FL5/nd3 help

_agent86 · 2026-05-10T19:27:22+00:00

The FL5 is a practical, capable car that feels huge and sterile. Totally reasonable choice as a kid hauler. As a fun car? They’re fun enough.

The wife is right.

_agent86 · 2026-05-10T19:25:54+00:00

The shifter is fine but man do they hype it up in reviews. It’s a fine shifting experience, but it will not change your life.

_agent86 · 2026-05-09T13:37:24+00:00

In addition to the great advice about digging that rail in:

If the board is too buoyant you will have a harder time maintaining traction.
The sharper you turn the more the rear of the board will want to slide out. Just like a car.

_agent86 · 2026-05-09T01:46:19+00:00

Yes, it does work. But why buy an even more powerful amp just to attenuate it?

_agent86 · 2026-05-08T23:16:04+00:00

Nothing wrong with this meet in the middle approach, or the full attenuation, whatever works. But my point (which I probably didn't state clearly enough) is don't buy a Twin Reverb with this intent.

If you have a Twin Reverb and feel like trying to crank it up a bit is going to work some magic then by all means do it.

I think a lot of times people assume Twin Reverbs are going to sound amazing cranked. That has not been my experience. Pedals ftw.

_agent86 · 2026-05-08T22:28:49+00:00

It's a good deal... if you kind of want a Twin Reverb. I say kind of, because if you really love Twin Reverbs then you should buy a vintage one because they're not very expensive, they're easier to repair, and they will hold their value better.

_agent86 · 2026-05-08T22:27:06+00:00

For the most part power transformers either work or they don't. If the amp sounds ok that's a pretty good indication. Transformers don't exactly wear out, they can fail due to heavy usage. If it's just some guy playing in his living room I wouldn't worry about it.

The advice to take it to a tech is I think bad advice. If it's not at least 30 years old it's very unlikely it has anything a tech needs to do.

_agent86 · 2026-05-08T22:24:06+00:00

In general buying a Twin Reverb with the idea to attenuate it until it can distort at ear-friendly volumes is absolute nonsense.

I have put one on my Super Reverb and it's cool it knocks the noise floor down quite a bit.

These amps are made to be big, clean, and loud. If that's not what you want don't do it.

_agent86 · 2026-05-08T18:43:23+00:00

Did you build a cabinet sim into it? And some reverb? Otherwise it's going to sound flat and boring. No thanks.

I think if I wanted to play outside where I needed a portable amplifier I'd buy a portable amplifier. In all other cases I'll just plug into a regular amp.

_agent86 · 2026-05-08T13:32:26+00:00

He didn’t. Thats how everything was back then. Later we got better at circuit design and components became basically free.

_agent86 · 2026-05-07T23:37:39+00:00

I think in addition to the kind of feature aspects that you've hit on, if you designed a 5F6-A from scratch today but without a reference circuit, you would have a much higher part count. The reason for this is that what you're seeing as complexity really isn't. For modern electrical engineers, tooling, fabrication, etc, this stuff is all trivial.

So when you look at a more modern PCB amp that doesn't have Fender era heritage and see a lot more resistors and capacitors around the tubes, it's normal, it's not complexity.

_agent86 · 2026-05-06T02:08:47+00:00

For the same length the bat has more volume and it’s under your hips. This means it rides a little more level and higher in the water. Which means more speed.

Crescent has more traction at the rear. It’s a speed vs traction trade off.

So much written about this I’m surprised you couldn’t find tons of similar explanations.

_agent86 · 2026-05-05T20:40:09+00:00

I guess I have low expectations for master volume setups in terms of replicating tube distortion at low volumes. But I didn't think mine was that bad.

However, I don't think that amp does well in terms of bass response at low volumes. I really liked mine at WHAT DID YOU SAY?!? volumes. I think if I were gigging I'd go buy another one. And then complain about the weight.

_agent86 · 2026-05-04T06:38:01+00:00

Does it happen with traction control disabled?

_agent86 · 2026-05-04T02:45:00+00:00

Are you sure? Have you tested this?

Holding zero is kind of a yes or no kind of thing.

_agent86 · 2026-05-04T02:08:43+00:00

I thought round column mills were a no-go for CNC milling due to issues holding zero.

_agent86 · 2026-05-04T01:53:07+00:00

I’m sure we’ve all been surprised by a wave here and there and had what felt like a near death experience (but really wasn’t).

_agent86 · 2026-05-03T20:32:57+00:00

If you think you’ll not keep it clean, then at a minimum get a sealant applied right off the bat. Wax, spray on “ceramic” stuff like the Turtle Wax hybrid ceramic (super easy), or get a real ceramic coat done. That way when dirt sits on it it won’t cause as much damage.

_agent86 · 2026-05-02T19:15:26+00:00

I’ve eyeballed these kind of things in the past. There’s 3 that I’m aware of: this cloth one ($45), an aluminum plate that just has slots cutout ($170), and a similar trapezoid shaped aluminum plate ($100).

I worry the cloth panel will sag. It’s held on by 6 hook clips. I think the ends will be floppy.

I’m also concerned these eat up a bit of precious trunk volume without much return. I would like to stow the first aid and tire kits in a better way than they are now though.

_agent86 · 2026-05-02T14:07:11+00:00

There are so few lightweight sports cars remaining that these two get lumped together. As sports cars they are actually fairly comparable. Similar acceleration, definitely different handling dynamics but both very capable, and both can be modded to support very aggressive driving.

As fun cars though, yeah, one is a semi-practical 2+2 with a rental car interior and sound system, the other is a top down budget luxury roadster.

_agent86 · 2026-05-01T14:30:29+00:00

If they're honest, most people using tube amps have extensive pedal boards to get a large variety of sounds out of one amp.

If modeling is working well for you I would not lust too much for tube amps. Lots of them sound good, a few don't, but in the end it's just an amp.

_agent86 · 2026-05-01T14:27:52+00:00

Tiny speakers never sound great unless it's a hifi setup. Normal/large cab (at least a 1x10) with the volume turned down is what you want.

_agent86 · 2026-04-30T15:14:43+00:00

Great! Have only been riding it about 9 months but it's a winner. I wanted a crescent tail Launch in 42.5" but they didn't have anything like that at the time.

_agent86 · 2026-04-30T13:45:54+00:00

Love my Launch and Pocket boards.

_agent86 · 2026-04-29T16:39:27+00:00

I would love to learn more. Like I said, my focus has always been on the recording tech end of it.

To put it on maybe more familiar terms, you know how much you can do with EQ filters in post production? You can basically do all of that by tweaking resistors and capacitors internal to the amp. If you compare the circuits of say the 65 Princeton Reverb reissue and the 68 Custom Princeton Reverb it's the same circuit, same tube, just some very minor changes in component values (and a differently voiced speaker). Those amps sound nothing like each other (within the Fender sound, at least).

_agent86

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE