Pignose

Which Pignose? Are you talking about the classic little Pignose mini-amp? Gotta love those things. If you're talking about the tube amps, I'll expound a bit more. They're great bargains, if you're prepared to tinker with them. But they need to be tinkered with a bit. (Unless they've significantly changed since I got my G40V in 2001.)

About the G40 tube amp, I don't know if they have changed them recently, but they sure did raise the price on them recently. They were running $240 US and now go for like $320. If they did not change anything, then inflation and gas prices should not account for that kind of increase.

I paid $198 for mine, with free shipping, in 2001.

I was talking bout the classic. It cost about 80.00

Those are cool little amps.

Hmmm ... disappearing posts again.

The original Pignose has its own cool, but is a bit of a Johnny One-Note. Its tone and tendency to overdrive easily make it great bluesy little amp. But for more flexibility -- clean to dirty -- I'd go with the Roland Micro Cube (about $115). FWIF, I have both.

the cubes are surprisingly very nice, the effects are nice to.

Yeah, I think i've decided to go with either a peavy or 15 watt fender

Which Pignose? Are you talking about the classic little Pignose mini-amp? Gotta love those things. If you're talking about the tube amps, I'll expound a bit more. They're great bargains, if you're prepared to tinker with them. But they need to be tinkered with a bit. (Unless they've significantly changed since I got my G40V in 2001.)

Hey, i've got a G40V, and i'd love to know about the tinkering you're talking about. The only "modication" i've made is an external cab(1965 gibson 4x10 with utah speakers)

I eneded up with a Ibanez 15watt with reverb,but i might tryfor the pignose original soon.

I eneded up with a Ibanez 15watt with reverb,but i might tryfor the pignose original soon. I'll say it again -- the original Pignose looks cool and is simple to use, but is also very limited tonally. Get a Roland Micro Cube instead. It's a far better and more useful amp.

I'd second the Roland as well. Flexible and good quality.

Hey, i've got a G40V, and i'd love to know about the tinkering you're talking about. The only "modication" i've made is an external cab(1965 gibson 4x10 with utah speakers)Check the voltage on the heater circuit. You'll have to take the chassis out of the cabinet to do that and test from the bottom, unless you have some of the adapters that plug into the tube sockets and the tubes plug into them, with access points around the outside for voltage testing. On mine, it was 7.5V with the tubes plugged in and operating. That's WAY too high. The tubes are designed to operate on 6.3V. A little bit low is fine and will prolong tube life, but any too high is too much, and running 6L6s above 7.0V risks causing thermal runaway by making the control grids emit electrons. That'll burn up your tubes and may burn up the amp. The fix is to cut the wires from the power transformer to the heaters and insert a 1.8 ohm wirewound 5W power resistor in each leg of the heater circuit. That drops the voltage to 6.0V from 7.5V. If you want to go for the nominal 6.3V value, I think that takes 1.6 ohm resistors. Don't try to put all the resistance in one side of the circuit. It unbalances the heater voltage with reference to ground and will make the amp hum a lot worse.

This is a relatively high gain amp, and it hums rather badly. Much of that hum comes from the heater wires under the chassis being separated. Replacing them with twisted pair wiring will help a lot. Some people have installed DC heater power conversions on these amps, which really helps with hum, as does biasing the whole heater circuit about +40V relative to ground, which can be accomplished in several ways. Some folks have reported modifying the grounding of the input jack to cut the hum.

The stock speaker is rather fragile. I've heard from folks who blew the speaker the first time they played it turned all the way up. Mine just got a permanent scratchy sound the first time I dimed it. I put in a Jensen MOD 10" 70W speaker, which handles the power fine, and I like the way it sounds. It's also a bit louder; the MOD speaker's more efficient.

(They call this a "conservatively rated 40W" amp, but it's actually about a 60W amp. Its schematic is very similar to that of the Marshall 2204 "Super Lead 50.")

If you haven't worked on a tube amp before, I suggest going to http://geofex.com/gtramps.htm and reading the safety precautions in the "Tube Amp FAQ" page.

:D

Hmmm, I may have to try this. AS far as it being very similar to a Marshall, when hoooked up to a substantial cab, people always tell me how much it sounds like a marshall. It's awesome, too, since it was so cheap.