NAD - Cornell Traveller 5

[Mitch Pearrow SJMP]

Congratulations on your new amp
Mr Grumpy :dood:

 

[Mr Grumpy]

So I was not happy with a few areas: 1) the attenuator; 2) the low input.

Inspired by TTRs experts, I decided to put on my technical hat! Firstly, I thought (wasn't easy, but I tried). &, I remembered that the box it came in was a disaster, battered and broken, and I also remembered that when I first opened the amp I was rather moronic taking all screws off and leaving the circuitry hanging... Thus, I thought that I'd get in there and make sure everything was located properly, especially the tubes, and that the 'circuitry box' was perfectly located, all screws tightened correctly, etc.

This took a new technique (for me) which included putting the amp on a solid surface to deal with the screws, making sure that I was working with the amp, not on soft surfaces at strange angles, just being a complete nonce (English term, it's ok...). This much improved the situation.



Preamp tube:




Everything seemed fine, but took care in relocating.

 

[steveb63]

That looks like it has good "bones", I'm sure, with some tone experimenting you'll find some tones in there.

I have a Marshall Origin, which has an attenuator of sorts. I've found that wide open my tone controls have to be set completely different than when it's on low power.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't find a good tone when it's wound up and just expect to lower the power, it will also need the tones reset.

I'm sure you already knew that, but in case some newb reads this....

Have fun chasing your sounds Mr. Grumpy.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Moving onto the power tube, again it seemed fine, but thought I'd take it out, some blowing around connections (?) then carefully relocating:






I'd also had some noise, hissing and crunching at times when switching between clean and mean, also when on the low input, so wanted to check the speaker connections and have a general look around in case something looked out of place...





Everything appeared fine.

 

[steveb63]

Maybe @Amp Mad Scientist will see this.

This is right in his wheelhouse, man can diagnose amps halfway around the World!

Seriously, I've seen him walk people through the gnarly stuff, this might be an easy find for a real tech, didn't mean to volunteer anyone, just know he's really good when it comes to amplifiers.

Congrats again, I'm sure you'll get it sorted out right and be getting greasy with your new Cornell.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

I took a few other pics while I was in there, as many of you seem to know loads about circuits and capacitors and things like that, alien things...







The first time I went in there, yesterday, I wasn't sure what screw did what and the internal layout of the amp, how everything went together. Now, I have a better understanding, so putting it all back together I took better care that everything was located well.

Switched her on, waited a few minutes for warmup and jobs a good 'un. It sounded much better, the attenuator and all the inputs/switches were perfected. There was now a much larger differences between the clean and mean inputs (before they sounded pretty similar) - I can only presume that something was unsettled in transit; maybe the power tube?

I got my db metre out, and when playing softly/mid strumming, the amp isn't that loud on the high input and clean setting; especially as there's plenty of grit in a nice girthy way that wasn't there yesterday. I was getting 80db or just over on the 5w (still not very loud, I reckon I could max it out at 90-95db; still not too loud for a 5w?), maybe 75-80w on the 1w and 1/4 watt settings, and 65 db (just above string noise volume) on the 1/8th watt setting - this was with the same amp settings of 80% volume and 60% gain. The settings had different colours, but all were nice sounding.

I'm much much happier with the amp now - not the amp's fault... It had a tough transportation and a heavy-handed fool who first opened it up yesterday; the amp did well to be this sturdy and deal with the abuse.

Another point, the way this amp is designed, that the designer has developed the clean setting with distinct characteristics to alter this specific speaker - it's pointless me swapping out the speaker. I will use the clean sound setting almost all the time (I expect), but there's plenty of grit on this setting.

Now to play for a couple of days and feed back some sound info.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Maybe @Amp Mad Scientist will see this.

This is right in his wheelhouse, man can diagnose amps halfway around the World!

Seriously, I've seen him walk people through the gnarly stuff, this might be an easy find for a real tech, didn't mean to volunteer anyone, just know he's really good when it comes to amplifiers.

Congrats again, I'm sure you'll get it sorted out right and be getting greasy with your new Cornell.

Thanks, Steve - everything's perfect now.My best guess was the power tube got a little bit unseated?

 

[steveb63]

Thanks, Steve - everything's perfect now.My best guess was the power tube got a little bit unseated?

Righton, you go on, have fun!

 

[Cadorman]

Could have just been a wire. Slightly moving them even a mm can make a huge difference.

Let us know what you think of it vs. the Marshall Origin you had. I had a 50 watt Origin head that went down the road. It just didn't hold up to my other Marshalls. 50w and 100w JCM900 mkiiis, TSL100 and now my 2203 clone.

 

[Mitch Pearrow SJMP]

Thanks, Steve - everything's perfect now.My best guess was the power tube got a little bit unseated?

Nice to see you got it sorted out , and learned a bit of patience is a major plus.
Thanks for sharing your new amp with us all.
Next up is a clip of it yea ?

