@Guitarists - Handmade Valve Amps - Your Wishes

[susiwong]

I dont care about being loud, I want the full spectrum of tone and today that does not have to be done at extremely loud volumes...fullness is what matters, not volume.

FWIW it's obvious (and understandable) that you have not tried a weber because why would I waste money to shave a bit off and with the two watt amp bedroom volume is a reality in my house with the weber. My only concern is tube life but with the frenzel using a 12au7 as the power tube I am not losing much sleep over that.

A lot depends on the type of sounds you're going for.
Not caring for high gain so much, the type of poweramp plays a big role for me, EL34, EL84, 6L6, 6V6 configurations, Class A or AB react very different to various guitars and speakers, especially in the grey area between clean and crunch.
That's what I'm missing in DI preamps, and that's where a certain volume is inevitable.
With modern high gain these effects are almost negligible as most of the tone happens before the power amp, I can't imagine anybody playing a 395 or Strategy for their OD characteristics.
Ymmv,
susiwong

[Hink]

that's why I'm waiting to hear more about them...if it they are so good it means I go with one in my 4x12 I can just pop out the speaker next to it, reach in, tweak it, put the othe speaker back in with two screws and repeat as needed...of curse once I button it up I will put 4 screws on the othe speaker. If there's a will there's a way. An open back is still on my wishlist but not high on that list. Much higer on that list (but there are many things higher than this too on that list) is the Weber Mass 150 so I have a better attenuator for my boogie and other higher power amps I might buy or build.



If I made an iso box the way I want I would build it with a removeable top that meshes with the main part of the cab, the same can easily be done with the bottom which would mean I could lower my construction costs and materials need by not needing to kill as much volume with these speakers. If jet City ever releases that iso cab and it doesn't reduce enough volume changing to this might be good so I can still use the weber I have now with my 4x12.

[susiwong]

If I made an iso box the way I want I would build it with a removeable top that meshes with the main part of the cab, the same can easily be done with the bottom which would mean I could lower my construction costs and materials need by not needing to kill as much volume with these speakers. If jet City ever releases that iso cab and it doesn't reduce enough volume changing to this might be good so I can still use the weber I have now with my 4x12.

Seen this vid ?

Not saying it's the only way to go, but Thorn is no fool.
(guess I shouldn't add ymmv here )
Lol,
susiwong

[Hink]

thanx susiwong, that was interesting...believe it or not I was thinking about such insulation but it starts to make me itch just thinking about it I had another crazy thought and just did some searching, quite a bit more expensive (200-250 usd), ballistic gel. You can buy some that you do not have to worry about bacteria growth but I wonder what the life span is of it. Build a box with in a box maybe 3" apart, do the same for a top, pour in the gel and I would think it would do a great job of killing vibrations.

However the fact that I have never heard anyone else trying this makes me think there must be a reason why

[Uncle E]

that's why I'm waiting to hear more about them...if it they are so good it means I go with one in my 4x12 I can just pop out the speaker next to it, reach in, tweak it, put the othe speaker back in with two screws and repeat as needed...

A $600 solution to solve a $100 problem? The Eminence sounds like an awesome option for a 1x12 combo gigging amp but what you're talking about is not that.

[susiwong]

thanx susiwong, that was interesting...believe it or not I was thinking about such insulation but it starts to make me itch just thinking about it I had another crazy thought and just did some searching, quite a bit more expensive (200-250 usd), ballistic gel. You can buy some that you do not have to worry about bacteria growth but I wonder what the life span is of it. Build a box with in a box maybe 3" apart, do the same for a top, pour in the gel and I would think it would do a great job of killing vibrations.

However the fact that I have never heard anyone else trying this makes me think there must be a reason why

Not sure about that one ...
If you can make it semi-permanent I'd simply use fine, dry sand - ideal from a soundproofing perspective.
Not for the lid, obviously.
Ymmv,
susiwong

[Hink]

thanx susiwong, that was interesting...believe it or not I was thinking about such insulation but it starts to make me itch just thinking about it I had another crazy thought and just did some searching, quite a bit more expensive (200-250 usd), ballistic gel. You can buy some that you do not have to worry about bacteria growth but I wonder what the life span is of it. Build a box with in a box maybe 3" apart, do the same for a top, pour in the gel and I would think it would do a great job of killing vibrations.

