I have never felt embarrassed about the gear I work with, until recently. I was looking for options to get a higher quality signal to my main monitors from the interface I still use for remote recording – a Digidesign Digi002 Rack interface. Aside from that old issue they had with the PS/converter board cabling, the 002 has been pretty solid for the past 10 years now (has it been that long?). It has lasted so long because I never use the built in preamps or converters, except for D/A monitoring in remote gigs. Every signal travels into or from the optical or coaxial section digitally. As long as you don’t expect to be tracking 8-piece funk bands, it works quite well and you can get 10 tracks in at once nicely. Sometimes, I make better decisions when I have limited options. At least, that is how I explain this problem to friends.

One thing leads to another…
I decided to add a Dangerous DAC ST to the rig primarily because of the the digital thru capability and the excellent converter. That topic will form its own article in the next month. Then I got thinking, “While I’m at it, the Digi002 can’t record in 96KHz. Am I really that behind the times now?” (Yes, it technically can, but you have to use the converters in the interface and it is limited to 4 channels at a time.) I immediately started looking at options for new interfaces. I figured that it couldn’t be that hard now that Avid has allowed you to use any interface with the arrival of ProTools 9 (now on version 10). What I initially found was interesting – the gap is narrowing between “HD” systems (not just Avid’s ProTools) and the prosumer stuff like the old Digi002. There are a lot of options out there.

The Search: Find a Replacement for the Digi002 in 96KHz!
This article is going to examine project studio-oriented interfaces that can connect to a MacBook Pro running ProTools 9 or above. I’ll save other computer types for a future article, because options expand (and prices go up) when you can use a Mac Pro and PCIe slots. I was more interested in using outboard gear for the conversion part and I just wanted these features in an interface:

• the ability to record at 96Khz concurrently on at least 16-18 tracks
• a preference for the interface being just that – an interface that simply connects other A/D and D/A converters to the computer without mic preamps, internal converters, or even headphone monitoring
• reasonable cost vs. features, since this interface should only have to pass digital signals between the computer and outboard gear – unless the internal converters are high enough quality and the piece can function as an independent converter

And the winner is… I don’t think this thing exists! (I was wrong – it absolutely does exist in several forms! jump to the end of the article to get to specific reviews that will be published over the next month.)

Yet, there is still a potential problem. The Digi002 has worked well over several computer upgrades because there has been a Firewire port on each laptop at the core of this small studio. What happens when the next Mac has a Thunderbolt port only? Well, I did some quick research and Thunderbolt supports Firewire and USB through adapters. It seems like a very innovative piece of technology that will change many things that users have taken for granted in the recording world, like the need to run ProTools HD in a tower. So for now, I’ll look at Firewire interfaces, but soon enough, there is going to be a huge spread of new products incorporating this technology.

ed note: As usually happens, I start writing about a topic with one intent and by the time the article is through, I’ve uncovered six other issues that I hadn’t been aware of. This article is one of those situations. It is abundantly clear that the new Thunderbolt port on Macbooks will change how computers interface with other gear. The days of needing a tower to hold PCIe cards is going to be gone soon and “HD” system prices are going to come down again. The way in which your gear connects to a computer will no longer segment which realm you are in or how many channels you can deal with, rather it will be the quality of gear that you use.

Because we are currently right on the tip of this changeover – most companies are releasing Thunderbolt products sometime in 2012, like Apogee for their Symphony system – these reviews of Firewire gear below already feel a bit dated before I write them. Nevermind that each of these products has already been around for 5 years or more! We’ll see what products utilizing Thunderbolt come out in 2012, then run through some reviews again. Many of the current products listed at the bottom will probably add a Thunderbolt port to their existing range, bump the price a bit and be done with it. Then there will be others that create new products that do everything an HD3 system used to do, but a heck of a lot cheaper. This is going to be a cool year for DAW interfaces!

Mitigating Gear Obsolescence
One option is to go the “HD” route, a route fraught with “obsolete” gear from 3 years ago, now worth 1/5 of the new purchase price. Somehow, I’ve made it through nearly a decade with that Digi002 rig because Firewire was prominent enough in industries other than recording to have some staying power, Avid had several products in different tiers that relied on Firewire, and the Digi002 allows at least some ability to get a signal into and out of the computer without using its own converters. So, if I am to plan the next decade and try to stay ahead of the curve, you can bet that I will stay with outboard gear as much as possible and will rely on the interface only for getting digital into and out of the computer. I’ll also attempt go with a company known for supporting older products for longer periods of time. It is not just Avid, and even Apogee is not exempt here – I remember trying to get a D/A board for a PSX-100 five years ago and being told that I was lucky, because I got the last refurbished one they had in the factory.

