Handwired vs machine made

darthed1981

martinw said:

Supporting local business, producing less landfill, maintaining a skills base of technicians who can repair things, resulting in less environmental impact, societal and economic benefits. Life would generally be better if we all owned fewer, better quality things and valued them more.

There's a lot to be said for having a relationship with the person who made your amp (or whatever it is) in that you can often tailor things to suit your preferences when things are made in small volumes. Then there's pride of ownership from having something unique, or nearly so.

Lets be fair though (and I certainly agree our society is hideously wasteful) the reality is back when people had fewer things, it was the very wealthy who did and most people owned nothing of value at all.

Mass production methods have provided affordable goods to the masses, and while boutique hand wired amps are desirable and brilliant for their owners, they are way beyond the budgets of many guitarists.

I'm not weighing in on your post as I mostly concur, but thought it worth clarifying.

FelineGuitars

DJH83004 said:

There is an additional dimension to this discussion around the concept of handwired, these are a couple of amps that I have repaired / serviced in the past, one turret board, one true P-to-P using tag strip. Both well respected builders with great reputation for tone and quality. One amp is a dream to work on the other is a nightmare! But hey-ho you don't buy amps for the benefit of the amp tech     

I can see the top amp is a Mojave
What is the bottom one? 

Jez6345789

of course, handwiring is better as long as you remember how you did it MR Dumble lol

exocet

FelineGuitars said:

DJH83004 said:

There is an additional dimension to this discussion around the concept of handwired, these are a couple of amps that I have repaired / serviced in the past, one turret board, one true P-to-P using tag strip. Both well respected builders with great reputation for tone and quality. One amp is a dream to work on the other is a nightmare! But hey-ho you don't buy amps for the benefit of the amp tech     

I can see the top amp is a Mojave
What is the bottom one? 

I'd say it was a Carr? The Solens caps are the give away.

martinw

 

darthed1981 said:

martinw said:

Supporting local business, producing less landfill, maintaining a skills base of technicians who can repair things, resulting in less environmental impact, societal and economic benefits. Life would generally be better if we all owned fewer, better quality things and valued them more.

There's a lot to be said for having a relationship with the person who made your amp (or whatever it is) in that you can often tailor things to suit your preferences when things are made in small volumes. Then there's pride of ownership from having something unique, or nearly so.

Lets be fair though (and I certainly agree our society is hideously wasteful) the reality is back when people had fewer things, it was the very wealthy who did and most people owned nothing of value at all.

I wasn't saying we should turn the clock back, was I?

darthed1981

martinw said:

 

darthed1981 said:

martinw said:

Supporting local business, producing less landfill, maintaining a skills base of technicians who can repair things, resulting in less environmental impact, societal and economic benefits. Life would generally be better if we all owned fewer, better quality things and valued them more.

There's a lot to be said for having a relationship with the person who made your amp (or whatever it is) in that you can often tailor things to suit your preferences when things are made in small volumes. Then there's pride of ownership from having something unique, or nearly so.

Lets be fair though (and I certainly agree our society is hideously wasteful) the reality is back when people had fewer things, it was the very wealthy who did and most people owned nothing of value at all.

I wasn't saying we should turn the clock back, was I?

No you weren't, I did try to clarify I wasn't saying you were in my post

ecc83

Now see, that picture of the impeccable single turret board amp annoys me. They go to great trouble to produce a thing of beauty but cannot spend a quid or two sleeve/booting the mains connectors!

I know there is no way to make the internals of a valve amp TOTALLY safe but surely make SOME bloody effort?

As for "not buying amps for techs"? Unless there is a VERY GOOD reason for it good INTELLIGENT design should include serviceability IMO and I think we have already established that HW/PCB makes no sonic difference?

Dave.

martinw

ecc83 said:

Now see, that picture of the impeccable single turret board amp annoys me. They go to great trouble to produce a thing of beauty but cannot spend a quid or two sleeve/booting the mains connectors!

I know there is no way to make the internals of a valve amp TOTALLY safe but surely make SOME bloody effort?

Dave.

/stuck record.

Sleeving mains makes no sense whatsoever in an amp where there are lethal voltages present throughout. Indeed some, including me, think it could actually be more dangerous, leading an untrained or unwary person to think that other terminals in the amp were 'safe', and that only the mains is dangerous.

Sleeving mains is a practise brought over from low voltage equipment, where the chassis has only a few clearly discreet mains points which can be isolated and insulated, and it is relatively safe to work on the chassis with power on.

An amp should be unplugged from the mains before the chassis is removed from the cabinet anyway, at which point the mains are dead, but lethal voltages might still be present elsewhere!

Now: Let. It. Go.

ecc83 said:

.... I think we have already established that HW/PCB makes no sonic difference?

Dave.

I think that's misleading. In an ideal world, where all other things are equal, it would be right.

ICBM

martinw said:

An amp should be unplugged from the mains before the chassis is removed from the cabinet anyway, at which point the mains are dead, but lethal voltages might still be present elsewhere!

