Electric Guitar Amp Kits - who has them or is considering them?

[Dru Edwards]

Hey, who put together their own electric guitar amp kit or ordered an amp kit, already assembled, from someone? If not, do you think you might want to buy either in the next year or two?

Clintj's thread regarding his amp kit has me curious and making me look into it. Just another form of GAS.

Any small shops we should be looking at?

[virob]

Check out Allen amps. I put together a Sweet Spot, but made my own cabinet. Great amps!

[mlb3164]

TubeDepot makes an excellent kit. There instructions are extremely clear and concise. Recommended.

[Clydeslide]

Considered it, may do it in the future if I crave a Marshall sound.

[muscmp]

i'd love to put one together but i have so many amps that i need to bring up to speed that it is going to be quite a long time. i've been checking all of my amps lately and have already recapped a few and have used a whole can of deoxit on them.

play music!

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by Clydeslide

Considered it, may do it in the future if I crave a Marshall sound.

Me too. I was watching the Hi-Fi channel a couple of weeks ago (free preview) and they discussed Trinity Amps. I think they're based out of Toronto.

[Darwin]

I think this qualifies. It is a Valve Train Amp based on the 55 Fender 5f2 Princeton with an 8 in Webber. I also have the Spring Thing reverb and it is a sweet setup. Very clean to sweet overdrive. I also have the matching Gadow guitar in the same flames to go with it.-- Darwin

[mlb3164]

Darwin.......OMG!!!! WOW

[royd]

I don't know if or what my amp would count as... I started with a silverface champ, removed the main board and caps and replaced them with a complete board from Ceriatone in a larger cab with a 12 inch alnico weber blue dog. So, I still have the original chassis and iron.

The Ceriatone amps and parts are very high quality and cover the whole spectrum of amp types in a variety of levels of completeness. They're worth a look.

[Bob Womack]

I commissioned a custom-built 5E3 Deluxe from Steve at Sligo Amps last November and I'm extremely happy with it. The basis of the amp was a Weber kit with many components upgraded and a custom cab and a Weber 12A125 speaker. I wrote up an extensive review HERE.





It inspired me enough that I'm considering putting together a 5F1 Tweed Champ myself.

Bob

[moon]

I've posted before about making my 5F1 Champ using the WF-55 kit from ampmaker in the UK.

By chance, I bought a new 12AX7 for it on ebay just an hour ago...! I'm curious to see if a Raytheon Black Plate can add a little something.

Really enjoyed making it and would love to build some more. Maybe a Trainwreck Express, or a Marshall 18W 1974x.

If you know how to solder that's about all it takes to build your own little tube amp. It's basically just joining up all the dots with a soldering iron. No electronics expertise required apart from knowing how to work safely.

There is a risk that you could get stuck with a dead amp you don't know how to fix. My own knowledge of amp circuits is pretty limited but that wouldn't put me off building one. If you take care to do good soldering work, and each time double check you're hooking up the right bit to the right other bit, you can pretty much eliminate the risk.

There are some detailed build instructions on the ampmaker website, see link above, which will give you an idea what's involved.

[moon]

tried to edit double posted...

[Clydeslide]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Me too. I was watching the Hi-Fi channel a couple of weeks ago (free preview) and they discussed Trinity Amps. I think they're based out of Toronto.

I paid for my 5E3 style amp to be built (not a kit) in the end. I factored in time taken, any replacement parts, knowledge of how it should sound and trouble-shooting and final overall quality of the end result against paying someone with all that ability and years of knowledge (plus better parts over a standard kit I believe). As the amp was not massively expensive I chose to have someone build it.

They also build a 15 watt version of a JTM 45 in a combo which is what I would want if I went for the Marshall sound. More expensive though and much louder!

[The Growler]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

Hey, who put together their own electric guitar amp kit or ordered an amp kit, already assembled, from someone? If not, do you think you might want to buy either in the next year or two?

Clintj's thread regarding his amp kit has me curious and making me look into it. Just another form of GAS.

Any small shops we should be looking at?

Dru -

Have you seen this?

https://www.coursera.org/course/audiomusicengpart1

Might be of interest to some here.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by moon

I've posted before about making my 5F1 Champ using the WF-55 kit from ampmaker in the UK.

By chance, I bought a new 12AX7 for it on ebay just an hour ago...! I'm curious to see if a Raytheon Black Plate can add a little something.

Really enjoyed making it and would love to build some more. Maybe a Trainwreck Express, or a Marshall 18W 1974x.

If you know how to solder that's about all it takes to build your own little tube amp. It's basically just joining up all the dots with a soldering iron. No electronics expertise required apart from knowing how to work safely.

There is a risk that you could get stuck with a dead amp you don't know how to fix. My own knowledge of amp circuits is pretty limited but that wouldn't put me off building one. If you take care to do good soldering work, and each time double check you're hooking up the right bit to the right other bit, you can pretty much eliminate the risk.

There are some detailed build instructions on the ampmaker website, see link above, which will give you an idea what's involved.

Thanks for the info, Moon. I think I'm getting "bored" of buying things from the store and I'm looking for more custom stuff, lol. But not an expensive amp.