Home made tube amps

[Antoni D]

Hello Amp builders,
I come from Poland where back in 70s. and 80s. I used to play with variety of bands. Being a guitar player at those times meant that the best way to get your hands on the amp head or combo, was to find a guy who was studying electronics at the local university, and ask the guy to build an amp for you.

That was the cheapest way to do it. These guys because of the nature of their studies had access to the lab, all the necessary parts, and testing equipment. They were using Polish tubes, and all the other parts were Polish too.

Some of these amps sounded very good, but kept blowing all the time. Bum! Lotsa black smoke coming out of there, nasty smell too. One never knew when it's gonna blow. But sometimes they got it right, the sound was cool, and the amp was reliable.

And of course it wasn't expensive, because they were using parts from the lab. I miss those times, and those home made, unique sounding amps. I wonder if among you guys is the amp builder who lives in Vancouver BC. Someone who would be willing to build an amp for me and not charge arm and leg for it.

Please let me know.

Antoni

[Bas Horneman]

Not sure if Dave Dlugos (a forum moderator) builds custom amps. I am pretty sure there are quite a few area in your neck of the woods.

[tinitus]

how about this one

ecp.cc

[brucetassin]

search the web, find a kit you like, buy it then send it to me and i will build it for you for FREE.

[payitforwardeddie]

My wife and I wanted to emigrate to Vancouver back in the early 80s. Never made it. Could have built your amp for you. Bugger! (Langley or Surrey looked good. Are they?)


PS The offer above looks good.

[Enzo]

What is your goal, to have a home built amp? Or to have a working guitar amp for not much money? Times have changed in the last 30-40 years. There are a LOT of perfectly good used amps on the market, and unless you find someone to volunteer to work cheap, a used amp would probably be your least expensive option.

And if amps in the old days burned up a lot it was probably vecause they were not fully designed. A used commercial guitar amp has the added advantage of probably being a proven design that will work reliably. And if you ever need service, it will not be difficult at all to find someone to service an old Fender or Peavey amplifier. If you walk into a repair shop with a one of a kind home built from somewher else, they may not want to work on it.

Just my opinion.

[Geek]

Hi,

I live in Chilliwack and do custom amps for reasonable.

Contact me at geek@NOSPAMclassicvalve.ca (removing the obvious)

Cheers!

[planet10]

Originally Posted by Bas Horneman

Not sure if Dave Dlugos (a forum moderator) builds custom amps.

Originally Posted by Geek

I live in Chilliwack and do custom amps for reasonable.

Gregg the Geek built my amp. It was the prtotype for the DynaMutt.

He is good at MI amps too.

Recommended.

dave

[planet10]

Originally Posted by payitforwardeddie

My wife and I wanted to emigrate to Vancouver back in the early 80s. Never made it. Could have built your amp for you. Bugger! (Langley or Surrey looked good. Are they?)

Cal lives in Surrey. It almost merges with Langley. Having lived in Victoria, i'm spoiled would have trouble living in the big smoke... but everything is relative, visitors comment on how clean & fresh Greater Vancouver are.

Without looking it up in Wikipedia, you can fit something like 6 great Britian into BC, and the whole province has about a 1/5th the population of London, so wide open spaces can be found.

dave