my vintage Elk ES30 is getting an interesting mod........

Keira-WitherKay

hi ya ... a few weeks back i bought a pretty mint Elk ES30 (from late 60's -early70's) amp which is basically a fender copy made in japan ......

so i hauled it off to JP to get a cap job and new valves ........ which he did and then when tested the amp still had some distortion that should not be there .......

and obviously we were on the point of sourcing the prob and fixing it .

when in conversation JP knew i liked the princeton amps..... and said an easy mod and at minimal expense we could remove the elk circuit (which is very confusing and apparantly very inefficient ) ..maintain the valves and transformers ect ect and just rebuild the circuit to be the same as a princeton ...cos the elk ES30 is basically setup control wise exactly just like a princeton ......... with reverb/speed and intensity (for trem)/bass /treble/volume and he say's /claims that a new circuit will be more effecient , still be point to point obviously and also eliminate any issues from the old elk circuit which is now 40 - 50 yrs old ..........

and i went......."can you do that" and that cheap ..and he said "yep" ....... so i said "cool"

so my amp has gone from original vintage...to a modded job in one leap....... and JP seems to believe this mod which will obviously be adapted slightly to suit the valves ( he says he needs only replace one valve with one of a different value ...but the tech stuff i leave up to his judgement) and in return it will give me a more effecient/more reliable and more gutsy tone full amp......as the elk tone can be very bright i was using treble on 2 or it was ice pick ....... and not that loud for a 15W

so yes i eagerly await friday to get it back short of a complication and hear if the mod does it's 'thing" ..... and even if it is very similar to tone before i would be happy cos it was very fenderish to start with ........ but if this makes it even more fenderish ...i'll be rejoicing ..... and also now i will know that for a few K i managed to buy a point to point 15 - 18W with 12 inch speaker (which is a apparantly an old fender 12 inch "oxford" speaker ...the previous owner swopped it out which jp said was a good thing cos the original elk speakers were a weak point ) so pretty close (if not exactly) covering all my needs .which is a small /light weight /1x12/with 15-18W and a fenderish tone with reverb and trem built in

so talk about having blind faith in an amp tech ....... but i took the leap and lets see what comes back ........

Garren

I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes ?

Ahh if only we could have heard a before and after clip type thing :'(
I'm a sucker for amps so this is fairly exciting. ?

Good luck, I hope you get the tone you want! ?

singemonkey

Exciting. But I remain un-moved without pictures. ?

kapepper

thas good stuff, keira!!

If i hadnt my deluxe reverb I would jump on an ELK amplifier

I even think I have to service my deluxe reverb, since this has been ages (i cant even remember having it ever serviced) and lately there comes like a slightly distortion sound out of it, which I actually like ? ... but probably better if I bring it with Andie's

Reinhard

Kapepper, how old is your DR? SF/BF?

makepeace

awesome! these old Elks seem like excellent platforms for re-builds/mods! Congrats

kapepper

Reinhard wrote: Kapepper, how old is your DR? SF/BF?

I bought it second hand three years ago, and I guess it was bought new in, close to 2000-2001....
time for a service you think?

Andy Macgibbon also advised me on doing a "vintage" treatment on the deluxe reverb which would improve tone, should ask him more on this

Reinhard

I traded a 69 DR off a guy. Recapped and sounding great. Should be fine for the next 40 years. Great amps.

Keira-WitherKay

Got the amp back from JP le roux a day earlier than expected....... JP himself was stoked at the result .... and WOW this boy knows his stuff....cos i had the elk long enough to hear the tone well enough and yes i liked and found the sound i could use......BUT when JP said i can make this sound even better ...... i kinda blew it off a bit thinking the change would be minimal......... OMG you must hear this amp........ about twice as loud i get the same volume now at 4 -5 that i was getting on 8 before...... and a far fatter tone......... so hats off to JP le Roux for his foresight .... and affordable too

well this amp is NO longer an elk .... it has a fender speaker , and a princeton circuit , the only difference between the princeton and my "Princetone" note the added 'e" we found it quite funny to call it a "princetone" is that instead of 2x 6V6's or 6L6's i always get confused bu the output valve with the 6's in the name .this modd'ed amp has 2x EL84's instead ...and of course a 12 inch speaker instead of the princeton's 10" but wow i'm impressed........

as for future mods JP rekcons the old vintage fender "oxford" speaker in it is the next to go in favour for a more effecient emminance or similar fender tone speaker ....we did plug in a celestion to the modded amp and that was too much like a ac30 tone very fat sound but bassy and dark ....... compared to the bright more middy fender speaker it has in ....... so defintely going for a fender type speaker

yeah so +1 to JP Le roux as an amp tech ...... and he did the job in less time than he anticipated which scored points for me......and as i mentioned was really affordable.......

i have a gig on sunday and will put it thru it's paces at a live gig ,,, and let you know how it goes ........

singemonkey

Very kif. Hope you'll post a vid soon - also with that schmancy Telecaster of yours. ?