Paradox916
Well-known member
Oh man was this a fiasco of a build that spanned about a year from start to finish, And this is going to be a long post as I have some bitching to do.
in my search for a high quality tube preamp,( because I’m a new rack gear enthusiast)I came across the Anvil preamp project https://andyszeugs.wordpress.com/preamp-the-anvil/
and as it turns out, it is available at Musikding both as a PCB set or a kit.
against my better judgment and the multiple troubleshooting threads and build reports showcasing the likely hood of possible issues with ordering a kit from Musikding, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and give him a fair shake, because there was no way I could have sourced all the parts in that kit for the price at the time( right before tariffs hit). And this is where the problems started.
it took almost 6 months to even receive the kit, there were missing parts, wrong parts, even the main PCB was the wrong one! despite it taking a couple more months, to Klaus’s credit he was pleasant to deal with in getting it ironed out, and he did make everything right eventually. The long delays and errors were aggravating but I have to cut the guy some slack as I believe he has good intentions, and a one man show from what I understand who will always try and fix any errors he might have made. I can understand making mistakes on a project with this many parts.
Now the next set of issues were entirely on me, this is German designed project so there was a lot of translation involved reading through the forum and some documentation, it’s designed to be powered on 230v mains I foolishly thought I could source an off the shelf power transformer for US 120v….. mmmm nope the biggest hurdle was the heater taps are 14v regulated down to 12v and a custom transformer that would fit in the space was quoted at somewhere between $350-$500 that was more than what I paid for the kit at the time. So I ordered a step up transformer from amazon that works quite nicely.
Now to the nuts and bolts of the build, the build docs were pretty good, thankfully they were in English, but there was the absence of how to wire the shape switch on the lead channel, so I had to do something more digging and eventually found some info on a few ways to wire it I ended up going with a 39k in parallel with R315 for a gain/high boost, which ended up being subtle but just enough to make it a hair more aggressive and cutting.
Now I tried really hard to be careful and take my time with the board measuring every value and soldering components but some where along the line I must have gotten distracted and didn’t solder the power and ground to the clean and lead channel relays, so on final fire up only the rhythm and bypass channels were working, that felt like a kick in the giblets.
This is one of those scenarios why you get the warning “this project is NOT for beginners “. It’s not a particularly easy circuit to troubleshoot as the channel switching is not your run of the mill and there are some voltages in there close to 400v. But I was able to figure it out, drained the caps, pulled the board to find my fuck up and fix it.
Hows it sound? Well at the moment I think Andy is a wizard! The noise floor is really good, the clean channel is Fenderish sparkly like, the rhythm arguably the most versatile of the 3 channels it can go from edge of break up to fat chunky hot-rodded British crunch. Boosted with an OD and you are in chug territory, the lead channel? Absolutely high-gain god mode. stand alone it’s aggressive tight and articulate, like a boosted recto/ or 6505. Given these descriptions it’s still kind of its own thing, this is just the best I can describe it.
But was it worth it?
This was not a cheap build by any stretch and I already had tubes on hand, the logistical problems were a nightmare. The whole thing was a gamble from the beginning knowing this was an expensive and complicated build with not much to go on, there wasn’t a ton of information on it. Seems to have never really gained much traction even where 230v comes out of the wall. It’s a niche piece of gear to say the least, but a phenomenal one at that. Although I’m still in that honeymoon stage and haven’t had a chance to play it much yet, it sounds amazing and better than I hoped it would be. My only regret is going with a polished faceplate, I love the way it looks but it’s hard as hell to photograph and if you fart near it, it smudges and scratches.
If this is your sort of thing ,you have the skill set to not kill yourself troubleshooting if things go wrong and dumb enough to do it, you will not be disappointed.
in my search for a high quality tube preamp,( because I’m a new rack gear enthusiast)I came across the Anvil preamp project https://andyszeugs.wordpress.com/preamp-the-anvil/
and as it turns out, it is available at Musikding both as a PCB set or a kit.
against my better judgment and the multiple troubleshooting threads and build reports showcasing the likely hood of possible issues with ordering a kit from Musikding, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and give him a fair shake, because there was no way I could have sourced all the parts in that kit for the price at the time( right before tariffs hit). And this is where the problems started.
it took almost 6 months to even receive the kit, there were missing parts, wrong parts, even the main PCB was the wrong one! despite it taking a couple more months, to Klaus’s credit he was pleasant to deal with in getting it ironed out, and he did make everything right eventually. The long delays and errors were aggravating but I have to cut the guy some slack as I believe he has good intentions, and a one man show from what I understand who will always try and fix any errors he might have made. I can understand making mistakes on a project with this many parts.
Now the next set of issues were entirely on me, this is German designed project so there was a lot of translation involved reading through the forum and some documentation, it’s designed to be powered on 230v mains I foolishly thought I could source an off the shelf power transformer for US 120v….. mmmm nope the biggest hurdle was the heater taps are 14v regulated down to 12v and a custom transformer that would fit in the space was quoted at somewhere between $350-$500 that was more than what I paid for the kit at the time. So I ordered a step up transformer from amazon that works quite nicely.
Now to the nuts and bolts of the build, the build docs were pretty good, thankfully they were in English, but there was the absence of how to wire the shape switch on the lead channel, so I had to do something more digging and eventually found some info on a few ways to wire it I ended up going with a 39k in parallel with R315 for a gain/high boost, which ended up being subtle but just enough to make it a hair more aggressive and cutting.
Now I tried really hard to be careful and take my time with the board measuring every value and soldering components but some where along the line I must have gotten distracted and didn’t solder the power and ground to the clean and lead channel relays, so on final fire up only the rhythm and bypass channels were working, that felt like a kick in the giblets.
This is one of those scenarios why you get the warning “this project is NOT for beginners “. It’s not a particularly easy circuit to troubleshoot as the channel switching is not your run of the mill and there are some voltages in there close to 400v. But I was able to figure it out, drained the caps, pulled the board to find my fuck up and fix it.
Hows it sound? Well at the moment I think Andy is a wizard! The noise floor is really good, the clean channel is Fenderish sparkly like, the rhythm arguably the most versatile of the 3 channels it can go from edge of break up to fat chunky hot-rodded British crunch. Boosted with an OD and you are in chug territory, the lead channel? Absolutely high-gain god mode. stand alone it’s aggressive tight and articulate, like a boosted recto/ or 6505. Given these descriptions it’s still kind of its own thing, this is just the best I can describe it.
But was it worth it?
This was not a cheap build by any stretch and I already had tubes on hand, the logistical problems were a nightmare. The whole thing was a gamble from the beginning knowing this was an expensive and complicated build with not much to go on, there wasn’t a ton of information on it. Seems to have never really gained much traction even where 230v comes out of the wall. It’s a niche piece of gear to say the least, but a phenomenal one at that. Although I’m still in that honeymoon stage and haven’t had a chance to play it much yet, it sounds amazing and better than I hoped it would be. My only regret is going with a polished faceplate, I love the way it looks but it’s hard as hell to photograph and if you fart near it, it smudges and scratches.
If this is your sort of thing ,you have the skill set to not kill yourself troubleshooting if things go wrong and dumb enough to do it, you will not be disappointed.
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… Im ready happy with how it turned out and sounds great. Probably after the holidays I might get the chance to sit down and really play this thing.
Thanks man