This absolutely true, and I got a nasty shock from the very first valve amp I ever worked on, a 50W Marshall - which don't have stacked filter caps and divider resistors - because although I had made quite sure I'd unplugged it from the mains, the filter caps were still holding 400+ volts...

ecc83

Sorry chaps do not agree.  And re 'standing voltages'? GOOD practice is to fit drain resistors.

Dave.

Chalky

When working on a handwired amp whats the rules and regs these days on fixed mains wiring vs IEC connector /kettle leads, and cloth covered wire vs modern plastic insulated wire?

martinw

ecc83 said:

Sorry chaps do not agree.  And re 'standing voltages'? GOOD practice is to fit drain resistors.

Dave.

It's ok to disagree.

As for GOOD practise, it's good practise to NEVER rely on a single safety feature, such as drain resistors.

You'd never assume the drain resistors hadn't failed, would you? You'd still check with a meter?

Well, I do anyway. In which case it's not as if drain resistors make everything ok, and my argument stands; it's all lethal, all the time, treat it as such. Sleeving only mains is pointless when you take that approach, which is the only truly safe way.

jpfamps

Chalky said:

When working on a handwired amp whats the rules and regs these days on fixed mains wiring vs IEC connector /kettle leads, and cloth covered wire vs modern plastic insulated wire?

Captive mains leads were OK under the old regs, however there are a new set of regs in the works and I've not actually looked at the relevant part of this yet, mainly because I've not needed to (reading the regs is quite tedious).

Re wire, all the wire in an amp should have passed the relevant approvals, and have the correct documentation. The regs cover insulation properties and flammability. The documentation for this will be usually available to download from the vendours website.

I've not tried to find any documentation for cloth covered wire as we don't use it.

BigMonka

rico said:

Someone asked me this the other day and I couldn’t really come up with the answer that didn’t sound like waffle. 

What would you say the main reason for an amp to be hand wired rather than pcb/machine made is?

Some might call it snobbery but I think there's something intrinsically nice about having something that's been hand-made by a small company. It may be an amp or even a piece of furniture, it's just a nice feeling to know that an artisan has put their personal experience, skill and care in to a product for me.

I'm sure there are probably companies that mass-produce hand-wired amps, but I personally don't really see the point in that as PCBs can be great if properly designed and made.

rico

BigMonka said:

rico said:

Someone asked me this the other day and I couldn’t really come up with the answer that didn’t sound like waffle. 

What would you say the main reason for an amp to be hand wired rather than pcb/machine made is?

Some might call it snobbery but I think there's something intrinsically nice about having something that's been hand-made by a small company. It may be an amp or even a piece of furniture, it's just a nice feeling to know that an artisan has put their personal experience, skill and care in to a product for me.

I'm sure there are probably companies that mass-produce hand-wired amps, but I personally don't really see the point in that as PCBs can be great if properly designed and made.

Absolutely! I am a huge fan of handwired stuff and have a few bits - I was just a bit stumped when the drummer asked me what the difference is and thought it would be a good topic for discussion.

What I don't get however is where there is a handwired and pcb version of the same product - Mad Professor pedals for example. 

ICBM

rico said:

What I don't get however is where there is a handwired and pcb version of the same product - Mad Professor pedals for example. 

Presumably the handwired version costs a lot more, for those buyers who want something more exclusive, and the PCB version is for those who just want the same functionality but cheaper.

ZVex does the same thing.

Kalimna

Would 'handwired' versions of 'pcb' effects suggest that a degree of component hand-selection is made? I am not suggesting it makes the pedals better, but might be one justification for the price increase?

Adam

ICBM

Kalimna said:

Would 'handwired' versions of 'pcb' effects suggest that a degree of component hand-selection is made?

Not necessarily.

Danny1969

I think basically if you work on any mains gear then you should be safe "yourself" to work on it .... internally there needs to be no attempt to keep anything safe .... as anyone who goes in there knows exactly what they are getting in to.
When I got into the repair game doing TV's we generally worked on them live as that was the only way you could measure anything ... often the actual chassis was at half mains, you soon learnt to keep one hand in your pocket. A lot of engineers used to take the earth off their soldering irons too 

ICBM

Danny1969 said:

I think basically if you work on any mains gear then you should be safe "yourself" to work on it .... internally there needs to be no attempt to keep anything safe .... as anyone who goes in there knows exactly what they are getting in to.
When I got into the repair game doing TV's we generally worked on them live as that was the only way you could measure anything ... often the actual chassis was at half mains, you soon learnt to keep one hand in your pocket. A lot of engineers used to take the earth off their soldering irons too 

I know I should have always done anyway and not doing was just laziness, but I've had to learn to unplug whatever I'm working on from the wall and not just turn off at the socket - the RCD in my new workshop is so sensitive it will often trip if I touch any part of the mains wiring, there's enough of a leak via the neutral. It was a pain in the bum the first few times when I forgot - the whole room is on a separate connection from the original house so when it trips everything goes off including the lights .

As I mentioned in the 'good advice' thread, the hand-in-the-back-pocket practice has probably saved my life at least once in the past though. When I was younger and a bit more casual about this sort of thing I had a couple of nasty belts which could easily have been fatal with the other hand holding the chassis.