"point to point"

well... technically it isn't. It is using a turret board.

 

Damn probably all my amps are # 3....oh well.

 

If it sounds good it is good...

 

Ya know it does look like it would be that hard to put one together like the one in the picture. I should buy a kit and have some fun! Well...actually perhaps I could do it. Im sure its way more involved than it looks.

 

Just to give you an illustration of what I call "true point-to-point" wiring - here's a shot of guts from a 60's piece of laboratory equipment made by now extinct Kennendy-Spencer Laboratories Inc of Boston, Mass.

 

Red Planet, you need to have a talk with the resident expert here about amps Mr. John Phillips. Comments like yours are what keep everyone in the dark in regards to manufacturing and the difference between quality products and folklore.

A good amp is not unreliable because it is made from a circuit board. Circuit boards have nothing to do with how reliable an amp is. Please check into all the old threads which discuss in detail the positives and negatives of ptp vs. circuit board amps.

If circuit boards sucked so bad I'm sure Mesa, Guytron, Soldano, and probably Bogner, Diezel, Orange, Two Rock, Tone King, Fuchs and a host of others would make PTP, but instead they choose to make amps with circuit boards which are very reliable.

 

This is true point to point. Doug

 

Hmmm...I shlepped around my PV equipment for years to gigs no problem.

 

..modded Marshall 4210 to PTP...



Jeff Seal

 

The Barber Echelon is point to point
http://www.tpngear.com/barberechpics.htm#1

 

Point to point means a part is soldered right to another. You'll see the parts soldered right to the tube sockets/pots/switches with things like terminal strips used to make the connections to parts that don't have a secured part to solder to. There will be no extra wire used to connect a part because it solders right to the part it goes to.

What was shown in the marshall is a circuit board - just not a "printed" circuit board. The circuit is on a board with wiring connecting them to the pots and sockets. You could replace the turretts and the jumper wires with traces and have a printed circuit board with the same layout as the marshall. This would allow the same component spacing and parts to be used. I'd find it very hard to believe you could hear a difference if it was done this way. The thing is nobody has done this that I know of. Even when marshall went with a pc board for the first time they changed the layout. They cut the leads and things down because they didn't need them to stretch out to the other parts. Then they used traces to connect things. Then parts were changed because they could use smaller radial style parts. Alot of people will say a PC board doesn't sound as good, but I doubt they went to the trouble of making a PC "clone" of the old board using the same layout and parts.

If a PC board is done right there is no problem with it at all. Where people go wrong is having the board used to secure parts that will move. that's things like pots,tube sockets,switches, jacks. These things can move around breaking their solder connection to the board, or in the worse case breaking the board.
The other problem is if the tech doesn't have his solder skills down he can lift up traces when trying to change parts. Cheap board traces can take some skill to work with. But at the same time it can be a serious bitch to change a bad cap in a point to point amp because you've got to unwrap 4 or 5 things sometimes to be able to get to the part. These are old parts that have been bent around each other - they can snap apart when being reworked.

With a board you can put a part right where you need it to be to work/sound it's best. with point to point that can be pretty hard to do.

Both are good and bad. All that matters is does it rock, and is it dependable.

My 3 cents, PaulC

 

just read the words, point to point. not point to cuircit board to wire to whatever. this is how things were wired back when all these parts were designed. just look in your echo plex. thats point to piont. cuircit boards and wire are avioded around my warped electronic brain.

 

Red Planet,
I think you need to be somewhat anal when your talking about wiring in an amp. It's true that most people refer to an amp that is wired with a turrel strip or a tag board etc., as point to point, but that is incorrect and can lead to additional confusion.

In reference to printed circuit boards, two other factors come to mind that need to be considered for reliable operation. The thickness of the board and the component layout on the board.
IMHO to do printed circuit boards right is more difficult, but the results are more consistent and just as reliable as any other design.

 

And nobody that is correcting you is being anal retentive. They're just trying to explain it correctly. Lot's of bad info gets spread around the net by people honestly trying to be helpful. So the guys are just tyring to set or keep the record straight on what is and what is not PTP.

Just thank them for the corrections and let it go.

 

I dunno if outlining fact is being anal retentive.

 

Back to our regularily asked question: what about his next amp. It depends on what you want the amp to do. If you check out previous threads, you'll find that most channel switching (two channel) amps are printed circuit, because it makes it easier for the designer to fit all that stuff in there. Most vintage style amps use terminal strips or tagboard (almost no one does true Point to Point any more because it's a pain to get wires routed right in 3d space). If you just want a good sounding amp-pick the one you like and don't worry about it. If you want an investment, buy vintage. If you want one that'll stand up to the road, read the boards and pick one that's referred to as reliable. If you want to hang with the cool cats, owning the latest hot amp with the neatest features, you've come to the right place-just spend a couple months reading up on whats out there...