Ruby capacitors

[Krinor]

I just finished my first Ruby amp (with the headphone mod).
Since I didnt' have the suggested 0.047uF capacitors I put in some 0.015uF's instead.
I run the amp on a pack of 1.5 V batteries adding to a total of 12 Volts. The amp works fine and sounds crystal clear with very little hiss. I agree with the saying: "if it works, don't fix it", but I have some questions anyway:

1) The headphone volume is very high. I can hardly turn up the volume at all before it gets painfully loud. How can I get the volume down ? By putting a larger resistor on the negative lead of the Zobel network ? Any ideas ?

2) The gain control doesn't do very much. There is some descent tubelike (but still a bit tinny) breakup on top of it but I'd like it to kick in earlier. Will this change if I get a pair of 0.047 cap's instead ? (I'll have to order them before I can try it out - hence my question).

Thanks for reading.

[Krinor]

Hey all,

I'm bringing this top up on top again just in case it was overlooked by someone who could give some input.
Anyone seen a good thread on this amp somewhere ?

[Timebutt]

I'm planning on building this Ruby with headphone out as well in the very near future, so I would like to hear about the headphone volume as well.
One thing I noticed, is that 0.015uF is a very different value than 0.047uF (generally you can replace components if they fall within 3-5% range of the 'original value' - correct me if I'm wrong - but in this case it's a lot more so that could be responsible for the gain problem).

Does running the Ruby off 12V differ a lot from 9V? Added headroom probably?

[GREEN FUZ]

I guess you`ve already looked at the runoffgroove modifications. Replace the gain with a trimmer to pre-set the amount of distortion.

There are numerous threads relating to the Ruby. A cursory skim brought this up. Not sure if it helps.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=20591.0

Adding some sort of tone control should bring the volume down a bit also.

[Krinor]

Does running the Ruby off 12V differ a lot from 9V? Added headroom probably?

It does. Not that I can hear a great difference. I haven't had chance to test it with a proper speaker at higher volume yet, but I'll unplug the speaker in my Champ and give it a shot later. 

Thanks for the link Green Fuz, very informative. I guess I'll just have to install some sockets and play around with different capacitors. There must be a whole lot more mods to try with this little beauty. I think also I will build a second one to the Bassman mod specs found at RoG.

I'm bulding a nice little cabinet for my Ruby. I'll post some pictures later