# Anyone near Hamilton, Ontaro / can mod my Crate Palomino v16 AMP



## linuxkid (May 4, 2009)

I haven't been able to find any mods for these AMPs .. plus even if I could i know nothing
about cept getting electricuted ..but I'm sure somebody could add better sound to it for 
me .. its a one channel Class A ... 2x el84 / 3x 12ax7 type. I have the schematic and
manual, etc. The clean channel sounds pretty horid (hard sounding ..no compression)
but when you add Gain it sounds real good and starts to compress... Only things I've
done so far are retubed it with JJ's and installed a full-size accutronics reverb tank .. I
was thinking it could use a better transformer to tighten it up or I dont know ..Anybody
know anything about these crappy amps ) I've got money to spend to get it sounding
better and will pay someone to do just that  Thanks.

Jay


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Wild Bill is a GC forum member, is very skilled with amps and lives in Hamilton. 
Hopefully he will see your thread.
He does not respond to PM's. 

Cheers


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## fudb (Dec 8, 2010)

He's (wild bill) doing some work on a YGM-3 for me right now... hoping to get the amps back next week. I can get you his number if you want, but those amps are gonna be relatively expensive to mod as they're circuit board and take time to work on... an upgraded speaker would be my next purchase... IIRC the crate v series didn't have anything special in the way of a speaker... a nicer celestion, or a weber or eminence would probably help things considerably..


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

linuxkid said:


> I haven't been able to find any mods for these AMPs .. plus even if I could i know nothing
> about cept getting electricuted ..but I'm sure somebody could add better sound to it for
> me .. its a one channel Class A ... 2x el84 / 3x 12ax7 type. I have the schematic and
> manual, etc. The clean channel sounds pretty horid (hard sounding ..no compression)
> ...


Jay, save your money! Your Crate is a modern amp with the typical chintzy quality printed circuit boards. Those boards severely limit major mods. You can't re-arrange much of the wires when there are none! Just traces "etched in stone" on the board. You can change the odd part to one of a different value but when you go trying to change the circuit you have to start cutting board traces and putting in wire jumpers. Things rapidly can become an ugly mess. Having too many wire jumpers is just asking for unwanted signal coupling between stages, leading to squeals and howls of oscillations.

I know there are lots of so-called mods out there for many of the modern amps but to a real tech they are mostly very simple. For deep mods it is really only cost-effective with the older, hand-wired amps from the 60's and 70's.

Since the boards on the Crate are rather cheap quality a tech also has the problem of being very careful de-soldering and soldering parts to the board. The traces have a tendency to lift off when heated and break, making PITA repairs necessary.

I've gone over the schematic and layout diagrams for your amp. It's really just a BlackFace preamp with a couple of extra gain stages. You will get your best clean tone by leaving the Master Volume on 10 at all times, using the input gain control as your only volume control. It won't be as good as the typical Fender clean, because of the extra gain stages. Still, it will be the best you can do.

Not meaning to rain on your parade but most guys don't know these things before they buy an amp. Techs all know because they're the guys who work on them! Repairs cost more on a modern amp 'cuz it takes longer to work on a circuit board than an old-fashioned amp.

Find yourself an old 50 watt Traynor head! They're not nearly as expensive as Fenders and Marshalls from those days. One really good bargain is the YVM-1, actually a 4 channel mike PA amp with a pair of EL34s in the output. I re-wire them all the time into vintage Marshall Plexis or classic Fenders. Lately I've put a Dumble OD into a couple of them.

I wouldn't even consider doing such a thing with a modern amp like your Crate! I couldn't sleep at nights after giving you a super big bill! I'd have to basically junk the entire board and handwire your amp from scratch. It would work out cheaper.

WB


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## linuxkid (May 4, 2009)

Wow, thanks for the replies guys. It all makes sense now. So, old boutique vintage! is the way-to-go!
The YGM-3 looks nice!!! I'm going to check into those more ... all hand wired.

As a last resort - I'm going to grab an Eminence Wizard speaker and see what that does, (if it still fails),
then I'll searching for another combo like the YMG-3, Let me know how it sounds. Thanks a lot Wild Bill, fudb 
and Greco.


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