However the fact that I have never heard anyone else trying this makes me think there must be a reason why

Not sure about that one ...
If you can make it semi-permanent I'd simply use fine, dry sand - ideal from a soundproofing perspective.
Not for the lid, obviously.
Ymmv,
susiwong

I actually thought about sand too, but getting the dumptruck through the front door and up the stairs presents some problems. It would certainly be semi-permanent but at least on casters of course. I saved that video for the source of the insulation he talked about so thanks for that.

[susiwong]

getting the dumptruck through the front door and up the stairs presents some problems.

Don't be so lazy ...

Seriously, how many buckets will you need ?
Five ? Six ?
Anything more and you should reread my souterrain definition !
Lol,
susiwong

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Hink could you not simply mod the back of the 4x12" you already have so that you can have removable panels? All it will take is sawing the back panel into however many sections you would like, a drill and however many of the type of eyelet or whatever they are called things that the screws go into plus if you want it to look 'finished' exta tolex to cover the now bare section top and bottoms you have cut (worst case recover each panel). You could have it done in a half a day or whatever amount time at your own leisure. Then + Eminince FDM speakers & Weber attenuator = A modular closed/half-open/fully open or anything in-between backed setup/easy access to the backs of the speakers to twiddle the control with all the attentuation options that you have currently used fully...until ISO cab?

Just a thought dude and in theory it should work just fine and you get chance to get your metal ruler, power tools...etc. out

That is my plan anyway for doing a cheap version of an open backed 2x12" unless i found one cheap like susiwong's latest (which was/is a total steal!)

[Hink]

Hink could you not simply mod the back of the 4x12" you already have so that you can have removable panels? All it will take is sawing the back panel into however many sections you would like, a drill and however many of the type of eyelet or whatever they are called things that the screws go into plus if you want it to look 'finished' exta tolex to cover the now bare section top and bottoms you have cut (worst case recover each panel). You could have it done in a half a day or whatever amount time at your own leisure. Then + Eminince FDM speakers & Weber attenuator = A modular closed/half-open/fully open or anything in-between backed setup/easy access to the backs of the speakers to twiddle the control with all the attentuation options that you have currently used fully...until ISO cab?

Just a thought dude and in theory it should work just fine and you get chance to get your metal ruler, power tools...etc. out

That is my plan anyway for doing a cheap version of an open backed 2x12" unless i found one cheap like susiwong's latest (which was/is a total steal!)

I actually thought about that because I don't really care about the cab, it's on old crate but one day my old boss told me to trash an old Fender 4x12 we had that was just pives of plywood and four well preserved vintage celestion G35s. I swapped the speakers out with this cheap cab we had, sold it to my alter ego (Roland Dube) for a really low price, took the verbal lashing from my boss for selling the crate cab at next to nothing...so the cab doesn't matter much

But then I just discovered something that I need to look into more before I say anything, obviously a solution for several things that has been around for a while but I never heard of. It still wont replace my desire for an iso cab because the isolation is probably about 40% of my reason for wanting one. The other 60% (may even be more than that) is keeping the noise out heyah and from gettin in theyah.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Right well if the looking into ting is fruitful i trust we shall hear about it

[susiwong]

Hink could you not simply mod the back of the 4x12" you already have so that you can have removable panels? All it will take is sawing the back panel into however many sections you would like, a drill and however many of the type of eyelet or whatever they are called things that the screws go into plus if you want it to look 'finished' exta tolex to cover the now bare section top and bottoms you have cut (worst case recover each panel). You could have it done in a half a day or whatever amount time at your own leisure. Then + Eminince FDM speakers & Weber attenuator = A modular closed/half-open/fully open or anything in-between backed setup/easy access to the backs of the speakers to twiddle the control with all the attentuation options that you have currently used fully...until ISO cab?

Just a thought dude and in theory it should work just fine and you get chance to get your metal ruler, power tools...etc. out

That is my plan anyway for doing a cheap version of an open backed 2x12" unless i found one cheap like susiwong's latest (which was/is a total steal!)

Hey, if you want to put in these Eminence speakers, ask Dirk @ Tubetown, he carries Eminence and might give you a package deal.
The cab's €89 new, incl. tax !

