Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: kmh364 on January 31, 2005, 12:38:53 PM
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It's been a long time coming (actually, just about a year), but my new custom-ordered, hand-made Straub Cantus 50W all tube head w/2X12 cabinet is finally done! I will take delivery this Thursday and I cannot wait!(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/16160.jpg)
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(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/16163.jpg)
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Beautiful! I love those knobs.
John
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That looks great!!
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Very nice Kevin
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Thanks much all!
The knobs are from Roger at THG. It's hard to tell from the pics, but they are cocobolo inlayed with the Straub logo as on the faceplates of the amp and cab (i.e., tube with a S inside) in Mother Of Pearl.
The cabs are solid African Sappelle...suposedly a mahogany family wood...with a lot of colorful striping. The faces are solid flame maple. If you look closely, you can see the laser-engraved backlit plexiglas control panel (lit by red superbright LED's...an upgrade over the stock CCT lighting).
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Here's some more pix:
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/16195.jpg)
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(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/16198.jpg)
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The back is off the amp (head) as Harry Straub was voicing the thing as he shot these pix. It took him about a month to fine-tune the thing as he is very anal about the sound (That is what you are paying for after-all). Complicating matters was the new, extremely tight (and therefore hard to break-in) British Celestion 25W 16ohm Greenbacks. He played the hell out of the thing, and went through a bunch of tubes before he settled on the JJ EL-34's and 12AX7's.
You can see the Superbrights glowing, as well as those magic glass valves in the last pic.
The cab was custom-made to my specs by Bill over at Sultone who graciously allowed Harry to laser-engrave a matching Straub logo on his cab. Harry had both cabs finished in catalysing lacquer together (after engraving) so that they would match, and he supplied the raw speakers, wiring, jacks and the install. As Harry only hand-makes TEN amps a year, he was just too busy to handle the woodworking chores, so Bill got the nod. The workmanship is outstanding. You may have noticed the three-piece back (an option) which allows THREE cab configurations (i.e., closed-back, 1/3 open-back, and 2/3 open-back) depending on the venue and/or player's preference. You may also notice the trick Neutrik locking 1/4 parallel phone jacks and the Neutrik Parallel Speakons on the cab. I prefer Speakons, virtually unheard of in the guitar realm but commonplace in the bass-players realm, as they are superior to phone jacks in every way for high-current signals. The 1/4 jacks are for a safety net in case a Speakon cable fails...there's always a spare 1/4 speaker cable floating around at a gig somewhere, LOL!
You can also see one of the custom made flight cases Harry had made for the head and cab in the backround of the upper pic.
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For those that missed my past posts:
This is a 50W all-tube hand-made hard-wired discrete Marshall Plexi-style amp with custom master volume and boost circuits (additional tube gain stage). It's Harry's own proprietary design. In addition to the super-high quality standard components, I also spec'd Mil-spec sealed pots, a tube rectifier (GZ-34), Mercury Magnetics Transformers as upgrade options. The thing truly is a work of art!
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Now all I need (besides talent, LOL!) is one of Mica's custom Alembic guitars to go along with it. My new Custom Orion IV bass could use a )matching?) little brother.
Cheers,
Kevin
PS, I'll be sure to let the club collective know how the thing sounds when I put 'er through it's paces later this week. Time to bone-up on my Hendrix and Page chops it appears, LOL!
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Awesome Kev!!!! Here's one that I salvaged from work the other day~ my project for the month:
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/16206.jpg)
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/449/16207.jpg)
Its a Stromberg/Carlson AU57~ 3channel p.a. head w/ 2 6L6's for the power amp... I have to see how it turns out, but I have a feeling it will find a home on top of one of my JBL equipped Showman cabs....
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Cool, Mike!
That thing is built like a tank. It should crank pretty good. You can't beat that old valve stuff.
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Next up is a new custom wood cab by Sultone for my old silverface Fender Twin Reverb combo amp. Slightly bigger size with new 12 Weber VST JBL D-120 clones (a la Jerry Garcia, et al) made out of solid mahogany with a flame maple center stripe, custom grille cloth and oversized solid mahogany partial back plates. A flight case completes the picture.