However, perhaps I am expecting too much from the manufacturers. Is it their fault? It is no secret that they don’t control the manufacturing of the digital components that make up any of their products – they are simply the designers and assemblers of these components that are often made overseas and tied to other industries’ needs. Certainly, digital gear involves different manufacturing techniques and it is not as easy to repair as a piece of gear that doesn’t utilize surface mount technology. Typically, entire boards are replaced – not individual components. In addition, the converters go out of style quickly and are constantly replaced by bigger and better converters. With the converter components being the cornerstone piece of this type of gear, the manufacturers have a difficult time balancing new product development with stocking outdated components. So, I don’t really blame them as much as I originally thought, but I still have to find a way forward that mitigates my exposure to gear obsolescence.

Do we even need high sampling rates?
What have we learned from the past decade? 96KHz is becoming the quality standard, up from 48KHz from long ago. Dan Lavry wrote a good article on sampling that you should read. It explains why 96Khz is already more information than we need and 192KHz is way overkill and can actually reduce accuracy in digital audio, not increase it. If you were to take a practical turn from this conversation and say, “Why do I need 96KHz anyway when 48KHz has served me well for many years?”  You might come to the conclusion that the increased cost in interfaces and outboard gear seriously diminishes whatever benefit you were looking to find in the first place. On top of that, 48KHz did not limit my enjoyment of music during the 90′s.

As Bob Clearmountain said in this month’s TapeOp (I paraphrase here): “You need good musicians, a good performance, good tracking, then a good mix, in that order. And you don’t even need the last two if the first two are outstanding.” Very true, right? No amount of dicking around with a mix has ever made a crappy performance that much more enjoyable to me. At the same time, the job of a engineer/mixer is to make the best possible product out of whatever they are handed. Thus ensues the continual drive to take gear limitations out of the equation by upgrading everything, until we arrive at the end of the road and many years of experience only to be left with one option: upgrade our own ears.

Table of Contents: 96KHz and up DAW Interface Reviews
Alright, now on to 96KHz interfaces. I need to do some research and will post a mini-review of each interface listed below. This article will serve as a table of contents for this interface search. I will be looking more at connectivity and features that allow me to satisfy as closely as possible the list of needs stated above. When possible, I will test each piece of gear out in the studio, too. From my initial research, these interfaces seem like they are best suited to deliver a solution to my needs statement above.

1. Apogee Ensemble
2. MOTU 896mk3
3. TC Electronic Studio Konnekt 48
4. Focusrite RedNet 3 (now this looks cool…except that it needs a PCIe card and is thus disqualified until they come out with a Thunderbolt option)
5. Apogee’s Symphony system will be reviewed once the Thunderbolt option comes out
6. RME Fireface 800
7. Universal Audio Apollo Duo/Quad

(I am very relieved to have created this shortlist, as I obviously haven’t been reading the Sweetwater catalogue from cover to cover during the past few years…)

A cautionary note: Gene and Gayle are very helpful and have no problems mounting someone else’s capsule in their own microphones, if that is what the customer wants. This type of approach is very cool and it’s not something that you’d typically encounter in this industry, especially from a manufacturer. Having said that, you will not save any money over buying a Lawson 251 head assembly and you’ll be the general contractor for several processes that must happen in order to make this work. It is about 4 months or so of wait time from your first contact with Tim to plugging it in. For cost estimates, you’re looking at the cost of Tim’s capsule, plus the cost of a new Lawson headbasket, plus the labor charges to mount the capsule within one (since Tim’s capsule mount is designed for something different that doesn’t utilize a shockmount, there was a bit of time spent making it work within the Lawson headbasket). Essentially, the total cost is about the same as getting a new Lawson capsule head assembly with Gene’s 251 capsule in it.

Stay tuned…

Part 2: The Royer 121 Microphone
The Royer 121 (or R-121 as it is technically known) is by now a famous microphone and recognizable to almost any recording studio engineer. It was released around 1999 and immediately garnered praise from almost all corners, including a glowing review from Steve Albini in 2000. He favorably compared the sound of the R-121 to the Coles 4038, a very cool ribbon microphone in its own right. Even today, the microphone continues to find praise, including this excellent writeup by Justin Colletti on his top ribbon mic choices.

