George saw Ed's amp? Spill some beans Mr. Velvet!

[bigsmitty]

And on a similar note, my toaster keeps burning my toast. Wonder what would happen if I put a Variac on it?

it might get brown

[efraser68]

"or inserting a variac between the head and cab is pretty cool. "

How does that work?

That doesn't!! ... 'cause that's not where you put a Variac!!!

I quoted Phil on this statement, he never explained so guess he was just throwing it out there for fun

[Strat78]

"or inserting a variac between the head and cab is pretty cool. "

How does that work?

That doesn't!! ... 'cause that's not where you put a Variac!!!

I quoted Phil on this statement, he never explained so guess he was just throwing it out there for fun

Sorry Eric, I didn't mean to hang you out there with that, for the dogs to come sniffin, there are some threads that go into this particular use of the variac from the days when it was fun to hang out here. Actually I find the use of the variac between the head and cab more interesting tone wise than the AC application.

[efraser68]

No worries Phil, but for the uninitiated...what exactly does this mean

Amp - Speaker Cable - (what goes here with variac) - Cab

[vanhalen5150]

You turn the second variac up to 140v to power the secret pedal.

[Tone Slinger]

Oh yeah, where has Good Guest been ?

[efraser68]

Yes , Good Guest or Cary Chilton??

[N3m0 7h3 Fi5h]

Actually I find the use of the variac between the head and cab more interesting tone wise than the AC application.

Hmmm.. how far that variac - "head cab" applications actually..., compare to this thread bellow.. ?

http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php ... 86#p241886" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

.

[vanhalen5150]

No. Blankenship Variplex is completely different. That's a wall voltage supply. Genius amp design. Lots to be learned with those.

[vanhalen5150]

Good Guest and Cary are busy shoveling snow like the rest of the Canadians this weekend.

[N3m0 7h3 Fi5h]

No. Blankenship Variplex is completely different. That's a wall voltage supply. Genius amp design. Lots to be learned with those.

Yes, Indeed.. I'm 100% agree with you.. about variac function in Blankenship Variplex..

I'm sorry for being not clear... I mean variac for attenuator or vol control ..

Amp's speaker out 1 -> variac AC line in ...
Amp's speaker out 2 -> (in parallel) a load resistor (or hotplate set to load or whatever).

-> Variac out - > to speaker cabinet.

... beside above link.. pls to see these comment bellow, some result from people who had tried it..

Yep....it works great..you can also just run it like a....big volume knob for the speaker. Check the ohms of your variac....I think you will see around 20 ohms...Look at badcat ...its another old trick.

It lowers volume! I think tonally it doesn't affect the tone any more than using a resistive attenuator ... might even sound better. But that's for your ears to decide. It cuts the volume to zero, but gets a little jumpy towards the bottom (at least with my variac) but you can get the volume very low.

PS : These are usage of 2 variacs.. one for 90v ac line.. and one for volume control, between head & cabinet..

I have been using the above trick as suggested. Does not sound bad running my Slient speaker as the load and a variac as the volume control.

This causes oscillation with certain postions of the control on the Variac. I am running the amp at 8 ohms.

I also lower the input voltage of the amp to 90 volts.

Result is a very good sound when compared to other attenuators, very warm with brown sound there with the right eq settings.

.

[vanhalen5150]

A variac on the Variplex is for nothing but volume control. It's what you can't see that is really the "secret" for how the amp keeps its tone at whisper volumes.
A variac by itself has its own properties as a reactive and resistive load, with both primary and secondary load options. It's how they are taped and combined after the OT in a series load, not a parallel, as most would assume.

[sixpakldp]

Wonder what kind of tubes were in Ed's amp? You would think someone of Ed's stature would be using old glass, but wouldn't it be interesting if he didn't.

[dirtycooter]

Sylvania 6CA7's........ not christmas bulb c7's.... but Sylvania 6CA7's
Old school all day long then some and old tomorrow too
Think EL34 heavy duty built like a 6L6 "beam forming" type deal

But... to cap off the volume control options...

Variac is established as "part of the sound"

But we have
1. Voltage down to 90+/- wide open
2. Voltage down and resistive load then re-amp
3. Voltage down and variac on the speaker line
4. Voltage down and fandangled MV
What else for possible avenues?

Never once thought of variac on the speaker line....I would like more feedback on this issue as it interests me a great deal.

[ampSnob]

IIRC, the variac in line with speaker idea originally came from the same person who told us about magical 2.2k output transformers and then was reported later to have made that whole thing up for no apparent reason other than to mess with EVH fans. While coming from a very VERY knowledgeable source about all things amplifiers (and this idea is actually extremely cool and very do-able) I haven't seen any credible evidence it actually belongs in the EVH sound chain.