Elegent Ebony Aquaboy Deluxe

[JakeFuzz]

It's been a long time since I've posted anything    Work and moving apartments has taken over my life!

But here is my latest build and boy is it great. Aquaboy deluxe with real MN3205's. I got these BBD's for free a long time ago and always wondered if they worked (and they do!). Odd story about how I came into these. They were actually sent to me free of charge in place of MN3005's I was ordering from a small repair shop in Huntington Beach. They ran out of MN3005's and sent these as a consolation.

This build went together so smoothly. Easy as pie to build and fired up perfectly the first time. In fact even the bias trimmers were set in the right range the first time around. I saw these gold knobs at Small Bear and knew I had to do a matte black and gold theme right away. No labels as usual to confuse the onlooking guitar players. The MN3101 and SA571 are from cheap Chinese ebay stores and seem to work just fine. A mixed bag of capacitor types from ceramic to film; pretty much whatever I could find in the stash. I used a 1776 3PDT board for some extra cleanliness on the inside.

The effect is excellent. I may like it better than my DBD. The repeats sound a little more balanced and never get that overloaded bass sound that I can get from the DBD. This is probably the best sounding BBD delay I have ever played and ill try and make a demo to prove it! The repeats do get grainy on higher delay times but that is to be expected. I need to adjust the modulation depth resistor but the modulation sounds really good. One of the shape settings gets extremely crazy and choppy almost like a square tremolo so I need to try and spread the range out a little more to get some more subtle sounds out of it. I am still tuning the BBD input resistors. I am not sure if I need them for the MN3205's; they are set at 47K right now and there is no overloading or distortion even with buckers. Ill play around with them a little more this weekend and see if they are necessary. A few things I like about the DBD is the independent preamp adjustment and that you have the option to go completely wet but the ABDX has better modulation controls so it seems like a fair tradeoff.

[midwayfair]

Shiny!

This build went together so smoothly. Easy as pie to build and fired up perfectly the first time.

I hate you.

j/k we're still cool.

[JakeFuzz]

Shiny!

This build went together so smoothly. Easy as pie to build and fired up perfectly the first time.

I hate you.

j/k we're still cool.

Haha, yeah I was surprised when it fired up for the first time TBH. I was expecting to do a whole lot of troubleshooting. Not knowing if the BBD's are bad or the Chinese compander and clock are duds I think there are a lot of places that could go wrong. I just got lucky I think!

[jkokura]

I love the gold knobs Paul. Stellar. So looking forward to finally getting this one going for me.

Jacob

[Bret608]

I agree, this looks awesome. What's the max delay time you get with the MN3205s by the way? Is it in that 300 millisecond kind of range?

[Haberdasher]

love the black and gold, and congrats on your new awesome delay

[JakeFuzz]

I love the gold knobs Paul. Stellar. So looking forward to finally getting this one going for me.

Jacob

Thanks! Do it! This is going to replace a few delays on my board. Ill do a side by side demo maybe this weekend with the DBD to fuel the fire 

I agree, this looks awesome. What's the max delay time you get with the MN3205s by the way? Is it in that 300 millisecond kind of range?

Thanks! The delay time is about 600ms. Ill measure it exactly when I start recording the demo. I have the oscillator minimum frequency trimmer set really low though so that is definitely boosting the allowable delay time at the expense of graininess. It definitely delays longer than my DBD though.

love the black and gold, and congrats on your new awesome delay

Thanks man! Recognize all that red wire? Haha. I am really itching to build the MN3005 version now!

[DutchMF]

Crap, that looks good!! Makes me wanna finish my own....

Paul

[noobtoob]

Spot on with the design choice, I would mistake for a piano at a glance... a very distant piano. For some reason the uber-packed PCB had me stunned, and the wiring is so tight and clean Really awesome build!

[pickdropper]

Cool build, Paul.  Nice to see you posting again.

[jimilee]

Oooooh shiny! I love me some delays

[jprizz]

That looks fantastic. Love the gold knobs with the black. Good to see you posting again too!

[JakeFuzz]

Thanks guys! Trying to get back into the game 

[Haberdasher]

Thanks man! Recognize all that red wire? Haha.

Yes.  Yes I do.

[JakeFuzz]

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/jakefuzz/dbdvsabdx[/soundcloud]

A comparison clip of the MN3005 DBD and the MN3205 ABDX. I know its like apples and oranges at this point but  it is interesting to hear them side by side. They both sound great. The DBD definitely has something special but the ABDX is very cool sounding as well. The ABDX has much brighter repeats and I feel like the dry tone isn't colored at all like the DBD.

Sorry for the playing. This is like the 7th take and it was just getting progressively worse with each clip. I stopped before things got too bad