freestompboxes.org

Hi, folks!

My first thread here! My name is Kim I´m a musician and tubeamp modder/builder (hobby!) from Hamburg. I read a lot here and I think its time to give some information back to you.
Anyone remember the H&K Crunchmaster??? Awesome concept! Fender-Style preamp with an EL84 powertube for 2,5W in a 9,5"-rackbox. For use as a practise amp, recording-preamp, or distortionbox.
In the real world this crazy little thing SUCKS! Muddy distortion and if you want to overdrive the EL84 you´ll get heavy blocking-distortion! Only clean or crazy fuzz will work...
But with a few mods I did this baby really ROCKS!
As you can see it´s quiet simple...
I recorded a little stupid song as an example whats now possible with this unit.


Have fun!
Kim

Welcome Grooverock!
I know a player pretty close by who swears by his chrunchmaster and plays with a very decent guitar sound. Furthermore the H&K guys have earned their tracks over the years with delivering decent equipment and the suggestion they would suddenly release something that's total crap is rather hard to believe. Therefore the "sucks" is a sstatement I find hard to accept and, IMHO, says more about your taste. That's fine but there is a difference between "it sucks" and "I don't like it".

Similar that these simple tweaks should change a device from sucks into sudden toan excellence. The only one that matters is the AC decoupling of the EL84's kathode. The other 2 changes are negligable against the input impedance of the triodes.

Hi, Dirk!!!

Off course your right!!! Its my personal taste!!!! H&K build great things, yeah. But this ones really strange. Because its fantastic idea and a great design BUT with a few poor mistakes...
Its allmost impossible to overdrive the EL84. Because if the signallevel is high enough the ECC83 produces blocking distortion! The grid tries to pull more current then the 5532 can offer. (Hope you understand my english...)

But you should look closer to my tweaks. Theres a bit more the three changes! To get rid of the mud, i changed the input-cap of the first stage. Fender did it the same way, but in front of the PI-Tube. This makes this unit much tighter.
The gridstoppers do not affect the sound too much but do a lot against the ugly blocking distortion.
Small tweaks which make this unit MUCH better without stealing it´s soul.
My Oszi agrees...
Before I did this tweaks i didn´t use this unit... But now "Crunchmaster" is the perfect name for it.

Have a nice evenig!
Kim
ps. Sorry, "It sucks" wasn´t the best choice, but really sucked my tone...

Hi!

I have a H&K Metal Master and despite the name, it does 70's rock very well and clean sound is good too!
Overall tone is pretty bright, maybe I should remove bright cap from the first gain-pot. I have to keep treble pot at 0-2 (I'm playing a strat).
It has a James tone stack which is quite different compared to regular TMB stack, takes some time to get used to it...

Overall it's great for home practicing and recording. I payed 40€ for it .

grooverock wrote: Because if the signallevel is high enough the ECC83 produces blocking distortion! The grid tries to pull more current then the 5532 can offer. (Hope you understand my english...)

No, not really.... The 5532 is able to handle a 600 Ohm load. In the original configuration the 5532 has to deal only with a minimum of 47k load. So it can´t be the 5532, because he can deliver more than sufficient current than needed.

Hi!

Sounds like i´m wrong with the 5532... On my oszi it looked like it has some trouble. After I added the gridstoppers the outputsignal of the OP (between the output and the 47K resistor) was more accurate. But it´s not the fault of the 5532, it´s the tube. The ECC83 draws gridcurrent when you push this hard!!! Thats why the gridstoppers helps a lot.
Before my tweaks the level of the unit broke in if I pushed it hard. No wonder....

40,-€ for a Metalmaster??? Lucky guy!!! Have fun with it!

..but where are the mods? i can't see them on schematic attached, seems original..

pacifica7 wrote:..but where are the mods? i can't see them on schematic attached, seems original..

Download the PDF...you will see the mod there.

Rebuilt of H&K Cream Machine:




It really rocks!