I’ll share my experience with the R-121 here on a few different sources:

R-121 on electric guitar
The R-121, when compared to most condensers, sounds dark. There is not the high end sparkle here and there is a ton of energy focused in the lower mids. What this does is make most guitar amps sound incredibly beefy, fat, rump roasty…you name the meat adjective here and it is that. On clean guitars, the Royer makes them sound like pianos and has amazing depth in all of the right places. On distorted guitar, this mic gives you enough information and takes eq so well that you can cut whatever you need to out of the bottom frequencies to make the tracks sit well with the bass and drums without taking much away from the feeling of depth in the track.

The 121 is an excellent mic to use in a M/S configuration, even if one side of the figure 8 pattern is not perfectly matched with the other (the back of the mic is brighter). A simple 57 acting as the mid microphone completes the setup and gives the typical 3D depth that you’d expect from this technique, but with an outstanding low end.

R-121 pair on drums
Aside from electric guitar, recording drums with the R-121 is a very cool experience. While I’ve used them with great results as overheads on a kit, they really shine when used as a mid-room pair. Placed about belly high and pointed at the kick/snare area, they lend an amazing fatness to the recording. If compressed just a bit (or squashed with an 1176), the track begins to pump and grind with everything else beautifully. Another user on a forum reported good results with a 121 midway between the snare and kick too, though I have not tried this technique.

R-121 on vocals
Depending on the needs of the song, you may find that this is not the ideal mic for most voices, unless they are seriously lacking in low end, or have an abundance of energy in the high end. I find myself using this Royer on vocals that are double tracked, or I end up using the 121 along with a condenser to add a different texture to the low end of the track. Backing vocals can benefit from a 121 too – you can cut a lot of the low end out and have a very smooth supporting track that adds body to song, but doesn’t take away too much attention from the lead vocal.

R-121 on hand percussion
The Royer 121 shines on hand percussion, adding depth and fatness to conga and djembe tracks. There is a cool low end “breathiness” that results at times depending on the drum and technique. A stereo pair of these mics is awesome in this application.

While there are many other uses for the Royer R-121 microphone, these are some of the most common ones. It is an excellent mic with characteristics that cannot be found in lower end ribbon mics that I have used. The build quality is excellent (it is built like a tank), the components are excellent, and you have the employees at Royer who stand behind their products and can customize them (like matching two non-matched microphones). On top of that, repair time can be reduced to a few days if you ever need the mic back quickly. Finally, there is always the “first re-ribbon is free to the original owner” policy, should you ever need it.

These claims are not accurate in my experience – no Oktava MC-012 I’ve ever heard sounds close to a KM-84, modded or not, and the mics don’t share the same circuit topologies. However, if you had instead asked, “Do I get a performance enhancement that is comparable to the mod price?” Well then, yes, you do in many cases. Here’s where a mod can help:

• your Oktava MC-012 is not working
• your mic has intermittent problems
• your mic sounds seriously crappy compared to other examples you have tried

If your Oktava MC-012 doesn’t fit those categories, then congratulations, you have an average to above average MC-012! These mics had absolutely junky quality control during a long middle period and the range of quality can be fairly extreme. Before you go and get your mic packed up to send away, note that there’s a twist that no one seems to ever mention on the interweb – it’s not the bodies that have the widest range of quality spread; it’s the capsules. They can be quite nice, or (nearly) useless crap. It’s not unreasonable to think that you could mod (or get your MC-012 modded) and have it come back as a slightly better version of something you’d rather not use. None of the guys that mod these things ever deal with the capsule, because I don’t believe that there is not much you can do with it. The variation in capsules alone will almost guarantee that your modded MC-012 won’t sound like whatever else you’ve heard in internet clips.

Discrete version of Oktava MC-012 (courtesy of Saturn Sound)

I’ve done before and after testing (same capsule both times) of a later model MC-012-01 using Bill Sitler’s standard mod kit and while it did improve the high end a slight amount and the low end was a bit tighter, it was not a night and day difference. It did not change the character, or make the mic sound like a KM-84…not even close. It simply made the mic sound like a good example of a MC-012 when before, it sounded like a below average example. A much larger difference in sound was found by swapping capsules. Before you write that option off, the $25 to not have to source the components is a small price to pay for laziness/convenience and the benefit very much does outweigh the cost in this case. But, you have to do the work yourself. Even in the best of cases, you can only polish a design so far before you are limited by component size and other factors outside of your control, like the capsule. If you want a quick rundown of what is usually involved in modding one of these, see this GroupDIY article.

