G&L ASAT III

June 28, 2012

Les’ Sustain for Days

Guitar Bridge, G&L ASAT III, Guitar, Les Paul, Sustain, Vox 12

A couple months ago, I had an unexpected revelation. An eye-opening, earth-shaking, revolutionary enlightenment. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating and obsessing, but it was an honest-to-goodness WTF!

I was at a local music shop (ok, I admit it was Best Buy), and out of curiosity, I picked up an absurdly expensive Gibson Les Paul Traditional from the wall-o-guitars, plugged it into a Vox Night Train, and gave it a spin. I’ve never really given the Les Paul guitars much attention. Despite their iconic status and near ubiquity, I’ve always thought the Les Paul was just too heavy to consider. But… More

May 5, 2011

What’s In The Cabinet?

VOX AC15 AC15, G&L ASAT III, Video, Vox 48

What’s in an amp cabinet? As it turns out, quite a lot. In this video I do an experiment with the same two AC15 amps as in my last video– the AC15C1 Custom, and the AC15HW1 hand-wired.

Both amps use the same Celestion Greenback G12M speaker, and these two here have each been played about the same amount, so they should be “broken in” evenly. More

March 22, 2011

Vox AC15 Comparison

VOX AC15 AC15, G&L ASAT III, Video, Vox 215

In this video, I review and compare these two excellent VOX AC15 amps, the AC15C1 Custom, and the AC15HW1 hand-wired.These amps are similar in many respects:

same Celestion Greenback G12M speaker
same preamp and power amp tube complement (3 12AX7’s and 2 EL84’s)
same two channels: Normal and Top Boost.
same tone cut and interactive EQ controls
same weight – 48 pounds. Handwired is larger but birch plywood is lighter than MDF
same AC15 legacy and tradition

September 29, 2009

What the Bleedin’ Treble!

Guitar Treble Bleed Electronics, Epiphone Riviera P93, G&L ASAT III, Video 142

In part one of this, video I explain what treble bleed is, and how to evaluate and select the right cap. I demonstrate my G&L ASAT III which has a treble bleed cap on the master volume, and I compare that with my Epiphone Riviera P93 which has no treble bleed caps (yet).

The caps I tried are (as shown left to right): Silver Mica 100pf, 390pf and 1000pf, a tiny 1000pf ceramic cap, and Sprague Orange Drop (polypropylene) 1000pf, 3300pf, and 6800pf.

The tolerances on the caps are a bit all over the place. I measured the 1000pf caps on my DMM and all were closer to 1250. The 100pf silver mica was over 250! This is assuming I can trust my Mastech DMM.