trinityamps.com

Howdy, all. Glad to be here.

I'm a late 40's guitar hobbyist who has never built an amp. I've built lots of pedals, have solid soldering and wire management skills, know how to read layouts and most of a schematic (have a couple of tube related things to learn). I know I have something of a learning curve in front of me, particularly with respect to more advanced electrical concepts (I'm good on tone stack stuff) and I'm prepared to meet that challenge

My intended usage of the TriWatt will be as a mostly clean/maybe edge of breakup pedal platform for mostly various flavours of dirt pedals. I had, and sold earlier this year, a 1981 Hiwatt Custom 50 that was a little overpowered for my needs...but if the TriWatt is in that ballpark sonically, I should be very satisfied. I play in a 4 piece (2 guitars) that does heavier music, couple of Foo Fighters tunes would be the lightest but we ramp up the gain quickly and steeply from there. We're just a basement band for now, so don't need tons of volume - the other guy is playing a Rebel 30 with EMG's (not dimed, but fairly loud and also as a pedal platform) and has a big full sound though, so I do need some volume to compete.

QUESTIONS
1. Got to order some power tubes. According to thetubestore, it sounds like the Tung Sol 6V6's might be the way to go, in their description they say "more defined and less compression than the JJ or EH". Sounds to me like just what I need, any opinions? I'm not going vintage NOS, so let's take that option off the table. I'm good for preamp, have lots of nice stuff to experiment with.

1a) How much headroom with 6V6's, 12AT7, and low output/PAFish humbuckers? I expect I'll be running the preamp pretty low and the master up higher. I'm a ham handed 'hammer on it it sounds good that way' rhythm player, so if anyone will get crunch/breakup early it would be me. Given my aim of having a pretty clean pedal platform in the context above, should I be considering KT66's instead? I've never had or used KT66's and so have no frame of reference, have lots and lots of experience with 6V6's, everything from a silverface VibroChamp to a first generation Orange Rockerverb 50 that ran 4 of them, to Blackface Deluxe Reverbs, to the SuperSonic22 I currently own. I know generally what to expect from 6V6's.

2. I've done some reading in various threads, and have seen Zaphod refer to some refinements in building practices. I don't know off the top of my head what was being referenced, and I will go back and do some digging, but is there anything (besides putting bridges on top of the board) that is recommended? I want a nice clean quiet build right from the get go. Has the manual been updated recently at all?

I had more questions, but, you know, at my age these things start to slip away like phantoms once in a while I'll be back with more....

Sounds like your situation (age etc.) is very similar to mine except your electronics skills are more advanced. My build strategy was to follow the layouts exactly and I used the Zaphod build picks as a valuable guide tool. With one minor glitch (my own bloody fault) everything went well and the amp performs perfectly. if you check out some of my posts you will find a photo of my build. What I tried to do was always keep separation with my wiring, which considering the amount of components, was sometimes challenging. Happily the result is a quiet amp, even with the OD turned way up.

Regarding tubes, I have been doing a lot of experimenting with new and NOS stuff. Basically the amp sound good with just about everything I've plugged into it. The KT66 tubes (Gold Lion) have a big sound with plenty of detail but I eventually went back to the 6V6's. I had some "Groove Tubes" that sounded nice but I eventually settled (for now) on a set of late 50's Sylvania tubes that I got off ebay. They have a nice detailed sound but also a warmth that the newer stuff lacks. I know you say that you don't want to do the NOS thing, but if you are patient you can find nice stuff on ebay at great prices. I've bought lots of tubes like that and never had any issue. Regardless of what tubes you choose this is a loud amp. I can't imagine running out of headroom.

I've been using a PRS custom 22 with Motor City Pickups "Blackbelts" (low output PAF's) mostly into the 3rd (joined) input with the OD engaged. When I want clean I just roll off the volume and at that point I can kick in some pedals. Works for me. I've also tried it without the OD engaged. I found that driving the volumes provided a nice slightly broken sound and I could use the master as necessary. Using the 3rd input lets you tweak the tone with the two volumes as well. there are so many tones in this amp, I can't imagine that you won't find yours.

Speaker selection affects everything as well.

Good luck. Please post some some photos.

Thanks, R, very good feedback. I've been reading the Triwatt section extensively, I'm 6 pages back now looking at just about every thread, so I've seen your stuff - nice! Sounds like 6V6's are the way to go (also from reading back posts), so I'll take a peek on the 'bay and see what's out there.

I would stick with the 6v6 setup for starters,I too have used Gold Lion KT66 tubes ,but am back to some old RCA 6v6's(for now!). There is quite a bit of headroom still there, as Roadstar said, your speaker selection will have a big impact on the volume .Just don't rush your build and triple check everything,you'll be pleased with the results.

I'm almost done my build but had to catch myself last night starting to rush things as I was nearing the end getting excited. double checked some stuff .. then triple checked and found a couple mistakes so +1+1+1 on don't get too excited about playing it while you're building!