Tubes part 2: "life in a vacuum" or "Kirk throws a curve"

So it was time to talk amps. Fortunately, I've got more than one friend who likes to do that. My brother-in-law, Scott, and my long-time musical crony Bill Lewis were both more than happy to dish on their latest encounters of the amplified kind (since I had none of my own).

This was a good time, but unfortunately they were a little too full of information--I started out going from zero new-amp interest to the AC30, and by the time Scott & Bill finished, I was also hot to try out new gear from both Mesa/Boogie (the Lone Star Special) and Orange!

Then, just when I thought I was all ready for some test driving (Scott and I had even made a plan to go to C. V. Lloyd's over Christmas break), Kirk threw a curve.

With his "sweetness" post, Kirk re-awakened my awareness of the great mystical vacuum tube. The heart and soul of little egg-frying AC amps like my Delta. He also re-awakened my memories of seeing my amp referred to by internet forum-posting rockers as "the poor man's vox"--so I started digging again.

What if I could have the best of both worlds? The great AC30 sound plus $1500 smackers with which to play musical gear roulette? If I could modify the Delta to do what I thought the AC30 could do, then that would leave me with a lot of liquid capital! (Can anyone here say "Yamaha AES1500B?" Uh huh.)

Sure enough, I found a wealth of information on mod-ing a Delta 2x10" into Vox-y goodness. From the sounds of things, a new set of JJ tubes and a mismatched pair of Weber replacement speakers (silver and blue alnico) would set me back around $250 and leave me wallowing in lush, chimey, overdriven faux Vox vibe. For an extra kick, I could even build myself a small closed-back extension cab for the Peavey stock speakers in the Delta (Eminence, I believe), and give myself a little more low-end punch. Nothing like 30 watts AC coming through four 10" speakers, two open-back, two closed!

Just to test those waters, I sent an email shout-out to Bob at Eurotubes, to see what he had to say (if anything) about the kind of mods I wanted to make. Lo and behold, he actually responded to me! And was helpful! (Not to mention cheap. Which is pretty important to me, I'm sure most of you know.) Having had luck with Bob, I also emailed Ted Weber at Weber Speakers, Kokomo, IN. (that's right...)

Ted was a lii-ttle less helpful, getting the speaker wiring config for my amplifier wrong, but I'm going to cut him slack because A) he even bothered to email me back, which he certainly didn't have to, and B) he actually tried to look up the specs on my amp and then chose the correct ohmage and wattage, which shows more initiative than I could be bothered to take, myself, even though it's my amp.

A little research, a couple emails to some industry leaders, and a short conversation about ohmage with my bass-playing-demigod of a brother-in-law (Mike, Deb's brother--not be be confused with my knob-tweaking, lead-guitar-playing, Mesa-wielding brother-in-law, Scott, my sister's husband)... and I was pretty sure that not only did I have a good solid "sell the Pro, buy a Vox" angle to work from, but also a pretty good "forget the Vox, mod the delta, get groovy bonus gear" angle, as well!

But there was still the plan to visit C.V. Lloyd's with Scott, and it didn't seem prudent for me to launch off in some other direction without following that through. I needed to plug in and see what some of these amps could do. In person.

(Next time: "Scott & John go to town" or "You've got a little 'Boogie right there... No. More to the left. Where your face used to be."