 

[Mitch Pearrow SJMP]

Could have just been a wire. Slightly moving them even a mm can make a huge difference.

Let us know what you think of it vs. the Marshall Origin you had. I had a 50 watt Origin head that went down the road. It just didn't hold up to my other Marshalls. 50w and 100w JCM900 mkiiis, TSL100 and now my 2203 clone.

I didn’t know you had an Origin !!

 

[syscokid]

Another point, the way this amp is designed, that the designer has developed the clean setting with distinct characteristics to alter this specific speaker - it's pointless me swapping out the speaker...

I wouldn't buy too much into that thought. You and the developer might not be on the same page when it comes to the tones that you want to hear that make you go just "WOW"! But then again, what are your choices in the 8" speaker category?

 

[Mr Grumpy]

That fabric at the bottom may be to tuck the cord into once you coil it up.

Yeah, you're right, I suspect it all got tangled up in transit, but now it's fine/useful.

The stock speaker may take some time to break in.

I'm pretty shocked by the speaker on the 'clean' setting; sounds a lot better than the 10" speakers that came with the Marshall 5dsl (Celstion Ten 30) and Origin (just looked on the website, and I don't remember mine having a V-type??? Anyways, it had horrible highs that I needed to get rid of by putting in a greenback) at the volumes I'm playing at.

Have you tried the Laney cab with it yet?

Not seriously, I will today, tomorrow, weekend and report back.

the smaller amps driven record so well.

Yeah, that seems to have always been the case. But, whether or not they sound any better at bedroom/apartment volumes than say a Yamaha THR10 has always been an open question - my DSL and Origin did both sound better than the THR10, but at 80db+ which is a bit higher than I'd wanna play. If I can get good sounds at 65-75db then I'd be extremely happy (first indications are positive with this Cornell baby amp).

Very nice! Iove the tone in the clip eSGEe posted

I didn't like the fella doing the video, I thought he was busy touching himself when he should have been showing the amp and its features. I thought the amps clean channel would be more VOXy and the mean channel more Plexi, but I was completely wrong...

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't find a good tone when it's wound up and just expect to lower the power, it will also need the tones reset.

Yeah, it'll take time finding the different sounds, and you're right that the attenuator, volume and gain are very interactive, so there are a huge amount of sounds available here.

On the DSL and Origin, I found that changing to lower power settings just didn't sound as good, there was some colouring, but fundamentally the sound quality dropped inline with the power attenuator dropping. That's not the case with this Cornell amp - the sounds are different, but they're all pretty nice. &, I've not found any horrible glassy sounds or high pitched shreeking nastiness that the DSL had. Actually the SG and amp are pretty dark, so I have the guitar and amp tone settings up much higher than I've had on any other amp.

Next up is a clip of it yea ?

You'd start to dislike me a lot if I put you through that punishment. Having said that, I have been thinking about spending about $200 on a little Focuswrite recording kit.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

I wouldn't buy too much into that thought. You and the developer might not be on the same page when it comes to the tones that you want to hear that make you go just "WOW"! But then again, what are your choices in the 8" speaker category?

Yeah, that's true. &, the 10" greenback and 10" creamback both fit in here. The 10" goldback might be a problem due to the larger magnet - funnily enough, the goldback might be the perfect fit considering the darkness; no problems at all with bottom end or mids, but maybe a bit more up top would be nice. It's funny how the amps characteristics just dictate the speaker choice (which was why I held off buying the 10" creamback - I wanted to wait and see what characteristics this amp has, and it turned out to be completely different from what I expected.). I would not have considered getting a goldback for the DSL5 or Origin (not my sound; I'm not that fond of the V-type higher frequencies and slight lack of lower mids/bottom), but would probably sound great in this. The way the guy has tweaked the 8", it goes some way to sounding like a greenback, but a little darker with the SG - virtually makes me wanna buy a tele...

 

[Mr Grumpy]

Here's an example of another Cornell amp on an extra low wattage setting - I don't know what Cornell do with the attenuator, but it sounds much better than the Bugera T5 and the two Marshalls on the lower power settings.

Maybe I should have spent a bit more and bought one of these...

 

[jtcnj]

Thanks everyone for your kind words.




Hmmm. My brain hurts.

the big cans. Love me some big cans.....

 

[Sp8ctre]

Here is Mr. Cornell explaining his amps himself...this is the Romany, but you get the idea...

 

[syscokid]

Here's an example of another Cornell amp on an extra low wattage setting - I don't know what Cornell do with the attenuator, but it sounds much better than the Bugera T5 and the two Marshalls on the lower power settings.

Maybe I should have spent a bit more and bought one of these...

That amp, guitar, and player, all sound really good.

 

[eSGEe]

"looks like a LOT OF SOLDERING went on there-------"

NOT by me I can assure you!!!!! the amp WORKS!

 

[eSGEe]

wait -- you had to work on a new amp?