Super Champ X2 Upgrade Advice

[purpletele]

A colleague had asked me to help him upgrade his Super Champ X2.

I was thinking, why? He is an excellent guitarist, his gig rig consist of 3 Champ amps, one BF Vibro Champ and two newer X2's

He runs a line out of a slave amp into his board and then into two Champs.

I am not sold on the rig, but I agreed to help.

The amp played very nice as a stock amp.  Dave installed a new speaker which is ok.

My colleague Dave asked me to install a new OT in an effort to get the amp to be more responsive and be less farty.

Here is what I did:

1. I spoke with David Allen and he recommended the TO20 as an upgrade.

    a.  I installed the TO20 which was a dream, the holes matched and the chassis is threaded!. 

    b.  I fired up the amp and it sounded distorted, but it felt more responsive.

    c.  I checked the bias expecting it to be low.  It was set at 26 mV.

    d.  I adjusted the bias to 40 mV and it sounded much better, but not great.

    e.  I removed the GT 6 v 6 C  and replaced them with JJ 6 v 6 S.  Huge improvement

    f.   The amp still feels like it has an arrestor on it, very similar to the way the old Blues Juniors would be even after you install a new OT.

    g.  If I recall the sequence on the Blues Juniors, it was the Filter Cap Upgrade that made a huge difference as well as one of the tone caps.


2. The amp has a slight ghosting note on the lower scale when playing in the 2nd channel or FX channel.  If I hit a clean B at the nut then it buzzes quite noticeably.

    a. The amp is in a cradle and I am using a stand alone speaker, so I am not confusing that ghosting note with a new buzzing when the amp is in its case.

    Question:

1. Any advice on the ghosting notes?

    a.  I have new tubes installed and they are biased correctly.  The Preamp tubes was changed for testing and then reinstalled.

2. Does anyone know of any MOD formula that I should try, such as replace the filter caps and upgrade their values, etc.. 

3. I know Ben Fargen has a Hot Mod Blueprint for this amp but I don't know what he does to it.

4. I would much rather be working on the drawings for my own nice amps, but i'm into now and the Ghosting note is of concern.

5.  https://reverb.com/item/87887-fender-fargen-hot-mods-superchamp-x2-2013

Existing Filter Cap Values

C38 = 22 uF      450V
C40 = 22 uF      450V
C41 = 22 uF      450V
C53 = 4700 uF   16 V
C57 = 1000 uF   35 V
C60 = 1000 uF   35 V



Any advice would be very much appreciated. 


BV