Jimmy Haggard

Stock, the Classic Gain was anemic and the Ultra Gain was bone crunching. After a few resister and cap mods, preamp tube changes, and a pair of Mullard EL 34 power tubes (like smooth power), to warm up the Classic Gain and cool down the Ultra Gain, and replacing the speaker with a Warehouse Guitar Speaker ET65, this amp loud and proud.

Like its big brothers, the stock DSL15C did not do the trick. First the stock speaker was wimpy, so I popped in a Celestion G12H Anniversary speaker I had laying around. Much better. Then there were a few resistor and cap changes to tame the Ultra Gain channel. And finally, a JJ ECC832 in the first preamp stage (two tubes in one: the half used by Classic Gain is a 12AX7 at 100% gain, and the half used by the Ultra Gain is a 12AU7 at 20% gain), Tungsol 12AX7 in the other preamp slots, topped off with a JJ 5751 (military spec 70% gain). The stock Marshall 6V6 tubes were prefect as is. After the mods, this little amp is a tone monster, great for small venues and studio work.

The stock Carvin speakers were pulled out and replaced with an old Celestion Vintage30 16ohm and a Warehouse Guitar Speaker HM75 16ohm. The stock Carvin speakers were nice, which was the problem. The Celestion and WGS pairing delivers everything from clean to crunch and more, with edge and a full sound spectrum.

I am supposed elaborate and wax eloquently, but there is no reason to. This guitar my #1. That's all I need to say.

This TS9 is a touch brighter with a touch more edge than my TS808 pedal. I picked up the TS9 on ebay, thinking i was going to modify it with some resistor and cap changes, and would also replace the op amp chip with one used in TS808 pedals. I did a lot of research and had pictures of the circuit boards for every TS9 version released. When I popped open the pedal I was suprised to discover that the circuit board was different than all versions I had found, plus it had one of the excellent op amp chips used in TS808s, which were supposedly not put in TS9 models. I immediately closed the pedal up and left it just the way it came.

The TS808 pairs up with a TS9 on my board. The TS808 adds warmth, a smooth edge and some sweet crunch.

It is bulky and a bit of a hassle. There are only two Leslie spin settings: fast or slow. Most of the time, the fast is too fast and there is no way to lower the speed. With the slow spin, many times it is too slow, with no way to increase the speed. It would be a great pedal if there was a control to adjust the spin speed of fast and slow, with no overlap (e.g. fast only slows to a point, and slow only speeds to a point). Meanwhile, the break works great and the drive gain is very nice.