Harley Benton GA-5 (OT??)

[Jaicen_solo]

Just wondering if anyone has got one of these?
Mine came this morning (my birthday was yesterday, but I guess you can't have it all!) and i'm mighty impressed. It's loud and crunchy, has 1x 12AX7 and one  EL84 and cost my lovely girlfriend £70!
From what I can tell, it's pretty similar to the Epiphone Valve Junior, the chassis and cabs are virtually identical save for the tolex, but it doesn't sound quite the same. The GA-5 has a tonestack, which from my quick tweaks sounds like it's ye olde Big Muff tonestack; Treble fully left, scooped middle and bass boost fully on. It doesn't break up as early as the VJ either, which is something i'm going to address 
So, if anyone's thinking of getting an all valve amp for less that 100 bucks, get this (or the VJ of course). Sounds like Angus Young doing Highway to hell when it's turned up all the way, but also very voxy at less than full gain. I haven't a/b'd it, but I think it has a striking similarity to the new AC30 custom we have at the studio. If that's not praise...

[gez]

Never heard of it or the company, but just googled and it is incredibly cheap!  Yeah, looks like an Epi knock-off.  My Brother's always asking if I know of any cheap valve amps going so I'll drop him a line, thanks for the tipoff.

PS  Made in China by any chance? 

[JimRayden]

Cool to hear you finally got one. Nice review too. Next on the list is to trace it and see how much it differs from VJ, will you?

Now I HAVE to get me one. Or two.

---------
Jimbo

[JimRayden]

Never heard of it or the company, but just googled and it is incredibly cheap!  Yeah, looks like an Epi knock-off.  My Brother's always asking if I know of any cheap valve amps going so I'll drop him a line, thanks for the tipoff.

It's a German budget gear company, associated with thomann.de if I recall correctly.

--------
Jimbo

[Jaicen_solo]

Yeah, I think it has that badge engineering thing going on.
Rest assured, i'll be tracing it and documenting all my mods :>

[Hanglow]

Have you checked out the guts yet? Done any mods? I still haven't bought one of my own  but managed to win close to a hundred quid on the masters at the weekend, so might spend my unearned cash on this....

Cheers!

[Jaicen_solo]

Yeah i've done a couple of mods to it. it's basically a valve jnr Mk2 in a different cab (which incidentally is 11-ply throughout, except for the baffle).
I put in a bypass for the tone control (22K resistor) which liberates a lot more gain, but does make it pretty difficult to clean up.
I also tried out the pentode/triode switch, but it's not really working for me. Not appreciably quiter, and much darker so that's getting taken out.
I am however going to add a third valve socket to use a 6l6 in place of the EL84, and mod the pre-amp to tweed (or blackface maybe with variable NFB) champ specs. Basically, i've always wanted a champ, but I can't afford one. This should be pretty close once i'm done. Probably i'll stick in an LPad attenuator too, just for home use. 

[MartyMart]

Yeah i've done a couple of mods to it. it's basically a valve jnr Mk2 in a different cab (which incidentally is 11-ply throughout, except for the baffle).
I put in a bypass for the tone control (22K resistor) which liberates a lot more gain, but does make it pretty difficult to clean up.
I also tried out the pentode/triode switch, but it's not really working for me. Not appreciably quiter, and much darker so that's getting taken out.
I am however going to add a third valve socket to use a 6l6 in place of the EL84, and mod the pre-amp to tweed (or blackface maybe with variable NFB) champ specs. Basically, i've always wanted a champ, but I can't afford one. This should be pretty close once i'm done. Probably i'll stick in an LPad attenuator too, just for home use. 

Hi Jaicen, I added a gain pot to both my VJ's that works real well, it just envolves removing the 220k to ground
before the 1k5 grid stopper to the EL84 and wiring a 250k/500k pot, lug 3 from circuit 2 to 1k5 and 1 to ground ( CW )
Means the original vol pot is "gain" and this is a master vol, you can run it real quiet but with gain high - great at home !
I also made V1 bypass a 1uf and 820 ohm and V2 bypass a 1uf and 680 Ohm, plus setup input like the champ.
The signal divider off V1 was also reduced for some more gain available - well worth doing as is the OT change to a
Hammond CSE125 or similar - better lows and overall quality and the output is better matched at 5k than 7.5k
Some of this is listed at 18watt.com VJ thread page 30, my changes photo's here :
http://www.pbase.com/martymart/valve_junior_essay
8 Ohm output added also, along with larger PS cap , you can see the new pot and the single trace cut required.

MM.

[Hanglow]

Thanks! I went and bought one last night after posting that question, so am looking forward to playing with it, and to see what mods I may wish to do.

Does it takes pedals well? I think I read that the VJ takes pedals well, so it's looking good.