Interesting Wizard experience - yes I "altered" one

RedPlated

RedPlated

Well-known member
Just want to say...this isn't intended to be a negative post about Wizard at all. But an informative post that may give some useful info to other Wizard owners.

A buddy of mine wanted a depth control in his MCii/ MTL hybrid. I determined the best way to do it without putting the depth in a weird spot was to remove the contour control. There’s very little extra room in the amp.

I removed the contour and installed a 1 Meg audio push pull CTS pot with .0047/ .0068 caps on the switch.

Couple of things... One, it felt kind of like I was doing something bad by scraping the dye off the solder joints and altering a wizard. But fun at the same time. Second, when I first got the amp it didn't sound like the previous ones I owned did. This is a recent build and all stock otherwise. It was pretty loose and undefined. I didn’t get the master high enough, maybe.

After the depth mod the amp was much better. I could not believe how great it sounded. Tight, focused, cutting and big. The variable depth is super useful. I’ve had 4 wizards in the past and this is now by far the best sounding. The owner felt that same and couldn’t believe the difference.

I will say that the amp circuit sounds phenomenal now. I was really impressed and wanted to keep playing it. Just needed that small change and it came alive. Build quality as well was top notch. Even the chassis itself is like military grade stuff.
 
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Why would he fix the cap and vary the NFB resistor? That’s probably the oddest implementation I’ve ever heard of.
 
Cool stuff!

I had a 100w Hybrid and there was nothing loose or farty about it. Sounded as good as all the other Wizards I owned in that context.
 
Hahahaha I know... He would probably come down from Canada and challenge me to fight.

I've had 4 Wizards in the past, two MCii and two MTL. This amp I added the depth to was not as good sounding than all the rest. Now it's the best sounding IMO.
 
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Number one, I agree with you, I would much much rather have the depth control than the contour… If I had an MCII, I would try to get the same modification done,
… however, you think that depth mod alone turned a mediocre Amplifier into a Monster flamethrower?
Was there anything else you did?
 
SQUAREHEAD said:
Number one, I agree with you, I would much much rather have the depth control than the contour… If I had an MCII, I would try to get the same modification done,
… however, you think that depth mod alone turned a mediocre Amplifier into a Monster flamethrower?
Was there anything else you did?
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Nothing else at all. I'm guessing the amp just really liked the different depth frequency. The amp circuit itself is honestly amazing sounding.

When the owner took the amp back I told him how I felt the amp changed. I told him to let me know, because maybe I had something set wrong or off the first time, who knows ,it's possible. He text me 30 mins later telling me that he couldn't believe how much of a change it made and that he heard the same as I did.

The main reason I posted this is that I've never really realized such a huge change with such a minor mod. And maybe someone else can benefit from this change on their own Wizard.

Samhain- "Altered" is a better term. It's a slight tweak, more than anything. Modded may be overstated, I agree. Title edited.
 
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Really interesting to hear. I bet it sounds great.

My wizard MC I has a depth control on it in the rear. I assume it was after market, despite the seller saying it was done by Rick. Regardless, it sounds unbelievable. Truly incredible and I haven’t wanted to change a thing on it.
 
itsgoodnow said:
Really interesting to hear. I bet it sounds great.

My wizard MC I had a depth control on it in the rear. I assume it was after market, despite the seller saying it was done by Rick. Regardless, it sounds unbelievable. Truly incredible and I haven’t wanted to change a thing on it.
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That's interesting. The only possible place I could find to actually add a depth control was in one of the speaker jack holes on the rear. And then I would have had to use a push pull 16mm pot as a full size pot wouldn't fit there. This amp had almost zero free space available. Is that where yours is located?

I think some Wizards may have a rotary impedance selector where this one has multiple speaker jacks for each impedance setting.
 
Very interesting! So with the MTL is it in your opinion good the way it is with its depth knob or are there things about that you think could also be tweaked to make it better like you did to the hybrid one?
 
I have had a MTL before. Actually two of them. I will say that one of them I had I completely regretted selling as it was a really good sounding amp all stock the way it came. I felt like the depth worked great on it as it was. Having a push pull with two frequencies is a nice feature though. The .0047 depth is more mid focused and a little "bigger" sounding. The .0068 gets deeper and less mid focused. Both great sounds.

I need to find a MTL schematic again, but I'm almost 99% sure it uses a .0068 depth cap.
 
RedPlated said:
I have had a MTL before. Actually two of them. I will say that one of them I had I completely regretted selling as it was a really good sounding amp all stock the way it came. I felt like the depth worked great on it as it was. Having a push pull with two frequencies is a nice feature though. The .0047 depth is more mid focused and a little "bigger" sounding. The .0068 gets deeper and less mid focused. Both great sounds.

I need to find a MTL schematic again, but I'm almost 99% sure it uses a .0068 depth cap.
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Cool info! Yeah I’ve had my 2016 MTL 100 for almost 5 years now. Great amp, just always curious with any gear I have if there’s anything that can make them even better. I guess the problem with me is I’m the complete opposite of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, so always like to tinker, but at the same time I’m possibly the least tech savvy guy on here lol, so only do what I can or have to use my very expensive tech for my experiments or thoughts
 
braintheory said:
Cool info! Yeah I’ve had my 2016 MTL 100 for almost 5 years now. Great amp, just always curious with any gear I have if there’s anything that can make them even better. I guess the problem with me is I’m the complete opposite of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, so always like to tinker, but at the same time I’m possibly the least tech savvy guy on here lol, so only do what I can or have to use my very expensive tech for my experiments or thoughts
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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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