NAD-Modded Dragon w/clip

  • Thread starter Thread starter O'Rourke
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O'Rourke

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I've had this for several weeks but just got the headshell back yesterday to finish off the project. Thanks to Eric Hellstyle and Guitarman967, most of what I did to the amp was what they suggested here. Also thanks to Paul Kress for doing a killer job on the headshell at a super low price, only about 20 bucks more than the materials alone would have cost me and as always Randy at Vintage Amp Repair. He helped me track down quality components and answered a few dumbass newb questions I had. Much appreciated guys. :thumbsup:

Basically I did a modded dragon/cobra main board, didn't touch the stock dragon EQ boards for the clean and lead channels and modded the crunch channel to cobra crunch channel specs with Guitarman's saturation mod. Doesn't change the voicing of the crunch channel just sounds like a cobra crunch with more gain. Also using 6550's in the power section now. Pics of the rig-

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Shitty clip of the amp below, goes clean, crunch, crunch with boost and then lead unboosted for all parts except "A New Level", that's just crunch and lead, forgot to turn on the boost. Gain is at noon on the crunch channel and about 2:00 on the lead channel. This is straight off the DR07 to netmusicians, no post EQ or anything. It was clipping a bit on the clean parts. The amp is crystal clean, that breakup/clipping is coming from the DR07. Better clips when I learn how to record and/or play guitar worth a fuck, don't hold your breath. :lol: :LOL:

http://www.netmusicians.org/index.php?section=id&value=7577

Better clip of the cleans, dirty part is the lead with the gain at 8:00. Had to set the input level pretty low to get the DR07 to stop clipping so the clip is pretty quiet but I don't have any way to raise the level. Straight off the DR07 onto netmusicians as always-

http://www.netmusicians.org/index.php?section=id&value=7624
 
Man.........sweet!!
I love the Framus amps!
Still looking for a CHEAP Cobra ........ :D

Sounds great! :rock:
 
Mailman1971":2qcpm5ns said:
Man.........sweet!!
I love the Framus amps!
Still looking for a CHEAP Cobra ........ :D

Sounds great! :rock:
Click to expand...

You could always pick up a dragon and tweak it, there's not much difference aside from the clean channels. A cathode cap and one resistor on the main board are different and a couple things on the crunch and lead EQ boards. The main board in my Dragon even says "Cobra" on it, they're very similar and easy to clone except for the clean channels. I got this with the intention of making it 2/3's of a Cobra but I dug the tone of the lead channel after I did the main board mods so I left it alone. :thumbsup:
 
nice amp man :D
looks clean !!! .... what kinda cab is it sitting on ??
 
It's a Kress 4x12, love that cab. I had him recover the headshell to match, it's kind of a cream/fender blonde color that he had a big roll of in his shop. Just a tiny shade darker than the "vintage white" that mojo sells.
 
Oh fuck yes! To set me straight here. You modded the crunch channel to Cobra specs and then? Is the lead channel still unchanged? Sounds great man. I see a mod for me Dragon on the horizon. Thanks for posting this. :rock:
 
Gsxrbusa":18h4fjvy said:
Oh fuck yes! To set me straight here. You modded the crunch channel to Cobra specs and then? Is the lead channel still unchanged? Sounds great man. I see a mod for me Dragon on the horizon. Thanks for posting this. :rock:
Click to expand...

he also increased the saturation and midrange response for both drive channels and cut off the high end fizz before the second gain stage and on the phase inverter

:thumbsup:
 
Yep, the main board stuff affects the whole amp so it will change the lead channel too. Mine is more of a modded Cobra with Dragon clean and lead tone stacks/EQ boards than a Dragon with the Cobra crunch channel tacked on now. I changed the only two different components on the main board between the two amps to stock Cobra specs, C8 from 3.3uF to 1uF and R14 from 220k to 470k.
 
im telling ya ,theb dragon should get more love ... i have one boosted with a maxon 808 the head kicks ass :rock:
 
Whew...guitar's out of tune on those clips. :aww: Amp looks cool for sure. :thumbsup:
 
ericsabbath":3mw7h47b said:
Gsxrbusa":3mw7h47b said:
Oh fuck yes! To set me straight here. You modded the crunch channel to Cobra specs and then? Is the lead channel still unchanged? Sounds great man. I see a mod for me Dragon on the horizon. Thanks for posting this. :rock:
Click to expand...

he also increased the saturation and midrange response for both drive channels and cut off the high end fizz before the second gain stage and on the phase inverter

:thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Cool. Does the amp get darker with the mods? I am not a big fan of how dark my older Cobra was but, the Dragon seems brighter to me. :dunno:

nighttrain69":3mw7h47b said:
im telling ya ,theb dragon should get more love ... i have one boosted with a maxon 808 the head kicks ass :rock:
Click to expand...

I agree.....They need to back the hatetrain up.
 
Gsxrbusa":3pkr6xjk said:
Cool. Does the amp get darker with the mods? I am not a big fan of how dark my older Cobra was but, the Dragon seems brighter to me. :dunno:
Click to expand...

not really
the high end cut is very subtle (mostly fizz) and the second stage cathode tweak makes the amp less bass heavy (an even lower value would make it more british sounding)
he also cut a resistor leaving only the bright cap before the gain controls, which makes the amp brighter and more controlled (would work for a recto or slo too)

the dragon EQ section is darker voiced than the cobra's
more low mid heavy

both are extremely close and easily moddable
one thing I would like to try if I still had my Cobra is disconnecting than deep circuit (which works in the preamp) and wiring it as a true depth (power amp)
they already have a true power amp depth from facotry, but it has fixed value and is set like having two cranked SLO-type depth controls, and that's why it's impossible to take that huge amount of solid bass response out
I always had the deep on zero and bass on 2.5-3
 
Cool man. Thanks for the info. I would be ok with taking some of the top end sizzle out. Having 2 channels of brute force sounds good to me. O'Rourke...Thanks for puting this info up. When I get closer to doing this will probably need direction. :rock:
 
Cool, I posted all the specs of what I changed on HCAF. There's also a link in my first post to some more mod info, hellstyle/sabbath posted most of the values I eventually used in that thread. :thumbsup:


BTW that deep mod sounds interesting, what all would be involved in doing it?
 
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