I know it's old news and has been talked to death, but, I picked up a VHT 6, and had the ebay alnicomagnet harp mod installed. Wow, what a great rig, at an awesome price. After changing the preamp tube out with several different tubes, 5751, 12AT, 12AU, 12AX 12AY, the 5751 seems a good choice. Went thru numerous mics, including the unisphere 585 all added unique differences to the sound. I'm truly amazed at the volume without feedback this little amp delivers. What Tone, this rig is sweet. Now for some speaker experimentation. Does anyone know if Mission Amps started selling mods for this amp?
Mission Amps did not sell mods for the amp; they got too busy with their own line of harp amps.
The speaker I strongly recommend for the VHT Special 6 Combo is the Eminence Lil' Buddy. It is the biggest improvement you can make with this amp; even more so than the circuit mods and tube swaps. It makes the amp warmer, louder, and punchier.
And I agree with you that the 5751 is the best-sounding preamp tube for that amp.
Rick, First off, thanks for the reply. I highly value your opinion, and already have the Lil'Buddy and will install it soon. Thanks for your research and time involved on this project. Your input was why I purchased this amp in the first place, Nick Clark's video helped too. Just awesome.
I haven't done any circuit mods on mine yet... however I did change out my tubes. I'm using the 5751 also with great results. I changed out my speaker to a tone tubby. I'll second Rick's recommendation about the speaker. ---------- Cole Stevens www.colestevens.net
Yes, it will mount on the same existing holes. You will need to remove the back panel and chassis, of course.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by edge. The speaker will give the amp more punch and color, but it will be a bit less bright than the stock speaker.
The Lil Buddy has a sensitivity of 99.1 db at 1 watt/1 meter. That is loud for a 10-inch speaker. My understanding is the stock speaker is 95db. That is a difference you can hear. The speaker certainly sounds more present.
With the mods and tube that you have it should sound pretty much like this: Keep in mind that Nic gets incredibly nice tone from his cheek blocking technique, but this a good demonstration of the amp's potential with these mods and the Lil Buddy speaker.
This video is from a harp seminar Nic and I were both attending at Ronnie Shellist's house in Denver. I no longer have the amp; I donated it to a charity auction.
I highly recommend the Jensen Jet Tornado speaker. I have not tried tone tubby and can not compare them, but the Tornado is the best speaker for a SE amp i ever heard. Deep bass and clear smooth high end. Very effective and loud.
Well I have taken the plunge and ordered the Lil Buddy, I will report back!
On a seperate note, the uncoolist thing about the VHT is the VHT logo on the front... Is that ugly or what! I took mine off to discover that it is a solid aluminium plate, these seems a bit over engineered to me.. Then I began to wonder if it was something to do with shielding, what do you think?
Last Edited by on Oct 22, 2012 11:45 AM
I'm not trying to hijack your thread Bluzharper and I have a dead horse question as well. I've been using a 5751 in my epi valve jr. stack, just picked up a version 3 combo and thought that I would put a 5751 in it also. It obviously comes with an Eminence speaker. Would you change it or put in an Alnico mod? Thanks
I will chime in on this since I too have a VHT and swapped the stock speaker for the Lil' Buddy and the 12AX7 stock tube with a 5751. No other mods were done other than the tube and speaker swap. Thanks to Rick for the recommendations.
The sound is sweeter than the stock, a little louder, a little rounder and less bright. It is a decent harp amp. Better I think than a lot of amps that I tested at guitar center recently, including, the fender princeton reverb and blues junior (one caveat, I only spent less than a minute adjusting knobs to find the right sound and was using a cheap harp mic from guitar center). My only criticism regarding the VHT with the above 2 mods( from a harp point of view) is that the amp does not have that slight warm distortion around the notes that is very desireable ( the zoo has this). Also, it does not have that slight bite and bark that is also desireable.
I was hoping that Mission would sell a mod kit for the circuit but as mentioned above he busy with his new line. I would still be intereseted, however, in purchasing such a kit if it were available.
My clone fender champ with some circuit mods, 12AY7 and a weber speaker sounds as good if not slightly better than the VHT as it has more pronounced distortion and more bite.
I think all of this, however, is a matter of preferance. It would be nice to have an amp that can dial both of these types of sound in.
I also had the chance on that visit To Guitar Center to play a Vega Amp (1956) with the 5E3 circuit. I can tell you that the Vega amp sounded awesome. Great thick tone, distortion, bite. I should have purchased it right on the spot but decided to think about it. Well it's gone now.
Although I could not do a detailed and thorough side by side comparisons of the amps mentioned above, I came to the conclsuion (Vega amp excepted) the VHT definitely is more harp friendly and even right out of the box. The speaker and tube swap made the amp slightly better.
Last Edited by on Oct 23, 2012 12:50 PM
The Lil' Buddy speakers take some breaking in. Just play it hard for a few weeks and it will start to break up a little more. I don't like a whole lot of cone breakup, but these speaker do have a nice bit of rip to them. I really like the two I have in my Bassman, one of which was mounted in my VHT amp for several months.
As for mods for the VHT, Mike Fugazzi (HarpNinja on this forum) has a website with a good reference for this, and Jim Rossen (a regular contributor to Harp-L) also has this stuff posted online. The mods are pretty simple, really.
And, Blueswannabe -- I think one of the virtues of the modded VHT Special 6 amp is that it is NOT as ratty as a Champ or K-zoo. It is definitely warmer with a more musical tone, just as you see in the video with Nic Clark. It is more of an early Princeton tone.
i'm not much of a gear tinkerer, but after reading many threads like this one i bought a lil' buddy and installed it in my vht. holy smokes! what a difference.
thanks to rick and others for this suggestion. i'm loving this amp.
Somewhere in one of the speaker threads someone suggested the Weber Signature Series. I'd like to thank them. At about $50, it fit well into my R&D budget and it sounds real good.
