you can expect are those the expedite manufacture. Spending time on Reddit /guitar amps for about 6 months has demonstrated to me that most people buying tube amps these days do not understand the basics of how to care and maintain their amps much less how they work. Therefore the demand for quality just isn’t there unfortunately.
Fixing a Vox TBX: Number 1: Rip that PCB out and throw it away. Number 2: Buy some Praxolin terminal boards and a bunch of quality parts. Number 3: Hand wire a better amp that is designed from the ground up without all of the Asian made Vox shortcomings. Bonus: Buy some Mercury Magnetics transformers and make a truly great Vox/Trainwreck style amp.
Dude. The TBX was made in the UK. And odds are the device you use to constantly bash Asian made devices was also made in Asia.
I'm typing this on a Samsung and it will go through huge numbers of Asian-made components in various satellites and routers for you to read it on your own Asian-made device so you can disagree.
But enough with the Asia bashing. It gets tiresome and especially when it comes to the TBX it's inaccurate.
PS the PCB in the TBX is very high quality.