low voltage tubes (space charge, etc.) for guitar amp?

[needtubes]

A friend of mine who plays guitar wants to take advantage of my electronics knowledge and have me build him an amp and speaker combo. I told him I'd think about it... I can come up with the right speakers to use, probably. For the amp, I was thinking of an inverted gainclone with a tube input stage. However, I don't want to mess with separate expensive power supplies (this is to be done on a budget...) so I thought to use the nice low voltage tubes. I was thinking 12DL8s since they already have quite a bit of distortion... perhaps 12AE6... what are some thoughts on this?

Thanks

[Colt45]

a pair of 6L6s and a few 12AX7's, forget SS or low volt stuff :P

[needtubes]

true, true...

[Colt45]

or you could go for countless cheapie pentodes, that most people wont use for hi-fi but would be ok for guitar

if price is an issue. tons of cheap stuff that will work fine.

[Brett]

Originally posted by Colt45
a pair of 6L6s and a few 12AX7's, forget SS or low volt stuff :P

Yep.

With geetar amps, you're looking for a specific set of tones, and it's not that easy to do. Either do it all tube, and copy a known design, or use the IGC and some sort of FET preamp stage, perhaps barstardising Pass designs to get the result you're looking for.

If this is for a pignose type personal practice amp, just use opamps.