Life Observed

The continuing saga of my home designed Princeton Plus amp. After a six week wait for the post from China* I finally have my tweed covering. Now the amp looks as good as it sounds. I gave it a blast when the house was empty recently. It makes seven or eight watts, but they are very loud watts. The sound hits you in the chest and leaves your ears ringing. Fortunately I can switch it down to one watt - which is still extremely loud in a domestic environment. The question is, what's the next project? *China: Look, we know your stuff is cheap. Free postage is the icing on the cake, but not if it takes a month and a half . I would rather pay £5 and get the thing in seven days. Grrr.

This is how it begins: Buy an empty amp case and pull all the nice black covering off it. Then saw a gap in the top for the new amplifier. Now stand back and admire your craftmanship.

How to make your amps sound better without all that dangerous soldering: Cover them in tweed. Black is so old school , but everyone knows that tweed amps sound better.

Oh dear me, I have been overtaken by another addiction. I have entered the seductive and slightly shocking world of valve amplifier modifications.  You thought those old noisy valve guitar amps were dead didn't you. You thought it was all done on computer these days.  Well, yes it probably is, but there is a growing group of individuals who stick to the old fashioned ways in search of that elusive and perhaps unobtainable tone.  So, after a summer spent modifying Leo Fender's commercial valve amplifiers, I decided to start from zero and build an amp. This has now reached the point where the next step will be applying power. I think I will check the circuit carefully, twice, before I do that.  If you are interested, this will be a dual 6V6 version of the 5F2A with my own tone stack and pre-amp modifications. Oh, you aren't interested.... :-)