Hello.
I've been lurking on the forums as a guest for a while now and finally built up the courage to ask some questions. Please don't bite and please bear with me while I give you an idea of where I'm coming from.
I'm a noise maker (via guitar) and enjoy poking and prodding things that I probably shouldn't. I have some previous experience using a soldering iron for simple circuits, and can follow layouts to wire up guitar electronics. However, the workings of amps currently mystify me. I can read the schematics for an amp, but I don't really understand what is going on (i.e. why are those resistors there in parallel to those capacitors, etc.) So, I'm interested in putting together a frugal practice amp to hopefully learn something.
Right now I either plug my guitar into my computer or plug in to a small Fender practice amp (don't remember the model off hand), so just about anything will be an upgrade. This also means I need an amp and some type of speaker cabinet, preferably both DIY. I've done some searching on my own, but I'm at a loss for where to start.
Anyways on to my desires. Feel free to tell me I'm asking for too much from a simple project.
To start out, I want a practice amp that is so clean, the sound waves shine as they leave the speaker. In my mind, a good practice amp will allow me to get a feel for the frequency response of the pickups and also give me a good idea of what a pedal is/isn't capable of. In the future I'd like to have good, switchable distortion, dirt, whatever, but that's a long way off.
I looked into the ROG Ruby, but I've seen some concerns that it doesn't have much headroom. I also found a new design called the mylk[386] amp which is a Ruby with an op-amp booster/buffer (no clue if this is beneficial and/or necessary). I've also seen a number of other SS amps that look overly complicated.
So, first question, what would be a good SS amp build to get me started?
Edit: Forgot to add, I'm looking to use anywhere from an 8 to 12" speaker. So next question would be what size speaker should I be considering?
I've been lurking on the forums as a guest for a while now and finally built up the courage to ask some questions. Please don't bite and please bear with me while I give you an idea of where I'm coming from.
I'm a noise maker (via guitar) and enjoy poking and prodding things that I probably shouldn't. I have some previous experience using a soldering iron for simple circuits, and can follow layouts to wire up guitar electronics. However, the workings of amps currently mystify me. I can read the schematics for an amp, but I don't really understand what is going on (i.e. why are those resistors there in parallel to those capacitors, etc.) So, I'm interested in putting together a frugal practice amp to hopefully learn something.
Right now I either plug my guitar into my computer or plug in to a small Fender practice amp (don't remember the model off hand), so just about anything will be an upgrade. This also means I need an amp and some type of speaker cabinet, preferably both DIY. I've done some searching on my own, but I'm at a loss for where to start.
Anyways on to my desires. Feel free to tell me I'm asking for too much from a simple project.
To start out, I want a practice amp that is so clean, the sound waves shine as they leave the speaker. In my mind, a good practice amp will allow me to get a feel for the frequency response of the pickups and also give me a good idea of what a pedal is/isn't capable of. In the future I'd like to have good, switchable distortion, dirt, whatever, but that's a long way off.
I looked into the ROG Ruby, but I've seen some concerns that it doesn't have much headroom. I also found a new design called the mylk[386] amp which is a Ruby with an op-amp booster/buffer (no clue if this is beneficial and/or necessary). I've also seen a number of other SS amps that look overly complicated.
So, first question, what would be a good SS amp build to get me started?
Edit: Forgot to add, I'm looking to use anywhere from an 8 to 12" speaker. So next question would be what size speaker should I be considering?