There are three guitar stores in Portland (Maine). Buckdancer's Choice has been around for years and is owned and operated by two guys. One of the owners is a Luthier and the other is an amp tech. I enjoy this store as it is old, small, and comfortable. As well, the employees are musicians. It's a completely different experience than going into a Guitar Center store. You'll never see any young kids hanging out at Buckdancer's, just musicians.

They finished up the mods on my Traynor. He made the following changes: bypassed the tremolo circuit, reduced the gain drain from the reverb circuit, replaced tone related caps to give it the plexi tone, and added an output feedback pot. He replaced the unused ext. speaker jack on the back of the chassis with the new feedback pot. This control, when cranked, adds a lot of dynamics to the tone. I have no way to confirm as I only have one guitar, but he said the feedback control is much more responsive to humbuckers.

The tech was surprised with the results and keep going on about what an amazing amp it is. This is an old guy (my age) who seems pretty well grounded and not full of bull shit. It really is quite an amp! I'm glad I picked it up as they're getting harder to find (and more expensive). The work cost $200, so at this point I'm $600 into the head. This is a quarter of the cost of an old plexi.

Next week I should have the new 1x12 cab for the JBL. Then I can really crank on it and see how it sounds.

The Traynor has come a long ways. The amp tech completed a bunch of mods, and it sounds fantastic. Nice cleans and much crunch when cranked. He changed a several caps, bypassed the reverb circuit (I have some questions here), added a toggle switch to bypass the tremolo circuit, and added a feedback loop. The feedback control is nice. When dialed up the tone is much fatter. I dismantled the head cabinet, re-glued all the joints, replaced the tolex, replaced the grill cloth, and sprayed in inside of the cabinet flat black. It's much prettier, but the rubber/chrome bumpers on each side look awful. The new speaker cab is done and I replaced the JBL D-120 with a JBL E-120. When cranked the Traynor would likely vaporize the D-120. It a fantastic setup that seems to be able to do it all. Even fits nicely in my office.

I have a couple of question if anyone cares to spend the time to look at the schematic. There is a significant tone and volume difference between the two inputs. Since it's a single channel amp I thought they would be the same. Also, even though the reverb circuit is isolated there is a constant echo. When I disconnect the reverb tank the echo is gone, tone is pure, volume goes up, and there is a hum. Should I somehow ground the two RCA plugs from the amp that go into the reverb tank to eliminate the hum?


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that's gotta be way cool . you will have a hard time smoking an e120 because they will PUT OUT .

I don't know about your feedback/input jack issues but but sounds like a small gremlin .

The input jacks are wire like on Fenders and many other amps. One is for a low level signal (like a guitar) and the other is for a higher level signal. This is true if you only use one input jack at a time.

"That wasn't any farewell slap." -Dick Powell