2018 Carr Telstar

A boutique high end company - Carr makes some very interesting and well made modern hand-wired amps in the vein of Dr. Z but with a unique sound. This guy is certainly not a copy or clone of anything. The amp came in with the L-Pad attenuator not functioning correctly and it also had some problems with microphonics.

The fix was relatively simple - I took out the L-Pad, disassembled it, and sprayed/cleaned the entire thing out until it was making good contact again along the full range of travel. The L-Pad is the massive pot-like thing next to the power switch. The tube causing the microphonics was an EHX 12AT7. I replaced it with a more stable (at least for combo amps anyway) JJ 12AT7 and that solved the problem. Anytime there is a 12AT7 type tube in a guitar amp design they are usually under a lot of stress in the circuit - high voltage and high current often way above the max ratings of the tube. They go bad much more quickly than tubes in safer positions in the circuit - especially Fender style reverb driver circuits.

The tube lineup here is very unique - V1: 12AX7, V2:12AT7, V3: EL84, V4: 6SL7, V5: 6L6GC. The EL84 and 6L6GC are mixed together in true Class A with individual Cathode Bias for each. The 6L6GC can be replaced with almost any other octal power tube. Pretty cool. The only thing that is odd about this amp is the amount of RTV Silicone that they put over everything to stabilize parts - I think they could have done with %10 of what they put down. But hey, the amp sounds great so… to each their own.