Ceriatone Forum

I think this would be a great project

i think a lower powered 6V6 hiwatt would be great

what i would like to really see is a channel switching hiwatt, i love the cleans and the OD but you cant use an A/B box due to the huge volume jump there would need to be another master volume to control OD

I thought the point of a Hiwatt was huge amounts of clean headroom?

Lots of clean headroom is one of the points of Hiwatt sound, not the only one.
What about that amazing Pete Townsend clear overdrive and SHRANNNG!!??
Lot of great overdriven sounds came from Hiwatts historically and cannot be duplicated well by other amps: Martin Barre with Tull...The Stones...Tommy Bolin, Rush, Joe Walsh, Fripp, even Jimmy Page.
These classic and distinctive tones can't really be done well with a Marshall, Vox, or Fender, and it is hard to get into the crunchy part of Hiwatts without scortched-earth volumes.

I personally would buy a HeyWhat that could get into those dirty regions without sacrificing the classic clean or triggering a visit from Homeland Security.
Maybe several.

my 80's Hiwatt has tons of clean headroom but if you turn the preamp gain up it screams, JCM800 gain territory. It's only a 50 watt and this thing is LOUD!

I think Nik needs to make a "Lucky 7" type amp. About 7 watts with a large amount of clean headroom available but with alot of gain available too

It would be amazing to have both ranges footswitchable AND simultaneously available in reasonable SPL country. That would make a great gigging amp.

Fact is...that even at most club gigs, hell even arena stages...stage volumes are way down from where they were even 10 years ago. Mostly a good thing (and why Pete Townsend can play onstage anymore)
Funnily enough....the only times I get to really turn the wick up thesedays is in the studio.
Backwards land, man.

Because the Hiwatt OD sound requires both preamp and power tubes working.  Adding a Master Volume to turn down will lose all the power tube crunch and just give you buzzy, saturate preamp OD. 

Master Volume amps are designed around their preamp tone, vintage-style non-MV amps are all based around the sound of being cranked, which is power tube overdrive.  You'll need either an attenuator or voltage regulation to drop that volume.

General rule of thumb, you half the voltage for the dirty amp.  If you have a 100-watt clean amp, you want to pair it with a 50-watt dirty amp if running a clean/dirty setup with balanced output.  That's why amps like the Carr and Toneking turn off two power tubes in OD mode. 

I'd say attenuator. Followed by less and/or lighter speakers that would be ridden hard even with the decreased output of the attenuator.

Im goin to have to disagree with you man. yes part of the sound comes from the power tubes being overdriven but my Hiwatt doesnt sound thin or buzzy with the preamp gain all the way up and the master at tolerable levels

Yes, I'm thinking of rewiring a bit inside my HeyWhat, so that the Master only works on the "Bright" channel. Since I use the other one for clean sounds, its "Master" volume could be at maximum all the time. The downside is that the noise from the "Normal" channel would be there no matter how low I turn the input volume. Also, It is necessary to mess with the circuit topology to do this.

- Torquil

Actually, on the Hiwatt circuit I have in my HeyWhat, I think it is possible to include separate master volumes without influencing the tone coming from the preamp much. That way you have more possibilities with the amp. The difference would be that when an original Hiwatt circuit is cranked, the two channels are combined just before an overdriven preamp tube. If I mod mine, the two signals would be combined before the next preamp triode, which is after the tone stack, and the signal is therefore a bit weaker there. Also, that tube is differently configured. So there could be some noticeable difference. I would like to try it some time.

I assumed many Master volume amps are designed around both preamp and poweramp distortion/tone, not just preamp. Also, I would expect that many non master volume amps were not designed to distort at all, since there are many electrified musical genres where distortion is not considered to be good.

I expect a fantastic tone from my HeyWhat, completely independent of what the original Hiwatt tone is. Actually, I got this model because it is a fantastic bass amp at the same time (with some small mods).

Attenuator is a good idea. That way you can also have output transformer distortion. I think the tone of preamp distortion can vary a lot, depending on how much careful though has gone into the design. If you don't design for a great preamp distortion tone, it will not be there in the amp.

Good point about the wattages. I have a couple of smaller guitar amps which fit your scheme. I can use my HeyWhat 103 with two power tubes pulled for clean (or no tubes pulled), together with my Mesa Express 5:25 for dirty. It is about half the wattage. Or my 10-20W (dep. on which tube I use in it) DIY AX84 SEL amp for dirty. And the top of the cake (as we say in Norway): I can have all four tubes in the HeyWhat, and use it as a bass amp!

Someone ordered an 18W hiwatt yesterday.

It's possible to do.

He requested it in the original type chassis.

If we do it, I'd make it smaller perhaps.

Check out the OL as well.

It's pretty much OL + Lead, with the controllable extra gain stage (pot).

The bridged input is there as well.

Thing is, when the OD pot set low, you get classic hiwatt tones.

So it's kinda cool to also have ability to distort it.

However, hiwatts - it's all abt the volume! :)

Thanks!

Nik