DSL100HR Red Plating!

It's still kicking just fine with the original tubes for now. My replacement tube should arrive any day. Of course I'm not home anyway. I'm surprised how tough those 6CA7's are. Red plated the left pair hard twice and neither one of them popped. I had a reissue Mullard EL34 red plate and popped instantly when I was looking at it in another amp. They came from the same factory, so I'm guessing it's the difference in design.
 
It's still kicking just fine with the original tubes for now. My replacement tube should arrive any day. Of course I'm not home anyway. I'm surprised how tough those 6CA7's are. Red plated the left pair hard twice and neither one of them popped. I had a reissue Mullard EL34 red plate and popped instantly when I was looking at it in another amp. They came from the same factory, so I'm guessing it's the difference in design.
I just made my own stable bias mod board from scratch.
It was too much trouble, but I did it anyway just to do it.
 
20210716_112041.jpg
It's all fixed. Got my new tube yesterday and biased it all up. I got tired of messing with the switchable input jacks on the cabs as well. I rewired the cabs for normal 16 ohm (series/parallel) operation and hard wired straight to the 16 ohm mono jack. Looks stock, but only works this way and no more cutting out. I used to keep my interface on all the time to monitor the cabs to make sure both were operational. Sounds fantastic again!
 
20210716_112849.jpg
If you are doing your own work on a multi output tube amp this is great. For instance, the DSL100HR has two bias pots with each pair of voltages added together. With this I can check the bias on each tube in a pair and get a precise reading off the DMM at the test ports above the meters. It allows me to match up the pairs as closely as possible as well. Just because you bought a matched set doesn't mean the bias voltages are dead on.
 
I had a DSL40c that every time I played it one of our pets passed away the same day .......... I traded it off

Speaking of which anyone wanna buy a Marshall origin 20h ???????? No really -- like new w/ marshal pedal --- PM me
-- probably to costly to ship though-- buy a new one for about the same .........
View attachment 70474
Send it to me as a summer present, the queen and seagulls here would be pleased by your deeds. In return you will get short thanks from me, now, that's a killer deal.
 
I just made my own stable bias mod board from scratch.
It was too much trouble, but I did it anyway just to do it.
Nice dude!
You can start selling them for big bux or what?!

Did we ever learn if iss20 boards are also defective after time or if that's a bit of a fluke?

I'm interested: I'm not sure if I should keep or move my TSL. It's the one amp that I've had to put the most into. But it's also a beast.

I just want to play, not fix amps.
 
Nice dude!
You can start selling them for big bux or what?!

Did we ever learn if iss20 boards are also defective after time or if that's a bit of a fluke?

I'm interested: I'm not sure if I should keep or move my TSL. It's the one amp that I've had to put the most into. But it's also a beast.

I just want to play, not fix amps.

It makes more sense to just replace the issue 20 board with a new one.
If you repair an old issue 20, all the filter caps still need to be changed, making it less practical more time consuming.

Yes the issue 20 board develops bias drift. The circuit tracks are too close together.
The issue 20 also burns between pin 2 and pin 3 of the output tube socket.
(check for a black spot between the pins)
The burned part should be cut out of the fiberglass. I used a dremel tool.
The bias adjust pots should be replaced every 3-5 years.

One more thing we missed before:
The 16 ohm speaker jack might be toasted / may need to be replaced.
Look and see if the plating on the switch contacts is discolored and test the switch contacts with an ohm meter.
(you knew the speaker jack has 2 sets of switch contacts, right?)
These switch contacts die from heat and it screws up the speaker impedance....
Anyway, that's what I found. A toasted 16 ohm speaker jack. Replaced that puppy too.

But overall, fixing the old board takes too long and eats up a huge amount of effort.
 
Last edited:
Hi guys,
I just came across a dsl 100 with a serious red plating issue. When I checked the bias it had about 250v on v8. The bias was also positive on v9. It had also burned up a few resistors.
When I looked at the price for a new board I decided to change the amp to a 2 el34 cathode biased amp. For the price it’s a reasonable alternative.
 
Hi guys,
I just came across a dsl 100 with a serious red plating issue. When I checked the bias it had about 250v on v8. The bias was also positive on v9. It had also burned up a few resistors.
When I looked at the price for a new board I decided to change the amp to a 2 el34 cathode biased amp. For the price it’s a reasonable alternative.
There is one downside to this. You lose the ability for channel switching. The bias power has to be disconnected, which also powers the channel switching. I will look at this a little further.
 
Hi guys,
I just came across a dsl 100 with a serious red plating issue. When I checked the bias it had about 250v on v8. The bias was also positive on v9. It had also burned up a few resistors.
When I looked at the price for a new board I decided to change the amp to a 2 el34 cathode biased amp. For the price it’s a reasonable alternative.
JCM2k? If so, what year?
AFAIK, new boards aren't even available anymore, and also last I heard Dr Tube was MIA or something. Burned up resistors? Were they by chance R6 and/or R9?
 
Back
Top