Anybody here build their own amp?

  • Thread starter Thread starter metalhead28
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Metalhead28,

Building tube amps is fun but a word of caution. "Tube Amps contain high voltage that can harm or kill you". Take every precaution and always use the one hand approach. One hand probing the amp and the other in your back pocket when working on live amps. The build process is fun and sometimes a pain if you don't plan things out. I've built a few amps and enjoy it very much. The 18W and AX84 are excellent projects with many flavors as you have probably read in the forums. I've built some 18W style amps on up to 50W. You'll find out soon enough what kind of pain it will be when voicing your amp to what you want....LOL It's a process but once you have it nailed it will be a sweet sounding amp!!
 
homemade tube amp

i Just bought a hand-wired 5watt combo from someone today.

I was looking for a $150 amp, and this odd looking one came about, seller brought it to the garage and it was really clean, then the tone knobs had a drastic effect of tones nice, big tone range. the full volume was pretty distorted in the upper range 5 to Full, I prefer clean so around 4 is clean but lower volume it was clean.

one input has a 12Ax7 and the other input a 12AU7...output the El74.
In 1 was much more treble prone and Strat like...In 2 seemed to have the treble way down but pleasent to my ears anyway. Clever to have a different pre-tube for inputs (or so I assume? maybe I'm wrong about the dual pre-amp? it has two tubes? and one EL74 output I assume.)


Sounded cool and looked boutique like, but in the $150 range. I had to do it.

Speaker is a 90watt Black Shadow Mesa Engineering says built special for Mesa Boogie....seems alright. It'd be fun to swap a few too.

I jammed an hour or so and had to open it up for some pics.
:D time to lay down some tracks..and trying to search who built it and if there's some drawings somewhere?
 

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easy, not easy

metalhead28 said:
Thanks alot for the input guys. Yeah, when I said it looks easy....I didn't exactly mean EASY easy. Just not as hard as I would have thought.

I'll definitely start with one of the kits. I'm probably going to buy the "High Ocatne" kit from AX84. Not only is the documentation there pretty good, I've also found a few sites where people have documented their own builds very thoroughly...lots of pictures!

I'm a detailed kind of guy, so I expect I could really get into this sort of thing. I'll keep you guys posted.
Click to expand...

yes every now and then I get close, a guy at work can do this and has done it...but I think it seems easy as in quantity of parts, and then the electronics an schematics seem straightforward (using a pre-made schematic)....

but to actually start gathering parts and laying it out and then getting a decent box and knobs.......not easy, imo. time consuming.

but how awesome to light it up .no doubt.
 
COOLCAT,

Nice score on that little amp! A bit of a birds nest but i'm sure you have some ideas about cleaining it up.

DS
 
I don't know much about tube amps, but I can follow a schematic.
No design experience at all, currents and voltages etc...etc.....

I think I'm wrong on my comment, the extra 12au7 is probably a "driver" tube a few friends said., not a dual preamp design...(although that idea was interesting). Its an EL84 output tube, not 74.

I think the inputs have different impedance? but it makes different tones really noticeable!

Something to think about if building an amp....pretty nice to have two "different toned" channels.


Been thinking about pulling it out of the cab and drawing a rough schematic again.

birds nest...haha..no doubt about that!
 
Last edited:
drumslinger said:
Metalhead28,

Building tube amps is fun but a word of caution. "Tube Amps contain high voltage that can harm or kill you". Take every precaution and always use the one hand approach. One hand probing the amp and the other in your back pocket when working on live amps. The build process is fun and sometimes a pain if you don't plan things out. I've built a few amps and enjoy it very much. The 18W and AX84 are excellent projects with many flavors as you have probably read in the forums. I've built some 18W style amps on up to 50W. You'll find out soon enough what kind of pain it will be when voicing your amp to what you want....LOL It's a process but once you have it nailed it will be a sweet sounding amp!!
Click to expand...

I was just reading a bit about the homemade tube amps and looking at this 5watt and i seer the 12AX7 tubes are used in the high power amps...and I see the EL84 is used in high powered amps too....

so a dumb question?

Is it the power supply then, that determines the output wattage?

In other words if this little 5 watt had a larger power supply would it become a higher wattage amp?

the builder, of my 5 watt is unknown, there is something scribbled on it "vox?" and there is a decal on the front says SE7...so I read up thats probably Single Ended .....but what does 7 possibly mean?

then I started looking at all the schematics online and got to wondering what makes one amp a 5wat and another a 18 or 50 watt if the same tubes are used?

there I asked the same question three different ways....:confused:
 
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