Amp Mods

[razorsuppository]

I tried searching the forums and I didn't really find any specific information, but I was wondering how exactly people mod amps, and if I can make a significant difference in the tone/gain of my JCM 900 by doing so. My favorite sound is lots of preamp gain with clarity, kind of like a Diezel. I can't afford one of those yet, so I was looking for some advice. Thanks.

[RSVampire]

http://www.voodooamps.com/standardmo...jcm900standard

it's a cheap mod too. There are usually exstensive parts that need to be changed out to mod an amp to get any significant difference in sound. Generally speaking you can change out a lot of capacitors with better quality and different values to extend/focus the range of different frequencies. Other than that, different resistors, transistors, op-amps and IC chips are generally changed out to vintage spec or again different values. Unless you know what you're doing... I wouldn't expect a lot from the amount of time and money and research you'll end up doing. If you want your amp to sound like a Diezel this guy mods your amp to sound like whatever you want so that's also an option instead of getting "basic mods".

[red5]

I wouldn't get a voodoo amps mod. I've only heard the best about them in terms of sound, but they cover all the components with some black epoxy. If you ever need to replace a component such as a capacitor which you know you will someday, you need a new amp to do it.

Generally replacing your transformer should smooth out your tone significantly and add some balls. Myself I am having a '69-80 era Marshall output transformer put into my SL-X soon and having a few resistors raised to lower the total amount of gain but smooth out the distortion and add somewhat of a clean tone. The goal is to sound just like a 4 preamp tube modded 69-74 (modded) era Marshall like Vais among others, and aside from a few resistors and a cheap OT, the SL-X is very close to begin with so it should not be too expensive. The transformer I got is a Marstran - tons of people on plexipalace.com told me they replaced blown Marshall transformers with them and could not tell a difference.

If you are willing to wait, I'll get some clips of my modded SL-X.

I bet if you dropped some RFT ECC83s into your 900 now it would get smoother and meaner. I put my RFTs in my SL-X and that's exactly what happened. Those are some mean sounding preamp tubes.