Wiring In PRS Amp Lines

In my experience, the color of the board clearly identified the amp type...brown (CAD) or blue (higher production). The Tuxedo amps are obvious. I've had one of those punched turret boards (they come to PRS prepunched) in my hand and there were no traces (note the lack of the extra 'r' ;)) on it, anywhere. No question: the turret boards take more labor to assemble. And the reasoning behind the hybrid board (keeps backside jumpers from falling out during repair) makes sense. But there's a slight assembly difference between the product lines.

A board that is wave or UV soldered doesn't automatically discount being hand-wired. Thru-hole pick-n-place machines aren't commonplace anymore and are expensive to maintain. So unless they're using a contract assembler (I believe they did for the SE amp line) they can claim hand wiring across the board. But I believe all of their amps, made in Maryland, are hand soldered.

If I wanted Randall Smith (or Mike B) to make me a Mark V, personally, on a turret board, it would cost many, many thousands of $$, and probably never happen. But I can go to PRS, with a custom design or request, and get Doug and/or Jeff to make a magical amp for a practical price...all on an old school turret board. For a big production company, that's very cool. And the results speak for themselves.
 
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But I can go to PRS, with a custom design or request, and get Doug and/or Jeff to make a magical amp for a practical price...all on an old school turret board. For a big production company, that's very cool. And the results speak for themselves.

Yup. It's amazing, really, in this day and age.
 
Cool... That pretty much ties it up with a neat little bow. Both my HX/DA and MDT were supposedly CAD, but that may have just been because of the custom color..so I guess there are a couple of versions of CAD. My personal preference is option 2 anyway, so all good by me.
 
Cool... That pretty much ties it up with a neat little bow. Both my HX/DA and MDT were supposedly CAD, but that may have just been because of the custom color..so I guess there are a couple of versions of CAD. My personal preference is option 2 anyway, so all good by me.

Well, maybe the HXDA and MDT aren't CAD, and maybe they utilize the 2d level circuit boards?? I didn't specifically ask which amp was what. I might be guilty of making an unfounded assumption that the HXDA and DG30 use the boards without the tracers, and I'm going only on what I was told at the time I bought the amps.

I haven't taken my amps apart, the most technical thing I do with them is change the tubes. So if you've taken your HXDA apart, and have seen the tracer on the underside of the board, you have done more investigating than I have.

So I'm only relaying what the videos said, and what I was told. I don't feel confident enough with my electronics skills to take my amp apart, so maybe I'll email Doug again. I hate to bug the guy, though, as I know he's a pretty busy person.

Got pics?
 
I think the assumption here is that all CAD amps have the higher spec construction. If you look at this link:

http://www.prsguitars.com/index.php...custom_amp_designs_2_channel_custom_amplifier

It implies CAD is more of a PS type deal, with some R&D for "production" models thrown in.

Yup, they do list the HXDA.

I did email Doug with the question, and hopefully he will respond when he has time. As Aristotle says, it probably doesn't make much difference in either case, but I'd like to know if only because people contact me sometimes with questions about my amps, and if I know the answers, I don't mind sharing the info I have.

But I don't want to pass along inaccurate info when I'm asked.
 
There's something extra special about Doug's designs. How, exactly, he gets there hasn't bothered me, just intrigued me. It's like finding out he used Peruvian cane sugar in the strawberry ice cream instead of the US pure white stuff. It's a different shade of cork sniffing. One doesn't make the other inferior. I still want an HXDA just as much as I ever did even if it had a total PC board design. It's the end results that matter. Oh, and an MDT...Aristotle has me convinced. :cool:
 
There's something extra special about Doug's designs. How, exactly, he gets there hasn't bothered me, just intrigued me. It's like finding out he used Peruvian cane sugar in the strawberry ice cream instead of the US pure white stuff. It's a different shade of cork sniffing. One doesn't make the other inferior. I still want an HXDA just as much as I ever did even if it had a total PC board design. It's the end results that matter. Oh, and an MDT...Aristotle has me convinced. :cool:

Well, I did get the skinny from Doug and it's interesting.

First, except for the 25th Anniversary amp, which is 100% hand wired, Aristotle is correct. Of course!

I should know better than to disagree with a rocket scientist!

The 25th Anni amp was the amp that was fully handwired with no tracers, but the other CAD models have a few thick tracers, as described in the video. They're 90% fully hand wired. The DG amps have the most point-to-point, and are "super intense" to build. The HXDA has the thick tracers where the old Plexis would have had jumper wires.

