Muntz,
Ha..ha..ha..
Wasn't that the company that built TVs with a design philosophy that when you had something that worked, you started removing components until something didn't work, then add the last removed part and call the design complete.
That's the one. Mad Man Muntz was a used car salesman in NYC. He, and later his engineer, decided that all those parts weren't needed in areas where you could see the transmitting tower. Everything in the TV ran at or above its maximum ratings. Muntz TV's didn't work well here in Florida where the signals were weak and the high ambient temperature caused meltdown.
Galvanized chassis are easy, just visit a friendly sheet metal shop. Lots of HVAC metal bashers around. Talk real nice to them and they could shear off a piece of scrap and mack a few simple bends to make a chassis with open sides and a lid.
I have the tubes sticking out the back and the transformers inside but have made other with the transformers and tubes on top. Picture of an amp almost finished but put aside for some dumb challenge, foreground of a project that pushed aside the $100 project. Oh look, another shiny object over there. No wonder I have trouble finishing projects.
Not sure what to work on tonight, Box guitar, or $100 buck amp. Tough choice.
I have the tubes sticking out the back and the transformers inside but have made other with the transformers and tubes on top. Picture of an amp almost finished but put aside for some dumb challenge, foreground of a project that pushed aside the $100 project. Oh look, another shiny object over there. No wonder I have trouble finishing projects.
Not sure what to work on tonight, Box guitar, or $100 buck amp. Tough choice.
Virgin neck, last night was a square, today it has curves.Hey! Don't be showing us cigar porn - not fair.
I know what you mean. I have been working on a little guitar project of my own for like 2 years now. I cheated and bought a Fender replacement neck though.
I have several unfinished projects and I just couldn't stop myself from typing the two words that started this little diversion. At my last count I have spent over $800 to build a "$100 amp". As of yesterday I didn't have anything that even remotely sounded like a guitar amp. Today I went back to Amp 1.0 and Muntzed it. I removed the PI and second gain stage. So now the 5 tube amp has 3 tubes. It only makes 2 watts but it almost sounds decent.
Testing today and yesterday has been limited due to the numerous power interruptions caused by the proximity of tropical storm Brett.
I've stripped everything back to the three tube PP amp.
BOM looks like $96 and change.
Sound was flabby till I realized I had put 0.15uF caps in the final stage and was bordering on farting out.
22nF sounds way better.
Now to get a friend who can play guitar to come over and record a demo and I'm set.
I got a Shure SM11 lapel mic and a FP12 headphone bridging amp playing into Gold wave for digitizing the recording. I did a test run with me plinking a few chords, and burned the recording to cd. Playing the CD though the stereo in the garage sounds way better than the computer speakers at my desk.
It sounds way better than the over driven recordings I did previously with a Nikon Coolpix.
BOM looks like $96 and change.
Sound was flabby till I realized I had put 0.15uF caps in the final stage and was bordering on farting out.
22nF sounds way better.
Now to get a friend who can play guitar to come over and record a demo and I'm set.
I got a Shure SM11 lapel mic and a FP12 headphone bridging amp playing into Gold wave for digitizing the recording. I did a test run with me plinking a few chords, and burned the recording to cd. Playing the CD though the stereo in the garage sounds way better than the computer speakers at my desk.
It sounds way better than the over driven recordings I did previously with a Nikon Coolpix.
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There has been some discussion here about speaker cabinets. I offered to share the information about my speaker cabinet experiments, but the chances of me stumbling across something useful within the time frame of this challenge are remote at best, since I am way out of my element here. I decided there must be a better way.
I did some Googling in an attempt to find a set of known good cabinet plans that could be built by a rookie with a jig saw and a circular saw. There are very few cabinet plans out there that can be had for free.
The AX84 site has one set of plans. It is for a single 12 inch speaker. The design is said to be relatively tolerant of driver changes. There is a discussion on the site between the AX84 people and the cabinet designer. The cabinet seems to be well thought out by someone who understands speaker cabinet design, plays guitar, and is a member of this forum. I decided to build one of them exactly as it is drawn. I will use the budget Eminence speaker mentioned in post #414 by member Trout.
It could be built with simple tools, but I have a table saw, drill press, router and everything else needed to make speaker cabinets. Construction started tonight.
http://www.ax84.com./corecabinets.html
This might help a bit?
Vintage Guitars Collector - Fender collecting vintage guitars fender, stratocaster, strat, telecaster, tele
It seems to me that we have all the well known production models with their well known sound and generally the parts that go into them are also known. I've brought up Weber several times because many claim that their versions of the well known Jensen and Celestion speakers sound better than the reissues.
