Tweedle Dee on Carter

[ijedouglas]

Asking $125,000

https://cartervintage.com/shop/dumble-t ... YDI0ItvlGZ

Pulled some pics before it gets sold or taken down:

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[ijedouglas]

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[Dr d]

Hey Ian, interesting find and interesting story. He clearly held his position in commercial terms to the bitter end. I haven't build one of these. I will have to check out how close this is to the information we already have on the forum.
Thanks for sharing.

[Stephen1966]

Great! Let's have the description as well.

Seldom does an amp arrive that causes a genuine stir across the entire vintage community. It’s been 4 long years since we last hosted a piece from the most prestigious name in the history of amplification - Howard Alexander Dumble. The inventory is few, and the clientele is exclusive, as Dumble didn’t take orders for builds; he chose you. Should your playing inspire and impress him, Alexander would reach out to discuss the potential of making an amplifier for -you-. What this meant was a purely individual experience, with a genius level engineering knowledge and a set of golden ears the amplifier was designed specifically for the style of each player. The client list features nothing but the legends of electric guitar, featuring the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, Robben Ford, and Carlos Santana, just to name a few.

Sadly, Alexander is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on in his body of work. This features all too few examples, with a manufacture count sitting in the 300 range. Among those is the Dumble “Tweedle-Dee” - which as it’s form factor indicates is based on the Fender Tweed Deluxe. This particular amp came about as an attempted collaboration between Dumble and the previous Fender CEO Larry Thomas, along with Chief Product Officer Rich McDonald. This particular amp belonged to Rich, who personally delivered 2 Deluxe amps to Dumble without knowing an expected outcome. Time had passed without much word, when suddenly in 2013 the two amps returned, one for Rich and one for Larry, which had undergone the “Tweedle-Dee” circuit treatment. Included with the amp is a signed letter from Rich, detailing it’s story of origin.

Unlike most “mods” this amp is a complete rebuild in terms of circuitry, built off the bones of a modern 5E3 reissue amp. The cabinet, speaker, pots, and Mercury Magnetics transformers were used, while Dumble handled the rest. A schematic of this build has been floating around the internet for some time now, and while it is close, the real thing presented here speaks for itself as an individual build - for Rich McDonald. Circuits such as the Overdrive Special started in a similar way, being built off the skeleton of vintage Fender amps. This showcases the 5E3 in it’s optimal form, from soft clipping on the preamp side, into beautiful, symmetrical clipping from the 6V6 power section. It sounds and feels like a much bigger amp than it’s 12 Watts indicates!

The authentication of this amp was verified with Drew Berlin, whom is the sole inheritor of the Dumble estate. The friendship between Larry Thomas and Alexander is well known, as was the collaboration which brought this amp to fruition. Production wise this amp sits as number 2, with the serial number TD-002.

[Stephen1966]

...soft clipping on the preamp side, into beautiful, symmetrical clipping from the 6V6 power section.

That suggests a warm, saturated tone in the preamp bias followed by a more symmetrical centre bias in the cathodyne. Giving it a harder, grainier, more high-gain sounding drive.

The photos have a pair of smaller coupling caps from the PI to the power tubes (to cure blocking distortion?). .1uF caps are characteristically larger, though I guess these could always be a batch and form factor I haven't seen before.

Notable as well is that the fourth stage filtering is missing. This looks more like a regular Deluxe and maybe that was the point.

[Dr d]

The layout looks different to the photos posted by Charlie W. The output couplers also look skinnier on the Carter amp. Interesting!

[ijedouglas]

Great catch on the output couplers both of you, I hadn't noticed that. I did see that he dropped the last filter on this amp though.

Dr D, you should build one of these. I love mine

[Dr d]

...soft clipping on the preamp side, into beautiful, symmetrical clipping from the 6V6 power section.

That suggests a warm, saturated tone in the preamp bias followed by a more symmetrical centre bias in the cathodyne. Giving it a harder, grainier, more high-gain sounding drive.

The photos have a pair of smaller coupling caps from the PI to the power tubes (to cure blocking distortion?). .1uF caps are characteristically larger, though I guess these could always be a batch and form factor I haven't seen before.

Notable as well is that the fourth stage filtering is missing. This looks more like a regular Deluxe and maybe that was the point.

Agreed that they seem quite different in design.

[Dr d]

Great catch on the output couplers both of you, I hadn't noticed that. I did see that he dropped the last filter on this amp though.

Dr D, you should build one of these. I love mine

You will be the death of me! LOl. I do have a donor amp that I could use. Tell me more! I take it that it is really a one trick pony with little or no headroom...?

[ijedouglas]

Great catch on the output couplers both of you, I hadn't noticed that. I did see that he dropped the last filter on this amp though.

Dr D, you should build one of these. I love mine

You will be the death of me! LOl. I do have a donor amp that I could use. Tell me more! I take it that it is really a one trick pony with little or no headroom...?

Think of the best Tweed Deluxe with more headroom that doesn't fart out when you crank it. I brought mine over to a friend the other day and didn't tell him it was a hot-rodded deluxe. He couldn't put the guitar down... I could see the gears turning as he was trying to work out why his ears and eyes were disagreeing

[Dr d]

Great catch on the output couplers both of you, I hadn't noticed that. I did see that he dropped the last filter on this amp though.

Dr D, you should build one of these. I love mine

You will be the death of me! LOl. I do have a donor amp that I could use. Tell me more! I take it that it is really a one trick pony with little or no headroom...?

Think of the best Tweed Deluxe with more headroom that doesn't fart out when you crank it. I brought mine over to a friend the other day and didn't tell him it was a hot-rodded deluxe. He couldn't put the guitar down... I could see the gears turning as he was trying to work out why his ears and eyes were disagreeing

More headroom?!!! Thats cool. The very first amp I built was of course a 5E3. It didn't stay a 5E3 for long because, like most people who build them, I got frustrated with too much bass etc etc. I will have to try this one out I guess!

[rccolgan]

With some help from AI, we might be able to reverse the b/w filter. This is just with a free tool so I'll keep trying with others and Photoshop neural filters.

Or you could go the other way and take a photo of a resistor and b/w it to see what comes close. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[Stephen1966]

With some help from AI, we might be able to reverse the b/w filter. This is just with a free tool so I'll keep trying with others and Photoshop neural filters.

Or you could go the other way and take a photo of a resistor and b/w it to see what comes close. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Fifty shades of Grey anyone?

It's not a bad idea but I don't know if AI is all that it's being cracked up to be. And, honestly, you only need to decipher a few of the variable components for a complete picture to be developed. Thinking of the input, grid stoppers - likely 68k; of the cathodyne grid leak, 1 Meg; of the power tube grid leaks, 220k and so on. There are things we know he changed and things we know he left as he found them. He wasn't trying to reinvent Fender's proverbial wheel.

More interesting to me at this time, is how he arranged the board with the PI trimmer.

[rccolgan]

Lol. I mean.. we DO lust over these amps

And yeah, true that the resistors are fairly simple to decipher. I don't know too much about these tweedle Dee amps and lineage. Seems cool tho and spikes my interest a bit

[Colossal]

This amp looks like it may have started life as an Edge signature 5E3, but that's just a guess