What? You think I was done? I'm just getting warmed up!
Now that I have a vintage Les Paul (copy), I need a vintage tube amp to go with it. Actually it's two pronged. In the late 80's and early 90's I was into LOUD. I have two Fender M80 SS amps that are just way too loud to play in a townhome/shared wall environment. Also, the headbanging days are long gone. Time to mellow out a bit....
I could easily go online o to one of the numerous shops around town and come home with a new (or old) vintage tube amp. But where's the fun in that. While working on the LP project, I started to research DIY tube amps. I found what I think is a great site -
AX84.com - The Cooperative Tube Guitar Amp Project - we will see.
After going over there 4 amp projects, I naturally leaned towards the hardest one. It should give me flexibility in output wattage though and hopefully satisfy the quite needs as well as being able to produce enough power to gig with - not that I plan on it.
I'm hoping that in the low end configuration, I get between 3-5 watts. More than enough for plugging in around neighbors.
I plan on building the amp first, then build enclosures. Unless someone can talk me out of it, I am planning to build the amp as a head and a separate speaker (1x) enclosure. In my head, I am toying with making the head unit out of solid old growth walnut and the speaker enclosure will be plywood covered in tweed.
I am always looking for suggestions, help...
Without further adieu.... The first pic to get us started..
Excluding the 3 tubes, $30 in parts. Various capacitors, resistors, pots...
I ordered the two transformers I needed online and they should arrive end of week or early next week. I still need 4 resistors and one cap I could not source at the first local store. Off to find them tomorrow.
This project will no be as fast paced as the LP project, but it should not take very long.