Bugera V55 Head....Improvements Please

[TerryD]

Everybody raves about these!  I don't know, maybe I don't like it because it's not a Fender? It's very thin and brittle on the treble side.  I love clean.  It's clean.  I'm not looking for more distortion, just more something.  It's got digital reverb.  Could that be the problem.  Should I just disconnect that? Is it safe just to cut it off? Could that send and return just go to a reverb tank?

 What else could I do?  Different speakers?  Close the cab?

Here's what I've done:

FREDS in place of the IN4007,
RCA tubes in place of Bugera, rebias.
Open backed cabinet w old P12N & C12N

Maybe I'm screwing up because I'm combining new with old.

[VMS]

Is this your amp?

http://bmamps.com/Schematics/Bugera/V55-Schematic.pdf

Do you want to mod the clean channel or the dirty channel?

[TerryD]

That's it.  I'll call it "her" after it gives me some respect.  Both channels would be good, but I never saw an overdrive channel or anything done to an overdrive channel that was worth a darn.

Thanks,
Terry

[VMS]

Well if IT was my amp I would probably remove the C54 1nF capacitor and maybe the C56 100p "bright cap"


..and that C32 100p cap after the master seems weird but someone else should comment on that.

[TerryD]

Could I just disengage the presence control pot from it's present presence function and then use that same pot for a cut control that I would rig up? 

What would I need to do to disengage the presence control pot from it's present function?

Let me reveal my ignorance.  Could I disengage the digital reverb and slap a spring tank into the same send and return r64 and r52?

[Sowndman]

I have the same amp only the combo version.

There are some mods out there for the v22 that address a lot of the issues of the distortion channel. I will post a link below.

I have heard it is based on a peavey classic 30. I don't know for sure.

The clean channel uses two standard stages of gain. The drive channel inserts two tube stage in between the clean one to produce the dirty. This is cause me problems in achieving what I want.

From the tastes of my guitar friends, it has too much clean and farty distortion. The amp doesn't have a clean then breakup like a marshall.

Here is a link to what someone did to a v22 to address the distortion channel.

CAUTION ! THE V22 schematic component locations number are different !

http://distorqueaudio.com/hardware/mods/bugera-v22.html

If your really into tinkering, the tube layout and drive channel scheme are similar to a fender hot rod deluxe

I change the caps in the power section right before the 6L6's with .1 uf 600 volt

I a currently trying to convert mine into a marshall jtm 45 clone, but it is proving to be a headache.


You could try bypassing all the stuff between the input and the tube and try just a 68k resistor and a 1 meg resostor to ground.

Rewiring the last tube stage before the tone stack to cathode follower improves the tone stack but changes the drive channel. I changed all the plate load resistors to 100 k.