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 ........
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 ........
