I have just been building a guitar amp for a friend (yay for paid work!)
It uses the chassis and transformers from an old PA amp, and tube complement is 2x 6V6, 3x 12AX7 and a 5U4.
The output stage is the simple, yet great sounding Fender 5E3 Deluxe as seen here
It is one of the classic blues amps, and still has a fair amount of clean headroom despite only having ~12W. The power tube distortion is nice and smooth, especially with the old RCA VT-107 tubes.
The preamp is a little more complex, I used a design with adjustable gain, so you can get preamp overdrive at low volume, and with a 3 band eq and line level out it is useful for recording to a computer etc. There is a "clean" input and a "dirty" input with an extra triode stage. Lots of versatility! Also it can add a bit of cool "analogue" feel to anything you put through it, say synths or what have you. Schematic
The input to the power amp is taken from the grid on the last triode stage of the preamp. There is still ample gain. With the preamp and the power amp driven into distortion, this thing is wild.
It looks a bit beat up and grungy, but that is what the guy wanted, I think it looks cool! There is also a cage which fits over the top. All it needs now are some classic knobs and a nice 12" 100dB guitar speaker!
A pic:
It uses the chassis and transformers from an old PA amp, and tube complement is 2x 6V6, 3x 12AX7 and a 5U4.
The output stage is the simple, yet great sounding Fender 5E3 Deluxe as seen here
It is one of the classic blues amps, and still has a fair amount of clean headroom despite only having ~12W. The power tube distortion is nice and smooth, especially with the old RCA VT-107 tubes.
The preamp is a little more complex, I used a design with adjustable gain, so you can get preamp overdrive at low volume, and with a 3 band eq and line level out it is useful for recording to a computer etc. There is a "clean" input and a "dirty" input with an extra triode stage. Lots of versatility! Also it can add a bit of cool "analogue" feel to anything you put through it, say synths or what have you. Schematic
The input to the power amp is taken from the grid on the last triode stage of the preamp. There is still ample gain. With the preamp and the power amp driven into distortion, this thing is wild.
It looks a bit beat up and grungy, but that is what the guy wanted, I think it looks cool! There is also a cage which fits over the top. All it needs now are some classic knobs and a nice 12" 100dB guitar speaker!
A pic:
Attachments
Cool. I've just been commissioned to make a couple of guitar amps. I'm breadboarding up a whole bunch of input channels and a couple of poweramps so we can play around with the sound to make exactly what he wants. The descriptions so far are too vague for me to know what he's looking for. He's doing all the cabinetry once the design is finalised.
The Fender poweramp you based your amp on looks like a classic hifi design w/o the NFB.
The Fender poweramp you based your amp on looks like a classic hifi design w/o the NFB.
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