- No fuses anywhere to be seen.
Voltages all within acceptable range.
The 8" Philips ADZ3800M speaker is underwhelming.
Amp is remarkable quiet for such a 'loose' grounding scheme.
R3 has a significant impact on the amp's volume and feedback
Then put the preamp and EL84 back in. Pots noisy as hell but some contact spray fixed most of that.
Playing on the 8" speaker with a hollow body guitar with R3 in the circuit: okay crunchy sounds but even on full volume the amp is quiet. No really much cleans.
Then to the Celestion 12" with hollow body guitar and R3 in circuit: Nice crunchy sounds with a reasonable volume but nothing even on full can't get the amp to howl. Cleans are there but only at low volume.
Then remove R3, everything else the same....
The amp turns into an untamed beast! Can't set the vol pot full open as it howls like a wolfpack or two... Amp becomes very loud but the volume pot is useful now. (To be fair, I stood very close to the speaker due to the space limitations in my workshop).
Need to try it with a solid body tomorrow but my take from this little test run today is that the amp needs a 12 incher.
I can see why R3 was put into the circuit many years ago- it allows for 'bedroom' playing. The question for the owner is - what is your taste these days?
For the amp gurus:
Suppose could put a 1MOhm resistor in series with R3 but then there would be DC on the pot... Or perhaps switch R3 in and out...