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Hi everyone!

Started by Jibbles, October 28, 2014, 05:27:23 AM

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Jibbles

I just joined. I wound up here on my quest to find an electronics project. I was actually looking at building a dual rectifier or Uberschall copy, found a site selling premade PCBs and housings-

check it-


Although I've wanted one of these for ages, I think it will be overpowered for my loungeroom playing.
ATM I'm playing through a H&K Tubemeister 18W and although it's great on its own, it sounds like a tin can being kicked down the stairs when we jam together, because the other guitar amp is a DC-10.

So I'm looking for a middle ground.
I'm wondering what builds are available for high gain SS amps, where to find schematics etc. I'm an electronics technician but have no amp experience really. I almost exclusively play metal, death and black mainly so I want an aggressive, high gain amp. The DC-10 is tube and has a 60W selector switch, so I was thinking of looking into any SS or hybrid options of around that dB lvl.

Cool site! I've already learned stuff!






Jibbles

No suggestions anyone? I've never owned a solid state so I really have no idea which solid states are considered good for metal.. thinking maybe ill just buy a metal zone pedal for the my 18W and build the dual rect and keep it in the garage or sell it.

Enzo

I myself don't know what kits are available for SS amps.  The amp in your photos is clearly a tube amp.   VArious effects pedals can be built as kits, and are a smaller investment if you wind up destroying it or just dislike the sound. 

Instead of kits per se, you might look at amps you like the sound of, then explore the schematic of that amp.

Jibbles

Thanks for the reply!
I'm still siding with the tube amp at the moment, although I dont like the idea of having the whole amp on one PCB, unless they've engineered out parasitic elements which I really doubt. I haven't been playing long, the only solid state amp that I've played with is the Randall Warhead which I didn't mind but I thought the tone was kinda hollow sounding. Was hoping this forum could save me some time getting a shortlist of likely ss amps together before I go in the the guitar shop to try em out. Maybe there aren't many metal heads on this site. I'll keep digging!
Thanks again.

Roly

This is actually a rather hard question because there is a lot of personal taste in what to build (not least in such a major build).

I see this as boiling down to a choice between output transformer saturation* (a bit like magnetic tape saturation/compression), and raw grunt, and as I see it, for Metal, raw grunt wins by a head.  And when I'm thinking "raw grunt" I'm thinking s.s. rack amp with outboard pre and Fx (with suitably heavy-duty movers and shakers).  {considering parts availability, weight, and ease of making 100-400W with s.s. cf valves}

(* and the trannies are no small beer for 100+ watts in valves)

15, 30 or 50 watts are still quite practical, but these days if I wanted 100+ watts in valves I'd build a "stereo" 55 watter with 6L6's; the same effect easier and more flexible in use.

But then I'm more of a BB guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4OXrmxDp44





Quote from: JibblesI dont like the idea of having the whole amp on one PCB

Well since you mention it...

Valves and PCB's are generally not a good marriage.

Valves and their bases came from an era where everything was hand-wired, and that is the environment they are best suited to.  The first thing you notice is that valves don't conform to 0.1" pitch, and it gets worse from there.

It's not that it's automatically a bad idea, it depends on how you go about it, and there are ways to use PCB with valves that don't make the thing a bloody nightmare to work on.


All-in-one PCB's are a nightmare in anything.

A tale of three mixers.

The first was a 6 or 8 channel built on a single PCB with all the controls.  To get to the main electro that had broken its lead (because it hadn't been mechanically secured) I first had to remove every knob, nut and washer from every control on the front panel.  The repair took about a minute, and getting in and back out again took two hours.

Yamaha 8 channel with flying faders.  The backup battery died, but it was right in the middle of the middle board of four in a tight-wired one square foot lasagna.  Effectively dead.

Jands 24 channel (1970's).  24 PCB's mounted edgeways with controls.  Both sides of all PCB's accessible (and totally referbed with LM833's  <3) ).  Individual channels can be swung up if only that channel is "undressed".   :dbtu:

Most stuff is designed to be built as a one-way process, and not taken apart again for repair.  Really great gear has been built with repair in mind and is a rare joy to work on.  When I saw that all-in-one PCB my heart sank.   :'(  Tech to tech, you have my sympathy if you take that one on.    8|

If you say theory and practice don't agree you haven't applied enough theory.

Enzo

Oh, it is fun to complain about circuit boards, but really, they have been around for decades and the design on them is not a mystery, at least not in the engineering community.   I learned electronics in the 1950s, working on TV sets and short wave radios.  All those were point to point wired complex tube circuits.  Believe me, digging a bad cap out of all that was no picnic. 

I for one enjoy having little letters on the boards next to R14 and C37.  I like an organized layout, something point to point misses.