Thoughts on the TS SRV Special

[cpnyc23]

I did a search but didn't find that many posts on it...

I would like to hear other people's experiences with the SRV Special build...

How does it stack up to a TS808/TS9?  What are the strong points? Weak points?

Thanks!
-chris

[petemoore]

  GEO Technology of the Tubescreamer is the best source for finding TS info-lore.
    What are the strong points?
  Sales ?
  Is it expensive?
   Weak points?
  'Implied-Post-mortem endorsements'.
  Personally completely satisfied with the present knowledge of what TS's are capable of...can be cloned.
  If not it's something besides 'TS' IME.
 

[bipedal]

Particular schematic/layout you're looking at as the "TS SRV Special" build?   Just curious if there's a definitive version of this, or if it's just a varied collection of minor TS808 tweaks on a few resistor or cap values, and maybe 1meg drive pot instead of 500k to get more gain out of the circuit?

- Jay

[petemoore]

  what makes something like that special or namesake worthy, IME...is what is around it.
  what kind of room, how does the audience feel, how are the amps working, do you like the strings?
  What is the drummer up to now and is it being captured 'accurately' ? That's the kind of stuff that makes a TS sound cool. There's really nothing 'special' except when in a big cranked situation it boosts and mildly distorts the guitar signal, it's what the amp does with that which starts making it interesting, the TS output is 'cool' but a bit 'dry' and 'flat'...compressed and all, distorted...many players find the distort knob turned down sounds better...more of a boost to the amp than an internal TS distortion thing...unless volume is very low IWCase turning the distort knob way up...sounds distorty.
  The TS itself, is quite replicable. Using a high quality opamp as in original, and with 3 knobs on the box alone, diode clipping...
  makes me think more..perhaps they've figured out some precise tuning of +/- signal swings and matched that to diodes for a super accurate symmetry or assymetry clipping...nah...but would make great sales pitch IMO.
  The things that make them much different are component swappings, value changes.
  The TSSRVS probably has very nicely chosen components, and functions quite like SRVsTS.
  I haven't looked at it.
 

[cpnyc23]

thanks - i know the TS well, i'm just wondering about the SRV Special version that is in the layouts gallery and whose schematic is floating around the web.

i'm wondering how it compares to the original 808 in terms of sound quality, expressiveness, etc.

-chris

[QSQCaito]

Are you referring to matsumin srv ts?

[Eb7+9]

the original SRV Special had a 2meg gain pot and a stock .02uF input cap ...
tone pot was LOG wired backwards for better sweep

http://www.lynx.net/~jc/pedals.html

[petemoore]

http://www.lynx.net/~jc/pedalsSRVspecial.html
  Great link, cool story, nicely depicted mods and events !
  Nice job on the box too !
  basically JC has prepared a well documented page with interesting info, and appropriate TS caveat at the bottom...and it looks like the pedal is everything you could want in a TS [unless you wanted something else ...] .

[cpnyc23]

agreed.  the page has a wealth of information (far more than I expected).

big props for this - and thanks for the replies!

-chris