The first issue to be corrected was the baffle and grill cloth (the original was pure crap and was flapping with vibration). So I had to take the baffle out, made a thin frame to sit on top of the baffle and raise the cloth a little, and replaced the "cheap couch" fabic with some brown diamond grill cloth left over I had arround. Nice look, and great tone improvement (by itself this was a tone mod!).
I realised that the speaker was really bad, but I didnt want to spend a lot of money on a new one, so I got a 6" modern Jensen very cheap, and that made quite a change. Same tone signature, with a bit more volume and smoother tone. I belive that an alnico would be best...but I'll leave it like that for now....still have to break in the speaker a little more.
Tubes where chinese crap, really, really bad. Replaced them with JJ's wich was an improvment, but NOS is defenatelly best. So I was lucky and got a nice NOS Brimar 12ax7 really cheap on ebay, and a nice NOS american 6v6gt also really cheap. This made a big change from the JJ's.
The circuit was good for a few tweaks. I replaced the Negative feedback resistor with a pot under the chassis (the stock value is a bit too stiff and closed for my taste) so I can change value according to situation or guitar. I realised that 100k was the best range for a pot in this position.
Replaced the treble cap (wich was ceramic) with a switchable 100pf polystyrene or 500pf silver mica. sweeter treble, and the 500pf pushes a bit of high mids.
Replaced the cathode bypass cap on v1a with switchable 10uf or 3.3uf. that attenuated the bass a bit and gave me an additional position for less bass.
At the end a bit of work and little cash, it became a nice sounding bedroom and practice amp, and is very light to carry arround, that also sounds good with a 1x12 cab if I need extra punch, without being too loud.