Tubetown 212
The cab's perfect as is, the speakers that came with mine (Private Jack and Legend) are allright but nothing special.
Another option :
Palmer make 112 cabs including a Reignmaker @ €249 street , they'll certainly be able to fit a Reignmaker and a Maverick into one of their 212s at a competitive price, don't know who carries them in UK.

just saying,
susiwtf

[lfm]

Very mixed expectations in this thread and we will see when specs arrive what this amp can be used for.

If 7W/3W it's for nothing but recording and 2x12" cabinets or onboard reverbtank are not needed. You easily add this later and get much better quality doing this.

A 1x10" speaker would do the job, I'm sure. So being able to mix a direct output signal and a miked signal would be nice.

And how high is demand for a handbuilt pure recording amp?
It all boils down to this really.

And there are a number of DIY-kits to. When building around 5W stuff you don't need so much equipment. Voltages are handled by any multimeter.

When up to 50W you have anode voltages of 400V or so and start to get dangerous to work with as well. Big capacitors in this range are expensive etc.

I think a clever way to handle this is to make preamp and all controls and optional tiny power amp(class A) with power soak(resistor+coil) is useful as it is. And if having a separate power amp module to add with speaker cabinet useful for rehearsal/clubs use it would be very versatile.

Having the power module separate this opens up for different solutions based on different tubes - if wanting marshall or fender kind of solution. You can switch power amp and even having multiple power stages with optional switching between in realtime.

I saw one type of amp that was rackmounted and you could do these things, just switch plugin module.

Will be intresting to see what Klaus comes up with.

[Hink]

And how high is demand for a handbuilt pure recording amp?
It all boils down to this really.

extremely high but there are several options already available and I have one of them (315 dollars total with the cost of shipping, two watts and 100% handwired). Class A is huge, lower power is great however there are ways to do the same thing to to larger amps on the cheap with little to no mods and no experience needed (no permanent mods). One can turn just about any tube amp into a clsaas A amp, in fact you can make a 50 watt tube amp class A and 16 watts or 9 watts in minutes and very in expensive.

If you have not tried a low wattage recording amp you have no idea what you are missing, I think it's the way of the future and for reasons already mentioned in this thread a way to go without having to compromise such as with sims. 315 dollars may not give you a zillion models like a sim does but you will get all the tone you could ask for, if you go with say the rock block you can change out the tubes for different sounds.

And there are a number of DIY-kits to. When building around 5W stuff you don't need so much equipment. Voltages are handled by any multimeter.

absolutely, but do not mistake low wattage with low voltage. You can get faux tube pre-amps that stick a single pre-amp tube in there mostly for show and so they can say it's a tube amp when in fact it's low voltage and the tube sound is really not there (often only 9 -18 volt). My Frenzel is by no means a low voltage amp but it is only two watts.

However like I said do not mistake low wattage for low voltage, building a low wattage amp like say the 18 watt Marshall kit that is available is not like putting together a model airplane and not 'paint by numbers' as I have heard some call it. Many of these amps do not come with build instructions and you will need to know how to read a schematic, your soldering skills need to be very good, you'll need to know how to bias the amp (not that hard), you need to know what you are doing and you have to keep in mind that the caps will store enough juice to kill you even when unplugged.

The kits are not cheap and if you do not what you are doing it's best to leave them alone and buy a blackstar or similar.

[lfm]

If you have not tried a low wattage recording amp you have no idea what you are missing, I think it's the way of the future and for reasons already mentioned in this thread a way to go without having to compromise such as with sims. 315 dollars may not give you a zillion models like a sim does but you will get all the tone you could ask for, if you go with say the rock block you can change out the tubes for different sounds.

I tried Izotope Trash and tried to get that doing what I wanted, but did not quite get there. The phattening of sound that occur with tubes is not there with a pure DI-box.

Then added Damage Control Womanizer which is a true twin tube pedal with many interesting options.

This was a big improvement and could combine with cabinet simulations in Trash.

But in the end I got a Koch Studiotone which is what I intend to discover together with Womanizer and other pedals too.

But it would be interesting as always to have more options for every possible situation if Klaus comes with an interesting amp that is not too expensive. Guitarplayers search is neverending.