... Going into a Celestion G12M 65 watt speaker, this thing is too loud with the volume at 1. Also, like most 5E3's, it starts grinding at @2 ...
What can I do to tame it a bit?
If you don't need "distortion" then look to your guitar's Volume control: seriously, just turn down the Volume at the guitar. Amp = Quieter.
If you need "
distortion, but less-loud" then you need to acknowledge some Physics-realities:
- "
Half as loud" requires a reduction to "
1/10th as much power" because hearing is logarithmic (changes are proportional to "Powers-of-10").
- Making a "12w 5E3 Deluxe" sound half-as-loud requires a reduction to
about 1 watt; swapping preamp tubes and similar mild-changes will be like "
no (meaningful) change."
- Speaker sensitivity matters
A LOT, and many Celestion speakers are among the most-sensitive out there (they deliver the most Loudness-in-the-Room for the applied-power). As Passaloutre says,
Celestion Peacekeeper was purpose-made for your situation if you like the Celestion voicing, as its 86dB SPL sensitivity compared to the
97dB SPL G12-65M Creamback will have the same loudness-reduction as:
86dB - 97dB = -11dB SPL ---> 10
(-11dB / 10) = 10
-1.1 = 0.079 ---> 12w x 0.079 = 0.95 watts ---> <1/10th Power
Translation: Peacekeeper receiving 12w is a little quieter than the Creamback receiving 1/10th as much power, so it will sound "
about half-as-loud."
If you need more loudness-reduction than the Peacekeeper affords, you will almost certainly need to tinker the amp-circuit heavily. I would personally lower the screen voltage
a lot by making the existing 4.7kΩ or 5kΩ dropping resistor in the power supply something much higher (and allowing the preamp voltage to fall also as a consequence of upping this resistor-value). A very-low screen voltage (150v? 200v?) will constrain plate current of the 6V6 and lower output power. However, idle plate current will also drop, and the cathode resistor biasing the 6V6s may need to be made smaller (because a small bias-voltage is sufficient to control the 6V6 with a small screen voltage).
- Reducing screen volts, having a resulting plate current reduction, using a smaller cathode bias resistor, and having a resulting small-cathode-voltage biasing the 6V6s also means the 6V6s
distort earlier, with a smaller drive-signal from the preamp. This is a good thing!
- Fender was trying to build amplifiers that mostly were getting used by stage-musicians, who needed to get louder & louder. Voltages went up, power output went up, loudness went up.
- We are mostly home-hobbyists who are probably content with less-loud. We can shoot for lower-voltages, lower-power, less-volume.
- There are generally multiple avenues to attack "less-power, less-loudness" and they are almost all worth using.
- If available low-sensitivity speakers have the voicing you like, that is absolutely the first place you should look for loudness-reduction because they generally deliver orders-of-magnitude more impact than oft-suggested circuit-tweaks.
Topic: Any tips for taming a wild 5E3? (Read 3583 times)