These mods should transform an already decent CLEAN amp (the distortion is horrible) into a phenomenal clean amp. Bill at Sultone is a Fender tube amp fanatic and is particularly adept at turning shrill, tinny, flabby bass stock amps into warm, sweet sounding gems with full extended bass. I should be getting that one shortly as well. it'll be a fairly simple turm-key affair: all I have to do is remove the old amp chassis and the accutronics spring reverb tank from the old cab and screw them into the new one.
This should give me the best of both worlds: a nice dirty amp for blues and rock (Straub); and a nice amp for jazz and other undistorted sounds (Fender).
Anybody looking to upgrade the sound of any amp head, combo or speaker cab should give Bill Boekhoff at Sultone a shout. His work is top shelf, and his prices are unbelievably reasonable. Harmony-Central has a lot of nice review about his cabs.
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Beautiful amp, love the wood. You're not really gonna take it out of the house are you ? lol
Much too nice to risk damage.
I'd also really be interested in seeing how the twin comes out.
G
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Every time I see this thread I start dreaming of natural wood racks and bass cabs; which is something I don't need to be doing !
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I won't take it to the local Biker Bar open-mike night, but I don't see why it can't play out. I have full ATA-rated flight cases on wheels for both, and no beer is coming anywhere these things, LOL.
Harry has only made a handful of amps, but he does have them in the hands of two pro touring Nashville session guys. It should be enlightening to see how they hold up under the rigors of the road. Personally, the stuff is built like the proverbial brick sh*thouse, so other than nicks and rings from drinks, I don't forsee a problem with the stuff. On top of that, Harry's design is so overbuilt and easy to troubleshoot that it shouldn't be a major thing to effect repairs on the road by anybody that has a clue on how to read a scope, change a tube, and solder/de-solder a joint.
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Dave: If you really wanna get sick, ck out sultone.com. Bill has awesome wood rack cases...he has a matching hardwood 19.5 EIA rack mount cab and matching speaker cab with the accent stripe that my Twin cab will have that you HAVE to see. The good news is that his pricing is incredible, and he discounts for more than one piece!
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Yes, I've looked at his site before. And as I said before, I really don't need to be thinking about such things !
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I know what you mean...One of his hardwood racks for my Eden WT-550 and matching wood cabs for my two Eden D210XST cabs would be sweet! Then I'd have to add the obligatory rack-mount extras becuse I'd have empty rack spaces to fill, LOL!
They'd have to have quilted maple and purpleheart in 'em to match my custom Orion IV Bass, LOL!
You're absolutely right, I need to stay away from that website as well, LOL!
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Truly inspirational. Time to get out the planer, glue and clamps and make a visit to the local exotic hardwoods store. The Bogen's deserve a nice home (maybe with integral wheels and shockmount) to replace the craptastic plywood boxes in which they currently reside...
John
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Craptastic, LOL! Great way to put it. Seriously, that is Sultone's raison d'etre. They use tone woods for their cabs because glued tolex and/or rug wrap coupled with MDF or plywood dampens the sound. They specialize in improving the sound of vintage amps by replacing the standard cabs with properly-braced solid tone woods and, in some cases, replacing the stock drivers with superior new replacements (a la the crappo PYLE-sourced CBS/Fender Musical Instruments stock drivers in my ca. '78-79 silverface Twin Reverb). It helps that the guy is a vintage tube amp nut and knows how to circumvent most of the shortcomings engineered into many legendary amp cab designs.
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the local Biker Bar open-mike night..
Hmmm,seems like a universal thing,I frequent such a place near home..for the entertainment value..place reminds me of the old Dick VanDyke show.
I really don't need to be thinking about such things..
Dave,maybe we need to talk to Jorg about his stuff in hardwoods ? LOL
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Gare, you haven't received your Schroeder yet have you? Looking forward to your review.
Some of the Bag End cabs come in oiled Birch. And I believe Dr. Bass has Birch cabs as well.
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Dave..no, not yet. But from last communication with Jorg it should be middle to end of next week.
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News Flash!
The new babies arrived this am. I'll be sure to put them through their paces ASAP with a full report here.
P.S., they are even more stunning in person...pix do not do them justice! The THG knobs absolutely glow...and the striping on the sappelle need to be seen to be believed.
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So far, the speakers are exremely tight and are gonna need a lot of playing-in before they sound optimal. There are also a few small issues with the amp that need to be addressed by Harry before I'm happy with the thing. I'll be calling him this weekend for a confab for sure.
Be patient and stay tuned: a full report is coming soon!