Another version of the MC-012 (courtesy of Saturn Sound)

It should be noted that Michael Joly has been vocal in the past about the fact that he doesn’t just replace components – he dials the FET and other components in to their ideal operating voltages. This is fair – it is likely that whatever components you replace probably bring with them different voltage and current needs than the stock pieces.

Then there are the older MC-012 mics with the very thin font and no “-01″ designation, early in the days of the ASM distribution. For a comparison, see the featured image for this post – there are four different MC- designated mics that share two major circuit layouts and two sets of similar components, and all were made by the Oktava factory. There are even older examples that have different capsule designs and even earlier circuits, too. The ones I am thinking of still used the wet slug tantalum electrolytic capacitors in the more “modern” circuit configuration and some of these sound really, really good. In fact, these bodies can sound as good or better than any modded body I’ve ever come across, including two OktavaMod examples that had come through the studio in the past. However, you have to buy a lot of MC-012s to find a good example, and there’s a good chance you’ll have to send it to off to the mod shop once one of those wet slug caps fails, something that is not uncommon. Many thanks to Ashley at Saturn Sound for his permission to use these photos of the Oktava MC-012 internals!

Two older model Oktava MC-012 Microphones (courtesy of Saturn Sound)

Why does this niche market even exist? Couple with rich media and popular message boards on the web, the pro audio press, some smart techs, and crappy quality control from Oktava in the past, these mod companies serve as the good quality control department that Oktava never had. If you asked me if the $120 invested in Michael Joly’s shop plus the cost of the mic is worth it, I’d probably say go for it if you think your mic isn’t up to speed with other examples you’ve heard. Or, if you really like the mic and want the most out of it, then $250 as a total investment isn’t unreasonable at all. The good examples of these mics (modded or not) have a place in any mic locker and they work very well on some sources.

For a second opinion of how good the OktavaMod MC-012s are, I asked Anthony D’Erasmo, owner of Digital Doctorz – a busy New York City studio & music business – if he wouldn’t mind offering his take on the OktavaMod MC-012 mods. Anthony has a lot of experience in this industry and has been around many types and classes of microphones. I have much respect for his opinion:

From what they originally sounded like to what they sound like now, it is amazing! I have U47′s, Gefell UM70s, 92′s, U67s, and U87′s… The Joly-modded MC-012s are quite different from all the high-end stuff, but they have a formidable character unto themselves. They have their own place on certain things I do and they work very well with acoustic strings, upright bass, cello, and violins. And, they are really good room mics.

With that said, know that one of the biggest potential limitations in these microphones is the capsule* (and possibly, your propensity for being swayed with advertising claims that you really, really want to believe). If you have a good capsule, you’re going to have a very different opinion than someone who may have the same modded body, but a poor quality capsule.

So for $600ish, you aren’t doing bad with the modded MC-012 mics by any stretch of the imagination. It’s certainly easier than betting on 10 pairs of ebay purchases and $3,000 to find two diamonds in the rough!

*One other note – new capsules have a rounded edge to them, where the old ones have a sharper 45 degree angle cut on the edge. I have heard great older examples, but not very many good newer examples of this capsule. Maybe I got some duds? The very old capsules do not expand outward from the body to the edge and keep roughly the same diameter as the body – these are fairly rare in my experience.

Capsule variations in the Oktava MC-012 (courtesy of Saturn Sound)

Also, the only easy way to tell the Chinese “fake” MC-012s is to look at the body retaining screws at the end of the mic – they shouldn’t have a black phillips head on them.

There isn’t a whole lot of historical information on the L47c that exists online. Examples I have seen use a 6072 tube exclusively – this was way before the mkII (the L47c mics I have seen were built around 1991). Gene went through a revision of the L47 where he used an EF-86 tube as well. The circuit is quite a bit simpler than the current mkII mics and the build feels more “custom” than the current generation mics. There is no serial number on the bodies that I have seen (though it may exist); the only obvious serial of sorts lives on the bottom of the headbasket. This “serial” is Gene’s signature and the date of manufacture. This was presumably prior to the time when he started writing the serials of the head assemblies in addition to his signature. The headbasket is also of a different design than the current bodies today and the whole microphone comes apart in a different manner than the mkII versions.

