Anyone on here built their own amp?

[Jon the Art Guy]

This is a little off-topic for effects pedals, but I was curious, since there seems to be more than just the beginner here, if anyone's taken on a tube amp project? Or valve...British.

It's funny, I was intent on building a tube amp before I got into pedals, but my life right now completely precludes an amp with more than, oh, 1/2w of output. I've found several neat 12v-24v projects, as well as the old standard Fender, Vox, etc schematics, and I'd like to hear people's opinions on stepping up to amplification.

[Milkit]

I have from a kit & instructions. Made the Ampmsker SE-5A & PP-18. The latter is the head I use for rehearsals. They're really excellent quality & the website is very worthy of a peruse.

[dexxyy]

I`ve built an ampmaker se5 (a great place to start, ideal first build) and also a pp18, ear bleedingly loud. I`ve also modded loads of epi jnr`s, benton ga5`s and repaired a few other valve amps. I`m currently accumulating the parts for an AC30 build, will probably end up costing as much as buying one but a lot more fun building it. I can also buy bits at a time then someone (coughthewifecough) wont find out the real cost  

[Jon the Art Guy]

I looked up the Ampmaker stuff and it seems like a nice, tidy setup. I'm not sure how rough it would be to get it sent here to the USA though. AX84 has a few amp kits that are pretty widely regarded as good too.

Sopht amps is one that I've really been interested in. They have several designs for 12v amps, hybrid tube Ruby amp, a 24v and a 40v setup. They go back a while, and I'm pretty sure they stopped updating at least 5 years ago.

http://www.freewebs.com/cameramanlink/electronicsprojects.htm

This page has a bunch of small volt tube projects. a BUNCH.

[jalmonsalmon]

 I am going to make a JTM50 from Ceriatone and just get a few parts at a time starting with the turret board and passives and accumulate parts slowly so someone does not know the cost as well!
  I got distracted from amp making due to this site with all the pedals and need to get back on track

[Goran]

My first posting here, but have built a whole  lot of pedals from the blog. It´s great!
Anyway I´ve built a clone of a Gibson GA-5, turned out to be a great amp. The problem is not the electronics but the chassis and wooden cabinet, that´s wahat takes time.

[erichoh]

I've built 4 so far.  It's funny cause years ago I got into pedal building then got into amp building and now I'm back to pedals again.  I mean, I can build about 100 pedals for the price of building 1 tube amp and it's way quicker.  I started out with a Marshall 18watt kit from Weber and then went on to sourcing my own parts and all that and built a Princeton, tweed Bandmaster, Lightning 15, and a 100 watt Super Lead with the Dave Friedman brown eye mods.  Really fun and if it's something you'd be interested in check out www.ampgarage.com   Crazy knowledgeable people on there that have always been very helpful to me in the past.  Also check out http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/ for a good basic understanding of how tubes work.  

Tube amps are obviously more complicated and there's a good amount of danger but really rewarding!  And nothing feels better than getting a compliment after a show on how good your gear sounds and you can reply,"Yeah I build it all."

[Jon Rep]

I at the time did not have the confidence to build a amp but ended up getting Nick Azam from Ceriatone to build  1. A Fender Bassman clone 5F6.  2. A Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3 clone. 3. 18watt Marshall TMB clone. I have had these amps for four years without any problems and can highly recommend Ceriatone and Nick for Good Honest Service.  I use a mixture of Celestion Greenbacks and Celestion Blue Speakers and am happy with the sound quality but I don't play professionally just at home.  

[mirosol]

Some time ago, i built Madamp G2 kit from musikding. Was really surprised how good it sounds...
m

[dodido]

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[Jon the Art Guy]

it's funny because this is exactly what I'm doing, only it'll end up coming out of a P.A. system instead of a cheap amp. It'll be coming out of a cheap amp until I get a rack time-based effect box for reverb and delay.

I have a 4 year old and a near-2 year old, neither in school, or in daycare as we can't afford it. As much as I'd like to have real tubey goodness, I'll have to settle with faking it with a tube mic-pre from these cobbled-together pedals.

[dodido]

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[Jon the Art Guy]

That's one of the pedals I'm aiming for after this first run of pedals.  I've heard nothing but the best for it,  and similar opinionson everything on ROG.  I should just get the BOMs and build with protoboard.