If you own an Epiphone Valve Jnr. and would like to add tone control this could be what you are looking for.
I have just fitted the Alnicomagnet "Brownface" tone mod kit to my Harley Benton GA5 (the workings of which are the same as the Epi Jr.) The cost of the kit was £11.99 plus £2.00 p&p and the fitting time was about 90 minutes.
I had help from a friend who had just carried out the full Alnicomagnet conversion to a Harley Benton GA15 (this was to enhance the amp for use with a guitar, not harp) but it meant that he knew his way round the interior of an amp. If you, like me, are not very knowledgeable about things electric it a good idea to have someone with you who knows how to check that the filter caps are discharged before you start work on the internals. If you do not know anyone who can check this you can contact Nigel Briggs at alnicomagnet@hotmail.co.uk for guidance.
Does the mod work? Oh yes! The HB already has a form of tone control but it "colours" the tone rather than giving you a pot with bass one way and treble when turned the other way. With the mod fitted to the left is bass, turn to the right and up comes the treble. With this mod I get a much "fatter" sound than before. At a jam even guitarists commented on how good the tone was from a tiny amp. When using the modified amp, if you add treble you can induce feedback more readily than before but this is rectified by reducing the volume a little. I do not find this a problem as I want a more bassy sound and don't tend to go for adding much treble, however I might try a 12AT7 tube in the preamp instead of the 12AX7.
I am very pleased with the results of this modification and impressed with the support from Nigel at Alnicomagnet. He's not going to be able to retire selling kits at this price but he resopnded to every query very promptly and the advice was all sound. I gotta say he's a good guy to deal with. I did ask him if he had considered offering a complete package to enhance these amps for harp but he said he could not play harp and did not know what our requirements would be.
I have put a video of the modded amp on my Youtube channel (N62KNM) and I will try to get it over to the forum but I ain't very good at that type of thing. If it's not here by the end of the day perhaps someone would be kind enough to link it over for me.
Only too happy to oblige Wheezer. I'm impressed with the sound quality on your videos. How is your computer/mic set-up configured to get such good quality when you are set back from the computer mic? I need to be so close to my mic for it to pick up any noise.
Apologies Tookatooka, I didn't read the last bit of your post, I was rushing to get out. The camera is built into the laptop (an Acer). The sound is pretty clear but when I play back after making an amp video it doesn't seem to capture the bass tones very well. Thanks again for your help posting the video.
No Problem Wheezer. So the mic and camera are both built into the Acer. Well, I can tell you the sound quality and the picture quality are good. There's no lag in the sound and it synchronises quite well with the video. Hmmm! Gonna have to work on mine a bit. Thanks. ----------