Cheers,
Kevin
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I spoke to Harry Straub yesterday and he addressed the majority of issues satisfactorily. I just have to play around with the thing more in order to see if I want to address anything further. It's a very simple amp, but it'll take me a while to discover all the nuances possible with the thing. The amp is singing pretty good right now...it just needs to be played the hell out of in order to break those speakers in.
I can tell you that this thing is loud! I'm told with the tube recto and two EL-34's the thing doesn't even put out 50W RMS output. Well, you could fool me! This thing cranks! You can easily do your best Jimi impersonation: even with two greenbacks the thing sings with controllable feedback.
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My nightmare of a Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul Elegant AAA Flame Top is finally going to be returned to me after nearly a year in absentia (i.e., at the Custom Shop in Nashville). They couldn't (wouldn't) replace my poorly-manufactured $6k guitar as promised with a flame top that was even close to the one that I currently have after almost ONE year of trying (and it's only AAA, imagine if I needed a AAAAA/Master Grade top!!!!), so I have to live with the inexcusable off-center factory-installed bridge/tailpiece. They tried unsucessfully to palm-off inferior cuts of wood on me after they volunteered to replace my guitar in-kind with a new one due to their poor QC...after stating that they would equal or better the aesthetics of my current guitar!!! They will, however, be re-finishing the guitar...this time with harder clear lacquer that won't gum up and turn white until AFTER 15min of playing time, LOL! I will NEVER buy another Gibson again! I just cannot fathom this kind of (lack of) quality and customer service as exhibited by Gibson from Alembic...count your blessings guys/girls that you bought Alembic and not Gibson Custom Shop!
Regardless, I'll have to have my crappy Gibson back before I can fully evaluate this bad-boy: All I have left are Fender Stratocasters and Strat-style Jacksons (25.5 scale, albeit with humbuckers in the bridge position), so I'm only getting part of the picture. I'll need to do my (poor) impersonation of Brothers Duane & Dickie and Jimmy Page before I can fully pass judgement on this beast.
Stay tuned...same Bat Time, same Bat Channel....
(Message edited by kmh364 on February 08, 2005)
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Latest and greatest: Amp is doing fine, but Dr. Frankenstein will be performing a slight operation on his Monster in an attempt at a tweek: one tube gain (pre-amp) stage will be getting a bias tweek by me under the able guidance of Harry Straub. This will serve to slightly increase the clean headroom and sweeten the tone of same in normal gain mode, while reducing switch popping when toggling between normal and high gain pre-amp modes.
Wish me luck, I'm goin' in!
Official Space Helmet OFF, Oh Cap'n Video!
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The operation was a sucess AND the patient lived, LOL!
I performed the necessary surgery this weekend while Harry held my hand over the phone. As it was fairly late on a Sunday eve, I didn't get a chance to crank it up to hear the sonic effect on the gain/headroom, tone and switch pop. I will be putting the thing through it's paces this coming week in order to evaluate 'my' handiwork, LOL!
While I was in there, Harry gave me the quick and dirty on the hows/whys of power tube biasing. It is super easy...by checking I actually found my output stage was running a little cold...a little tweek put it right where Harry recommended for optimal sound quality AND decent tube life. Harry figures that the tubes might be loosening up a little as they break in, or it is possible the bias pot was jolted a little during UPS's velvet glove shipping and handling. Regardless, I'd now feel confident playing around with different tubes in order to tweek my amp with no reservation.
Kudos to Harry Straub for spending an evening hour of his Sunday day-off on the phone with me between an emergency driveway brake job and quality time with his family. See if you can get that kind of Customer Service from Marshall (et al), LOL!
BTW, the amp chassis is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the inside! I've said it ad nauseum, but it really is built like the proverbial brick s**thouse! Extremely robust construction, minimal circuit length/path, star grounding with hard copper bussing, and the thickest Mil-spec turret boards I have ever seen in my life. Very logical layout and easy to work on and troubleshoot.
P.S., Before any of you ask, while I would love to show you how sweet the thing is in the flesh via pix of the chassis underside, Harry would be very upset with me if I revealed his circuit architecture. He's toiled for years developing and tweeking his design and layout and is justifiably proud and protective of his stuff. Understandably, he's not particularly interested in giving the competition a headstart on their own boutique amp design.
(Message edited by kmh364 on March 08, 2005)
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So far so good. I'm doing my Angus Young impression on the thing right now, LOL!
