Class A amp questions

[Pearly Gator]

A friend gave me an old amp from her garage. It's an Alamo Capri that sat for decades. Three tubes consisting of a pentode gain stage, beam power tube and a rectifier, all feeding a 10" ceramic magnet speaker. After a re-cap - What tone!! For a single ended, 2 watt amp, this thing is sweet! Distorted chords are clear in that you can pick out each individual string. I find myself playing this amp with a Strat for hours on end.

It has a mojo that my Tweed Deluxe clone and Silverface Pro Reverb do not have. Is the intermodulation of notes and harmonics this cool on all class A tube amps?

I feel an amp build coming on....

Thanks,

Gary

[hasserl]

Those small amps can be very cool, I have a collection of them myself. But I believe the Capri model is a power transformerless design, where the heaters of the tubes are connected in series. These can be a bit dangerous as there is very little between your guitar strings and the wall outlet the amp is plugged into. While it is rare a short circuit between the cathode and heater and it could be like plugging into the wall. Also, unless you have a polarized power cord depending on which way you plug it in the chassis could be live.

If that amp does not have a power tranny I recommend you get a 1:1 isolation transformer and plug the am into that to provide some isolation from the mains. And install at least a polarized plug so that the cord is always plugged so that the switch is hot, not the chassis.

Just want you to enjoy that amp safely! ;)

[Pearly Gator]

Thanks for the reply, neighbor. This Alamo Capri (http://www.geocities.com/oasysco/alacap.htm) has a power supply transformer so, I'm pretty safe. Schematic (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/pearlygator/Schematics/AlamoRedraw1.gif)

This thing has me GASing for more SE power. Perhaps a THD Hotplate. Do you own any SE class A amps?

Gary

[Southbay Ampworks]

Single Ended Class A amps, sir? Yes, I do know of one with a bit more power. ;)

[hasserl]

Originally posted by Pearly Gator
Thanks for the reply, neighbor. This Alamo Capri (http://www.geocities.com/oasysco/alacap.htm) has a power supply transformer so, I'm pretty safe. Schematic (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/pearlygator/Schematics/AlamoRedraw1.gif)

This thing has me GASing for more SE power. Perhaps a THD Hotplate. Do you own any SE class A amps?

Gary

Yes I do, like I said, I have several small amps that use the type of tubes you mentioned. One in particular that really sounds great is a Kent. It uses the 35W4 rectifier and 50C5 power tube, but instead of a 12AU8 pentode it has a 12AX7 dual triode. Similiar to a Fender Champ but with a unique tone control. The two stages of gain work quite well to drive the 50C5 into some very cool tones. It's amazing how much useable distortion it makes.

I also have an Alamo Jet that is a single 6V6 powered amp simliar to a tweed Princeton, but with reverb and tremelo. It also has a 15" Jensen C15N speaker, and sounds fantastic!

I'm in Fullerton, if you're close by it would be cool to get together and you could check it out.

Also, Scumbag is located in So Cal also, not too far from me. And his amps do look VERY cool. Mayeb we should have a small So Cal bash!

[Southbay Ampworks]

I'd be up for that sometime. Shoot me an email about how you'd like to organize it, or set it up.

[Pearly Gator]

I'm up in the Antelope Valley and if my band’s not playing I'd be up for a weekend get together. I could bring some delicacies made by Mullard, GEC, Telefunken and RCA to sample, as well as a couple custom pedals. :D

The Gator