The price of the amps affects how many tracers the amps have. That makes complete sense.

Apologies for my making incorrect assumptions (why did I do that?)! I corrected my earlier post with a warning that I was full of it, but left it as-is because it was replied to.

But I'm still getting another DG amp, the 50 Watt version.

Why? Because it's there. ;)
 
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I don't have a dog in this show, so there's no pot stirring here (not that there's any soup, either). I only want to add some detailed perspective relative to my CAD Super Dallas. It has the blue PC boards with some amount of actual traces, somewhere.
sdallasgut6.jpg


If you look at the bridge (rectum-finder) rectifier board, you'll see actual traces under the first layer (lower left)...
sdallasgut3.jpg


This is a CAD amp. It took a special someone hours to assemble, and they did a phenomenal job. I find the work to be exquisite and I have a huge amount of respect for the makers of my favorite amp. Regardless of exact corkiness of the materials and methods, the results speak for themselves.

And here's that special someone...
sdallasgut7.jpg
 
Nice shots, sir! I love seeing this stuff.

Then again, I can't really explain why I love seeing this stuff...

For me, i's like looking at a car's engine compartment; I know how to change the oil, filters, fluids and spark plugs, but beyond that limited ability, I have no idea how to fix anything else under the hood. On an amp, I can put in new tubes and fuses, and beyond that, I can't do anything at all.

It's all fun to see for some reason, though!
 
My HX/DA 50 Watt Head: On the upper left of the board: ELE-5110-25TH 2011-02-28 Rev C, Copywrite 2009. The amp came with white PRS Recording Amp knobs, I could never bond with them, so I asked nicely and the usual suspects sent me a set of the latest. The rest of the pictures speak for themselves:





 
My HX/DA 50 Watt Head: On the upper left of the board: ELE-5110-25TH 2011-02-28 Rev C, Copywrite 2009. The amp came with white PRS Recording Amp knobs, I could never bond with them, so I asked nicely and the usual suspects sent me a set of the latest. The rest of the pictures speak for themselves:






Love it!

What tubes did it come with? Just curious to know what Grissom was using.
 
Love it!

What tubes did it come with? Just curious to know what Grissom was using.

N.O.S. Mullards, but by the time I got the amp, they were obviously weak, and even my old ears could tell they were shot. So I replaced those, since I'm on a tight budget, with these Russian Made Matched Pair: http://www.thetubestore.com/Tubes/EL34-6CA7-Tube-Types/Mullard-EL34 Night and Day difference. Immediate HX/DA joy. And the three(3) pre-amp tubes with these: http://www.thetubestore.com/Tubes/JJ-Electronics/JJ-ECC83-S-12AX7 I simply don't have the $$$ to experiment buying and swapping boutique high dollar tubes since I'm not a professional with 'resources', if you know what I mean. Except if someone says the one and only tube to change is (fill in the blank), then I might be persuaded to buy just one. Any suggestions?
 
I was very impressed with the guts of my Custom 50 when I opened it up. It doesn't bother me a bit if there are some tracers in there - I know the team put in the R&D time to know where they could put them without compromising tone.
 
Except if someone says the one and only tube to change is (fill in the blank), then I might be persuaded to buy just one. Any suggestions?

To begin my experimentation with the HXDA, I swapped the stock JJ for an NOS Mullard in the V1 position. It made a difference I liked, and improved the tone over the stock tube, though changing a single tube isn't going to result in a night/day difference the way changing the whole set might. It's a more subtle improvement (though I suppose that depends on what 'subtle' does for you).

However, I've been happy enough with the tone to not mess with it for now, even though I have a couple of sets of NOS Siemens output tubes, and more NOS Mullard and BRIMAR preamp tubes waiting in the wings. When I swap out the stock Winged C power tubes for NOS, I'll install the other Mullard preamp tubes and have a complete NOS set in the amp.

Preamp tubes generally don't wear out, when they get very old they might go microphonic or fail, but they last many years, so it's certainly a less expensive venture to get into NOS preamp than NOS output tubes. I have NOS preamp tubes (BRIMAR) in my DG30, and NOS output tubes as well. And that amp sounds great, too.

But I'll also state flatly that in some amps, I prefer the sound of newer tubes. I had a Two-Rock I installed NOS RCA and Telefunken preamp tubes in (the output tubes were NOS from the factory), and I actually preferred the stock 80s Chinese NOS "no-name" preamp tubes in that amp. It was voiced for them.

So things might vary a bit depending on one's use and needs.
 
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