Vintage Guitars Collector - Fender collecting vintage guitars fender, stratocaster, strat, telecaster, tele
It seems to me that we have all the well known production models with their well known sound and generally the parts that go into them are also known. I've brought up Weber several times because many claim that their versions of the well known Jensen and Celestion speakers sound better than the reissues.
Gday Guy's,
Just uploaded Test 2 of "The Iron Maiden" 5 Watt amp i'm building.
More to do yet but it has improved in some area's & lost a little in others but I'll keep at it.
I fumbled around on the guitar & played some a little clean & some a little mean to give you an idea. The mic picked up a little noise in the quieter stuff.
Sorry for the crap playing once again.
When I finish the amp I'll play a song right through & bore the begeesus out of ya Hahaha!
Here's the link:
The Iron Maiden Test 2 - YouTube
Cheers
Just uploaded Test 2 of "The Iron Maiden" 5 Watt amp i'm building.
More to do yet but it has improved in some area's & lost a little in others but I'll keep at it.
I fumbled around on the guitar & played some a little clean & some a little mean to give you an idea. The mic picked up a little noise in the quieter stuff.
Sorry for the crap playing once again.
When I finish the amp I'll play a song right through & bore the begeesus out of ya Hahaha!
Here's the link:
The Iron Maiden Test 2 - YouTube
Cheers
I've been playing with a couple of drivers and cabinets. I bought a Jensen C12R that I've been playing with in my test cabinet. I also have a Hot Rod Deluxe that is marked "Eminence for Fender" but for all the world looks like a Jensen C12N ;-)
I noticed that the HRD cab had way more bite and body at any volume level. It was also way more efficient, producing I'd guess at least 6dB more volume at the same setting. What? The carpeteen and 200 Hz tuning on my box can't be responsible for that much difference...
With the C12R in my cab, I preferred the sound with the back off. It sounded a little too muffled with the back on. With the Eminender driver in the HRD cab, I preferred the back on. It added some necessary control.
So I found out that the amp chassis needs to be removed from the HRD to get the driver out :-( but doing so was an eye opener. The "Eminence" Fender driver in my cab sounds almost the same as it does in the HRD cab. Bite and body. I also prefer the back on my cab with the Eminender. It's the same control effect I liked with the HRD cab.
Bloody hell! I knew the driver made a difference, but it's almost like the cab is second order. Also different drivers like different cab configurations. I wonder how a sealed cab would act with the different drivers.
So now I'm hot to try an Alnico speaker... Any recommendations for a 12" Alnico 25W or better for under $200?
Yes, if I were a pro I would try different drivers and different cabs and choose the best one for my amp. There's always a winning combo and it makes a difference. Difference can be as big as from merely good to F****** awesome. So I guess it's worth the trouble and expense. I used to buy amps so I have different cabs to choose from: ported, closed and semi-opened. Frankly, every amp and speaker likes a different one so you never know for sure which one is the best. I like the open back because of 3D effects and because it sounds louder, the ported cab goes great with my SS amp: more body to the sound and cleaner sounding. I'm not a big fan of closed cabs.
All this stuff tends to bore me though and am glad I'm not in the business of making guitar amps. I much prefer to be on the right vibe for playing and forget about the rest. If I had to make my own cab I'll probably end up with something like this:
Spanish alert but the pics tell the whole story:
Ver Tema - Caja 1X15" en 45 minutos | Guitarrista
Now that's "cajones"!
Hmm I almost forgot about those Altec 421 15" I have sitting on the shelf...
Sounds good but is that a humbucker? Sounds fat but then some guitars just sound like that, the amazing thing about the Valco video is that the guy was playing a strat! The saturated tone of your amp is OK, not great. You'll have to improve it if you want my vote.
Gday Cassiel,
Your comments are good, thanks for that.
It's just a matter of changing the tone settings really, the trouble is to record all the different tones & sounds from adjusting the settings makes for a very long video clip.
Music is a personal taste thing of course, personally I thought the Valco video sounded awful, cheap old time sound with no character, mass produced & under designed, but that's my taste of course.
Not sure why anyone would want to sound like that, some people like Frank Sinatra, others like Led Zepplin?
That's why you can't judge a challenge like this, what sounds good to some sounds awful to others.
Yeah Humbuckers of course, don't like the sound of single coil mass produced guitars, cheap & nasty stuff, especially Fender copies, a real one hasn't been made since 1967 when the company was sold, again personal taste.
The guitar I use is one of my handcrafted guitars.
I build handcrafted valve amps as well.
I'll attach some pictures of my guitars.
Now, back to work on my little amp!
Cheers