I've built the RunoffGroove projects and modified them more to my liking (with much help from Peter Snowberg and others). I really liked the sound of the Ruby, especially with the "bassman" mods. However, there wasn't enough headroom.
I really need some advice on building a good practice amp at home. A kit would really help me, as I have a limited understanding of the theory behind all of this stuff. I know what the parts are, I know how to solder, I've modified several pedals and built several from scratch. The problem I seem to keep running into though is that I prefer single coil based guitars (strats) and the highs that I get from most projects I find nauseating, to put it mildly.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Well, the good news is that building your own amp is pretty easy and simple. There are a few things to keep in mind though. Any time you are building an amp you will want to build a preamp. The Little Gem and Ruby don't require one because they are essentially a preamp powerful enough to power a speaker lol. How many watts are you looking at?
I'm not sure how many watts I need. Enough for a small club?
Also, for a preamp, I'm looking for Fender clean. I'm thinking about something kind of small, maybe with 4 8" Jensens?
I like 4x8 cabs :-)
Anyway, a LM3886 poweramp should be plenty, wire it for 4 ohms and it'd give you 68watts. Kits can be had for the poweramp section from chipamp.com
I see the dual kits, but I don't really need a dual. Will chipamp.com sell me a single poweramp/powersupply kit?
Yup, just email Brian and he will gladly do it for you. If you want I would check the group buy thread though, RDV said he would split the cost of a dual mono with someone.