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I finally got the Gibson back, after almost a year in absentia. They shipped it without even telling me: I happened to find out be accident after writing the Custom Shop about the status of my guitar. The reason they didn't tell me was because they shipped it DHL (which doesn't offer tracking numbers) after I was promised kid-glove shipping by FedEx with a 'special hand-pack job by the Custom Shop Manager after DHL destroyed the case of the substandard replacement guitar they tried to palm off on me previously. In addition, they didn't verify the shipping address and they sent it to my buddy's now-defunct business address, which is no longer regularly manned. To add to the debacle, they tried delivery two-days before my trip to Vegas. Despite a request for them to leave it there the next day, they wouldn't. My buddy had to chase it down and go to DHL to pick it up. I screamed at Gibson and they attempted to recall it because I wouldn't be around to pick it up. Well, I got the thing, and the refinish seems to be better than the original lacquer, at least as far as reduced stickiness is concerned. Gibson doesn't know the meaning of quality, nor do they know what the words Customer Service mean.
Repeat after me: I WILL NEVER BUY A GIBSON PRODUCT AGAIN!!!! Repeat this ad nauseum until you learn it as wrote, LOL!
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Well, it looks like Harry The Great has prevailed once again. The once mighty thump when switching between normal (plexi) and boost (hi-gain) modes is now almost gone. That is to say, it doesn't sound like the speaker voice coils are going for a trip across the room and the switch noise is now at a much more acceptable level. The slight increase increase in clean headroom that the gain stage 1.5kOhm bias resistor substitution (up from the 820 Ohm resistor Marshall originally specified and used in the plexi) has made, with the addition of more sweetness, is a good thing.
This amp still has that Marshall crunch in spades in normal operation, and sings like a Mo' in hi-gain, especially with the CS Les Paul. Yeah, I know, that Gibson Custom Shop LP is still an expensive piece of crap, but it sounds and looks great, LOL!
This amp is the Cat's *ss!
Highly, Highly Recommended!
BTW: No, Harry Straub didn't pay me to say that, LOL!. His stuff is really that good! He really is that good! Ck out Harmony-Central for everyone else's take on their own Cantus Heads. For the record, mine is dated Jan. '05 and is Serial Number 14, so there are only about a dozen-and-a- half of these things in existance. As such, used ones are very rare indeed.
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For those that are interested:
Harry Straub has suspended all hope of a relaxing sabbatical and is in the taking-orders-and-building-daily mode once again! He's currently working on a low-power (12W or so) version of the amp he built for me (i.e., Cantus) which will be even more of a tone monster. Due to the relatively low output power, you can crank the hell out of the thing in order to get full power tube distortion along with max pre-amp overdrive. Depending on the length of time it takes to finalize the production parts and perform the last-minute tweeks, the amp should be ready for production shortly. I understand he has at least seven orders already, and he only builds about ten amps a year (regardless of model), so he's pretty booked-up.
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Sorry to hear about the Gibson problems. For what it is worth, I just had a great customer service experiance with them where they replaced a complicated part on my 37 year old Gibson guitar n/c and shipped out to me in a couple of days.
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uh . . . nevermind
(Message edited by hydrargyrum on May 13, 2005)
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All I got from Gibson was a bunch of lip service, the loss of my guitar for a year, and a bad taste in my mouth. While a $6k guitar is not exactly a fortune in the Gibson Custom Shop realm, it aint a throwaway either. I did get a great buy on it, but I guess you get what you pay for. Even at $2500 delivered it was still a rip-off. But I guess if you gotta have a Gibson, you gotta pay to play. Those of you trying to sell expensive guitars that are NOT Gibson or Fender Custom Shop models know all too well about resale value, regardless of their so-so quality. It's not much of a consolation, but I've seen examples of their Custom Shop premier models, and their quality is lousy even on $10k-plus models as well. The sad part is that when I'm ready to get rid of the thing, the fact that it is a Custom Shop model and that it has a spectacular flame-top will help it sell for a decent price. Thank God for Ebay, LOL!
While I would love to say that my next custom guitar will be an Alembic, I can tell you that it WON'T be a Gibson.
P.S., Kevin (hydrargyrum): I'm assuming you meant my post on Sultone cabinets in your deleted post, which I refer to above (sultone.com).
Cheers,
Kevin