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What Rob says makes sense to me...my old Premier amps from the 1950s remain
relatively
untouched, save for some replaced resistors, tubes and caps. And they still
sound great.
My Aims, from 1973, with a circuit board, just went into the shop. It had no end
of loose
solder connections and a disturbing tube rattle the tech simply could not fix.
Same with a
'80s Marshall JTM-60 that was so loose and frought with bad connections, it
simply wasn't
worth the money to repair.
So, the PTP amps seem to hold up better over the long-haul.
If you want to hold onto your equipment and pass it on to your kids and
grandkids, the
extra money for a PTP-wired amp might be worth the investment. If you roll over
equipment every few years, a modern circuit-board tube amp may prove less
expensive
and sufficiently reliable.
I am skeptical of claims that the wires and other parts in PTP amps yield better
tone-in the
early days, cost was the main consideration for parts. Marty is right when he
says the way
electrons are conveyed should have no effect.
Gavin
--- In , "reverbrob" <woolsey@e...> wrote:
>
> I've owned and worked on both P-T-P and circuit board amps and I'd
> have to say the point-to-point stuff is more reliable and WAY easier
> to fix. Printed circuit boards are great for home consumer stuff
> that sits in one place, but they don't do so well with vibration,
> shock, and repeated cycles of hot-cold thermal expansion/contraction--
> - which is exactly what a gigging tube-based guitar amp gets. In
> particular, when things like input jacks, controls, tube sockets and
> large transformer connections are soldered right to the board, the
> solder joints tend to develop tiny fractures around the leads that
> can open up the electrical connection.
>
> I first saw this on my '93 Fender Super Amp when it developed an
> intermittent crackling sound. The amp tech showed me solder
> connections that had fractured completely around the leads of several
> of the larger components. He said he sees this all the time, and on
> circuit board amps that get hauled around and used a lot, you
> basically have to open 'em up every few years, look under high
> magnification and resolder whatever's coming loose.
>
> It might be different for solid-state amps, though. Much smaller
> components and no heat from tubes. I never had a problem with my old
> circuit board-based Roland JC-120 (other than its 1980's studded-dog-
> collar styling and ice-pick-in-the-head tone...)
>
> Rob Woolsey
>
>
> --- In , "darklsurf" <dcordes@s...>
> wrote: Is there a big difference between hand built point to point
> and sqeezed out of the factory stamped circuit boards? Other than
> the obvious being able to repair a point to point board, I've been
> under the school of thought that once a stamped circuit board was
> burned in and "worked" is was good to go. If a stamped circuit was
> bad, you'd know right away...well hopefully anyway.