The power supply lacks the pattern and pad switches and the cable and connectors are 5 pin rather than 7 pin as used today. I’m not quite sure of the cable manufacturer –  today Gotham is used, but the case is still a Pelican, albeit a different design.

The sound of a L47c mic is outstanding – it is a very nice complement to the current Lawson mkII mics and easily holds its own with them, sometimes giving something more on some voices, and sometimes something else. The mic retains the L47′s high end reach and detail, but has a nice throaty low end. It is consistent with what I’d call the “signature” of Lawson’s microphones – clear, deep, exceptionally detailed, and super-real. Within this signature, there are several variations that I have come to know. The L47c mics that have come through my studio have had that lower-mid beefiness that I don’t remember the L47 mkII having quite so much of, but Gene can personally tweak his capsules to give users what they want – it’s something that he has always done because he makes everything by hand at his shop in Nashville. The different circuit, different tube, and capsule variations all contribute to what I’ve heard here.

Which brings us to another story: The “Experimental” Lawson Mics
With all of the aftermarket capsules being made today (Tim Campbell, Dale Uhen, etc.), there is a renewed interest in the quality of the smaller manufacturers’ capsules. One interesting story that I’d like to cover here in the future is the Lawson experimental capsules because there is almost no information on the web about these. If you have any info on these, please leave a comment. There is the aborted-from-production L67 capsule from years ago, and Gene has made many other capsule variations over the years, constantly experimenting with the designs. Some of these have made it out into the world, but most haven’t and their mere existence is relegated to dusty message board posts from years ago.

Interest in the Lawson microphone line has been strong for more than 20 years, but it is only going to increase in the coming years and as it does, some of the oddities and lesser known mics, like the L47c, will begin to come out of the woodwork. I’ll be reviewing more of them in the coming months.

Zack: Wow! That was a long break between posts…

After getting the correct transformer from Heyboer in the mail I popped it in, bolted it down and started going to work on wiring. I now have everything needed to finish this project and am ready to get it done and start playing through this amp! (ed note: Heyboer’s customer service is outstanding. I had also received a transformer that was sized incorrectly. A quick email to Heyboer resulted in a new transformer being sent that day. Many thanks to them! Their transformers are my favorites in the Blackface Fender amps.)

About an hour into wiring the chassis components to the eyelet board I realized that I was quickly running out of wire. Mistake number 3. I should have realized this early on, but being completely new to this it had slipped through the cracks. Fast forward another week and a half of waiting for more wire to arrive.

Wiring has been somewhat a tedious and stressful affair. I found myself soldering to the wrong points on a couple of occasions and having to triple check everything and really concentrate on referring back to the schematic. The other challenge was installing the can capacitor. The pre-drilled hole in the chassis wasn’t big enough so I had to break out my Dremel and make it a bit larger so that it would fit correctly.

Now that the amp is nearly complete with all wiring done, my next project will be building a dim-bulb tester to use when firing this puppy up for the first time. I’ve checked and double-checked my wiring, component layout, cap polarity, etc., but I would absolutely die if I plugged it in and the whole thing fried with the first flip of the switch. I have to many hours invested at this point to see it all go up in a puff of smoke.

The other worry I have beyond getting the amp functioning correctly is getting it to run quietly! Again, being new to amp building, I’m not sure I’ve grounded everything properly and it seems to be a common problem to have noise bleed into your signal path by improper grounding techniques, or oscillation caused by improper lead dressing. I guess I’ll soon find out…

Fender Princeton Reverb Troubleshooting

ed note: It’s unlikely that you’d fry an amp completely when this amount of time and attention has been put into the build (look at that wiring layout!). Still, mistakes happen and troubleshooting soon becomes the next thing you have to learn. The chopstick test helps a lot here – it’s a simple test where you use a non-conductive tool (chopsticks, per Gerald Weber) to gently poke and prod your connections to find any intermittent joints. Or, you can use the tool to tap the preamp tubes and find where the signal stops, or at which stage of the circuit things have broken down. Weber’s book is a decent introduction to troubleshooting and repair techniques for a beginner to intermediate builder.

Finally, Zack has done an excellent job making the amp’s wiring into a work of art. Be forewarned that this may or may not provide a habitat for electrical gremlins. He’s made sure to use right angles at wire junctions and as long as the original grounding scheme was kept in mind, things should be fine. As he said, we’ll see!

