Traynor YGM-3 Guitar Mate Reverb

[CJ]

this is a well received Traynor, they even did a re-issue people liked it so much,

this guy is an original version,

hard to screw up a pair of EL84's,

this one sounds great with some new Sovtek pwr tubes and some vintage 12AX7a Westinghouse preamps,

 

[CJ]

there is a non stock Hammond OPT, #92976 stamped on the frame which may not be the actual p/n, it checks out pretty good, orig. OPT wqs rumored to be the same one used in the old Fender Tremolux with 6BQ5's (EL84), Fender model 6G9,

stock Fender 6G9 OPT would be a 45217,

first gripe is the RCA jack being used as a spk output, this is ok for a Champ Amp, but not for a pair of 84's,

 

[CJ]

chassis is fairly clean for an amp this old, some cute rectifiers in the pwr supply, some kludginess going on with the tone circuit, but we can fix that,

 

[CJ]

diodes are 1N5061 'controlled avalanche type' written on the schematic,

schemo shows 2 ea. but looks like 4 here,

these guys actually say PH 204 on them,

 

[CJ]

this is the part i like, mutated tropical fish caps, never seen these before,

 

[CJ]

another one in the kludge area,

Canadian solder must have a lot of flux to get the solder to stick in cold work shops, 

 

[CJ]

here is a different schemo from the one glued to the chassis, 1973, has the 2 diodes in series thing,

 

[CJ]

here is the sch on the chassis lid, no i don't own a Hasselblad large format camera,

 

[CJ]

non educated guess at the OPT,  ???

DCR scares me, usually means small wire, dripping varnish, must keep bias reasonable to keep idle current down,

Related Linkage:

http://yorkville.com/downloads/other/yorkvillehistory.pdf

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t34416/

http://ampworkshop.yuku.com/topic/4291/New-Traynor-Handwired-Amp#.UlGcAtKdFvA

 

[ethervalve]

Thanks for sharing all those pics.
I've always wanted to try one of these. I generally prefer closed back cabs and these Traynors are some of the very few combos I've seen this in. Do you find it it works well in this context?

 

[Graham]

I love old Traynor stuff like this. I recapped a solid state YVM-4 PA head for a friend this spring and it sounded fantastic, especially for free. It sounded really nice on bass guitar. I've been trying to find something close to that for a practice head, maybe I'll hold out for a tube version like this though.

Indeed the solder had lots of flux all over the place.

Nice work!

 

[PRR]

> DCR scares me

It's 5% of the nominal audio impedance, so functionally fine.

> keep bias reasonable to keep idle current down

Over-volted 7189 (and abused 6BQ5/EL84) amps ran quite teeny bias, maybe 20mA/tube. In 200 Ohm DCR, just 4V drop (so not affecting tube bias at ALL) Twice, is less than 1/4W of heat in the winding.

If by "thin" you are worried about winding-rot, move somewhere dry. (Canada?) And if it does fail, any of the million 6V6/EL84 OTs can drop-in and play fine.

In my limited experience, early small Traynors need 30 years of kludges un-done, new tubes, and some pot and jack cleaning. The 3rd model BassMate begs for a less "unique" tonestack and gain-staging, but the world is full of "normal" amps, it may be time to leave the early Traynors un-molested (or re-un-molested) and let them be special.

 

[CJ]

these Sovtek's clock in at 25 ma ea, so no problem, -15 volt bias easy to overdrive,

tone stack does work pretty well,

this amp would probably do well with a 16 ohm Jensen, the OPT is wound at 4.7K/8

so 16 OHM SPK would make it 9.4K/16,

RCA manual says 8K P-P for the 6BQ5, seems like the tubes would last longer,