Valve Amp project

FenderBender

I have decided to build a valve amp head!

I was thinking along the lines of a Marshall JMP as a spinoff, although some feedback from the tone gurus would help a lot. The idea is to stay away from complicated transistorised switching and clamping circuits, although I plan to use a solid state rectifier for the tube voltages and stay away from tube rectifiers. I cannot afford reverb at this stage, but was thinking of a headphone output, line out with speaker sim and a built in Tube Tamer as options.

Any ideas peeps?

matta

Hey Graeme,

Why not build an 18 Watter?

There are so many derivatives, many focus on the 'classic' 18 Watter / BluesBreaker, 18W is alot load of power! There is some great info over @ www.18watt.com. If you want to lighten the load a bit I found this awesome PCB kit for one here: http://www.ironsounds.com/, an 18W, EL84 Marshall type amp with a single input, tone and volume control, the PCB (thick gold plated, silkscreened) and ALL onboard parts is on special for $99!!! Just need transformers/valves/chassis/cabinet ?

You can of course go the whole P2P route, there are a bunch of kits out there which do help with sourcing parts/time etc, Mojo do one, Amp maker in the UK, Weber etc.

Cheers

Matt

Heath

How about a nice preamp to record with ..... Or run into an existing amp .....

FenderBender

Great ideas Matt. Thanks. I'll take look at 18watt. The Ironsounds amp looks great, but half the reason for building is being able to tweak the thing a bit.

@Tailon: That would be part of the exercise as I plan to use two separate boards.

I'll let you know what design I decide on later ?

Manfred-Klose

What about the AX84 project?

http://www.ax84.com/classicprojects.html
You get all the info you need.

MikeM

If anyone hits the Ironsounds thing, let me know, we can share shipping ?

TomCat

Hey Graeme...Sounds exciting....go for it

My project is taking shape nicely..all P2P stuff and is great fun. I must say that building your own amplifier from scratch is very rewarding and one learns a stack along the way... ? ?

I presume that your amp will be a push-pull design.....

FenderBender

@Manny: The AX84 looks great and yes, you are right when you say they give you all the info you need. I like the simple class A design and the levels are great for home playing. I'd also like something that I can hook onto Tube Tamer with all controls on full ?

@Tom: At this rate I'll probably be building two amps. One class A combo and one 120W head with 4x 6L6GC tubes in push pull. Preamp wise, I still need to do a bit of research. I'm thinking of a 3 channel amp for the big boy (clean/rhythm/lead) and a cleanish, but detailed Voxy setup for the small boy. Maybe a mini 5W Tube Tamer built into the small amp too as 5W can still upset the old toppie next door ?

Gearhead

Graeme Parfett wrote I plan to use a solid state rectifier for the tube voltages and stay away from tube rectifiers.
{...}
Any ideas peeps?

Well, just to use tube rectification ?

But seriously: why the sand? You play metal and don't like sag? If you have a good reason, I would like to understand it.

FenderBender

Gearhead wrote why the sand?

Simply a cost issue. I'm building a large amp primarily for demonstrating Tube Tamer, as I believe larger amps are capable of more interesting dynamics. The power valves are gonna work hard anyway, but I don't mind replacing a few 1N4007s a few times a year ?

You play metal

Nope

and don't like sag?

Sag is great but I'll slap an inline resistor in the B+ supply and switch it in when I want some sag ?