Part I of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build
Part II of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build
Part III of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build

• Wiring of input jacks and pot jumpers/resistors is A LOT easier to do BEFORE securing them into the chassis.
• Adding a few pieces of electrical tape to the “jaws” of a standard pair of pliers can help prevent marking up your brand new back/faceplate with scratches when tightening down the retaining nut of the jacks/pots. (ed note: And crescent wrenches are even better!)

I decided early on that I would be 100% honest when blogging my build experience, so that means everything… even embarrassing mistakes. My first was mentioned earlier (ordering the wrong size of screws) and now I’m on mistake number 2 with plenty to follow, I’m sure. After soldering in the filament wires, I grabbed my snips to trim the excess wire from valve 2, pin 9 and ended up clipping the entire pin terminal. Note to self: Take your time and pay attention… this isn’t a race!

After ordering another socket (and paying MORE in shipping than the actual socket cost) I’ve swapped out the old with the new and am back in business. I also noticed, after going over my work a few times, that I had soldered the filament leads of valve 3 to pin 8 instead of 9. I’m realizing how easy it is to make simple mistakes and have to keep reminding myself to slow my pace and pay attention to every detail. It has become a required practice for me to check and re-check (and re-check) my work after finishing each step. The last thing I want to do is finish this build, only to watch it go up in a puff of smoke when flipping the power switch for the first time.

As of right now I’ve done just about as much as I can. I’m now waiting for my last parts order to arrive. After waiting nearly a month, my Heyboer transformers should be arriving this week allowing me to finish the chassis prep-wiring. (ed note: Zack – what is the part number you ordered? I got mine within 4 days of ordering them…perhaps they built a few and had them left over from your order. Either way – ordering direct from Heyboer in case Mojo doesn’t have what you need in stock is seamless. Alden is excellent to deal with over there.) 

Part I of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build
Part II of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build
Part IV of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build 

Part I of the Princeton Reverb amp build
Part III of the Princeton Reverb build
Part IV of the Princeton Reverb Amp Build  

I’ll give the stage to Zack now:

My first step and already a problem. After taking a moment to fit one of the preamp tube sockets to the Princeton Reverb chassis, I realized I had ordered the wrong size screws. Crap. Fortunately they weren’t THAT much bigger so I just had to drill out the holes in the chassis to fit the larger size. Not a big deal, but also not the most encouraging start. I guess that’s another advantage of buying at kit… everything is already well thought out.

After about an hour, this is what I ended up with.

Before getting too far ahead of myself, I’ve tried to think about the most logical order in which to build the amp. I found a few videos VERY useful. If you’re considering a build of your own, I’d highly recommend checking them out. The first is produced by TubeDepot.com and can be viewed here. They provide some great information on amp building. The second video can be viewed here. While extremely helpful, know that these videos are an overview of the process rather than in depth, step-by-step instructions. What the videos provided me was a confidence in which logical order to proceed.

Since I have yet to receive the transformers for the amp (power, output and reverb) I soldered a few resistors into the power tube sockets and I now consider the basic chassis assembly done. Time now to set the chassis aside and move on to building the eyelet board.

Princeton Reverb Eyelet Board

I really consider this to be the “heart and soul” of the amp. Many people have varying opinions on what the best components are to use, so you’re free to agree or disagree with my choices. After many hours of research (and with the advice of monkbam, of course) I decided to go with carbon comp resistors that I purchased through Antique Electronic Supply. For capacitors I chose to use Mojotone’s ”Mojo Dijon” caps. There are a few Sprague atom caps (polarized electrolytics) and one Mojo Vitamin T thrown in the mix. This combo of components seem to strike a balance of fantastic quality/sound and real-earth-people prices.

Also worth noting at this point… if you’re new to soldering and are a little nervous about destroying components from excessive heat or bad soldering practices in general, TubeDepot has another great video on how to get started in soldering. Check it out here.

Many thanks to Zack for providing the links. My favorite stores for parts are Mojotone.com and Antique Electronic Supply. It is rare to not be able to find something at one of those two stores. Do note that shipping (as Zack has found out) can add up quickly. It pays, quite literally, to do some homework and order everything at once. Despite your best efforts, you may find this hard to manage.

Also, don’t forget to begin other parts of the amp while you are waiting for parts. The cabinet can take a long time to build, depending on how much of it is done from scratch. You need some solid woodworking skills to pull off a nice looking replica of Fender’s 60′s cabinets and the right wood. It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows these cabs, but there is only glue – no nails or screws – that holds them together. On top of this, you’ll have to deal with two different aspects of the cab build: how to finish it, and how to upholster the speaker baffle.

Finally, on capacitor choices: it is tempting to assume that brand x is crap and brand y shits gold dust, but rarely are things so lopsided. Capacitors of all brands “work”, and some work better than others. There are differences you can detect, but these alone are relatively minor compared to changing transformers, tubes, or most of all, a speaker. Caps are a nice way to very slightly tweak an already awesome sound a bit more, but they’re never going to be the first thing I reach for when an amp is too bright/tubby/dark/shrill. So, if you’re unhappy with the way your amp sounds, try changing out components in this order:

1. Speaker
2. Cabinet
3. Tubes
4. Transformers
5. Coupling Capacitors

Here’s his first post:

A few months back I was contemplating purchasing a Fender Princeton Reverb. I LOVE the Deluxe Reverb, but wanted a lower power amplifier with similar characteristics and the Princeton seemed to fit the bill.

Everything has arrived! A Fender Princeton Reverb build about to start.

While doing some pricing research I stumbled across a pro audio and amp blog written by monkbam.  As I read though his post on a Princeton Reverb build, I was excited about the idea of creating an authentic replica that would capture the sound of the original, hand-picking only the highest quality components. I made an effort to contact monkbam about the process of building my own amp, since my experience was nil. Long story short after a few emails back and forth, monkbam agreed to “mentor” me through the process of my very first amp build. (ed. note: this is a one-off experiment in the interest of generating a set of blog posts that gives an account of the build process through new eyes. I am unable to help others in this way, unfortunately.)

The first step has been a lengthy process of researching designs/schematics and purchasing parts and components.  Initially I thought it best to just purchase a kit. After all, it would be a lot easier and faster to get every part in one shot.  What drove me away from moving forward with a kit was that I would continually run into one of two problems: either the price was right but the quality of the parts weren’t up to par, or the kit prices were WAY too high. After much debate, I decided to go with a design put together by Weber (the 6A14 schematic) because it seemed very true to the original Princeton (AA1164) with a few updates that are really necessary to bring it to the modern era. These updates include a bias pot and 3-prong grounded power cord. (ed note: the bias pot in modern times is used with matched pairs or quads of tubes and affects “global” bias – bias voltage to all tubes. In the old days, you sometimes saw a bias adjustment which affected relative bias to each tube, but could not affect overall bias voltage to both tubes at once.)

After about a month of sourcing only the highest quality parts from a handful of manufacturers (and paying a ridiculous amount of shipping), I’m ready to start the build.

-Zack

Sometimes it is easy to forget what you’ve accumulated over the years and bypass details when offering explanations, figuring that they are obvious. They aren’t to someone beginning the process, so it’s wise to get Aspen Pittman’s “The Tube Book” and several others about soldering and basic electronics components. The worst part of trying to build an amp like this is if you have some deficiency in one of these skills and put together an amp that then is a bear to troubleshoot due to poor soldering technique, or incorrect component layout. Even things like wire choice, soldering temperature, or trim pot manufacturer can influence the end result. So, if you’re tempted to build one yourself, do your proper homework or you’ll find that it was a lot cheaper (in time and money) to have someone experienced build it for you.

One more thing: you’d be surprised at the final parts cost, which I’m sure Zack will post near the end of the build. It ain’t cheap! Most guys selling custom built amps on ebay for “reasonable” prices have completely lost most or all of the value in their time. I figure on about 20 hours from start to finish for a Princeton Reverb build, including testing. If I wanted to make $40/hr doing this, then I’m already at $800 before we add parts to the mix. In other words, most people on the DIY side of things don’t make money from building amps these days. However, I don’t know many DIY folks who do this to make to money anyway – it’s way too much fun to play something you’ve built and get that satisfaction.

Part II of the Princeton Reverb amp build
Part III of the Princeton Reverb build
Part IV of the Princeton Reverb build 

It has the same control setup to a DBX 160, a compressor that I’ve used quite a lot in the past. I tend to think that the marketing copy that compares the B16 to the DBX 160 is simply for control layout though – Tim seems to take the best features from old designs and transform them into something better. I’ll get my hands on one soon and report back.