Interesting Wizard experience - yes I "altered" one

  • Thread starter Thread starter RedPlated
  • Start date Start date
RedPlated said:
Mine was a 2016 as well, maybe it's my old one! I think mine went to Canada.

It's definitely an easy mod, especially on yours since it's already got a depth. You'd just need to replace the regular 1meg audio with a CTS push pull 1 meg audio. Put a .0047 on the pot and a .0022 in parallel using the switch and that's it!
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Cool, maybe something to try out! I got mine from a guy in Massachusetts. I bought it in early 2017 and the previous owner had it for some time, so not sure how many others would’ve had it. I don’t play it that often because other amps I have suit me better, but I’ve still not heard anything else that punches as hard or the same way like my MTL. That seems to be one of the main things guys get wowed by when they’ve tried mine. One of my friends bought a 2012 MTL shortly after trying mine. He tried to act cool and non-chapant, but it was clear he was impressed haha
 
braintheory said:
Cool, maybe something to try out! I got mine from a guy in Massachusetts. I bought it in early 2017 and the previous owner had it for some time, so not sure how many others would’ve had it. I don’t play it that often because other amps I have suit me better, but I’ve still not heard anything else that punches as hard or the same way like my MTL. That seems to be one of the main things guys get wowed by when they’ve tried mine. One of my friends bought a 2012 MTL shortly after trying mine. He tried to act cool and non-chapant, but it was clear he was impressed haha
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Those transformers are absolute monsters. The amount of iron in the stack is crazy! Definitely a cool experience to play one.
 
RedPlated said:
Those transformers are absolute monsters. The amount of iron in the stack is crazy! Definitely a cool experience to play one.
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Absolutely! Both Wizard’s I’ve had had a big wow factor when first plugging in and at the those times never heard that kinda thing before (2016 MTL 100 and 1996 MCI 100)
 
RedPlated said:
it felt kind of like I was doing something bad by scraping the dye off the solder joints and altering a wizard.
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I bet it did. Did you consider putting it back after? I always wondered if a modder would put it back on just to make the amp look untouched afterwards.
 
I didn't as I don't have anything that would match. It reminds me of blue Dykem that we used to use when I worked in a machine shop as a teenager. But then again, it's still obvious by the components that it's been tweaked on.
 
RedPlated said:
I didn't as I don't have anything that would match. It reminds me of blue Dykem that we used to use when I worked in a machine shop as a teenager. But then again, it's still obvious by the components that it's been tweaked on.
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Why does he use dye on the soldered location in the first place? Is it so he can tell he’s already been through that spot on the board and completed work?
 
John4021 said:
Before you know it, you'll be adding your name to the front like GOWER does
"I remember back in the day when "Ground Zero" mods were cheap"

:LOL:
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Haha...you had me actually laughing out loud when I read this...!
 
Greazygeo said:
The old 68-72 Marshalls Ive had used red dye type stuff on each solder joint too.
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Yeah that's the stuff I've heard no one has been able to replicate. Well, that we know of, at least. I would assume they did it for warranty claims.

Even the first version BE-100's have dye on all the joints. Those were Metropolous-built. I guess there are quite a few that do it.
 
glpg80 said:
Why would he fix the cap and vary the NFB resistor? That’s probably the oddest implementation I’ve ever heard of.
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The contour control is part of the NFB circuit but actually a high pass filter, the amp has a fixed negative feedback resistor.
 
RedPlated said:
Yeah that's the stuff I've heard no one has been able to replicate. Well, that we know of, at least. I would assume they did it for warranty claims.

Even the first version BE-100's have dye on all the joints. Those were Metropolous-built. I guess there are quite a few that do it.
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Yes I have heard that it was for warranty. The blue dye I think is machinist’s blue. Sure looks like it.
 
Yup same hue to the color and same texture. It came off very easy, to be honest. I know the stuff on my early BE took some elbow grease to get off.
 
That's crazy that such a simple alteration would improve it that much. Did the amp feel different under the fingers?

Having never owned or even played a Cameron I have read that the power section tweeks were one of the big things that set his amps apart.
 
I have never really cared about a depth knob when played at volume. I think it could be a similar situation here, since redplated said he never turned the amp up. Maybe his buddy plays at low volumes also. But if you play quiet and need some of the bass that the powersection brings when you raise the volume on the amp, it could make a difference for sure.
 
braintheory said:
Cool, maybe something to try out! I got mine from a guy in Massachusetts. I bought it in early 2017 and the previous owner had it for some time, so not sure how many others would’ve had it. I don’t play it that often because other amps I have suit me better, but I’ve still not heard anything else that punches as hard or the same way like my MTL. That seems to be one of the main things guys get wowed by when they’ve tried mine. One of my friends bought a 2012 MTL shortly after trying mine. He tried to act cool and non-chapant, but it was clear he was impressed haha
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i have a 2016 MTL I bought brand new. Definitely sounds different than the newer ones. I ended up selling my mk2 because I preferred my mk1.

my one complaint about my hybrid is that it doesn’t have the low end like the MTLs. I just put an EQ in the loop and that does the trick. It’s super tight though.
 
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