Aluminum chassis?

[doc]

How much difference does an aluminum vs steel chassis make in an amps tone? I play around at mods to my amp collection and have a couple of Traynors I'd like to steer close to Trainwreck or JTM45 territory, of course the latter both had aluminum chassis and my lowly Traynors are of course steel. Thoughts?

 

[908SSP]

How about the fact that a lay down transformer sticks right into the board cavity?


Or which orientation should the output transformer go? Some ran so the leaves ran sideways and some ran ran front to back?


Did Rosemary really make a difference?

 

[TheAmpNerd]

Originally posted by 908SSP
Did Rosemary really make a difference?

She did have a baby as I recall.

Oh, and some guy named Flip Wilson was running
around saying the Devil made him do it!

Thoughts to ponder, no wonder I can't
sleep at night.

 

[Normster]

I haven't built an amp into an aluminum chassis yet, but I've ordered one just to give it a try. From what I've read, aluminum is a better conductor than steel and offers better magnetic shielding. I guess I'll know soon enough what that means to the tone of the amp.

I certainly wouldn't write it off as snake oil since every other component in an amp seems to change the tone based on material composition. (metal film vs carbon film vs carbon comp, polyester vs polypropylene, etc.)

 

[908SSP]

Actually aluminum is NOT a magnetic shield as it is non ferrous non magnetic it does not interfere or block magnetic fields. Which doesn't mean it is a bad thing or a good thing. I think this is immensely fascinating really the thousands of variables just start reminding me of astrology.

You know sun spot activity is on the upswing and causes an increase in radiation which might effect the sound...hmmm

 

[tonezoneonline]

I use aluminum chassis on all my custom builds.Why?Because it's easy to drill and punch.
I'll leave the sun spot study to someone else.Sometimes black is really black.

 

[V846]

I use aluminum for the same reason, ease of machining or I should say hacking holes One plus for aluminum is that it dissipates heat better than steel , down side is that aluminum is weaker so thicker chassis is required depending on the grade of material chosen.didn't really notice a sonic difference however
....

David

 

[glasman]

Here is some information I picked up a couple of weeks ago on the same subject....

here is a quote from Valve
Amplifiers (and excellent book by Morgan Jones): 'Steel is not
suitable for the chassis of valve amplifiers. Steel is magnetic, and
will allow leakage flux from transformers to pass along the chassis
and induce currents into the pins of the valves'.

Interesting......



YMMV

Gary

 

[glasman]

Originally posted by Old Tele man
GLASMAN--does this mean you're advocating that AIR-amps should be built to go with AIR-guitars? (ha,ha)

Absolutely!!