I need another amp

SillyOctpuss said:
I have literally no spare cash and you've almost talked me into building an AC15 clone 🤣
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The only thing keeping me from building amps, apart from my healthy reluctance to touch anything that could kill me, is my complete and utter lack of woodworking skills. I mean, there are many things I can't do well, but that's one thing that I really suck at. So, no amps for me.
 
I can see this from a different point of views.
1. Barry wanted to purchase a genuine Vox AC30 as an Amp he has wanted & be told by the members why he should buy it!

2. Barry wanted to purchase a genuine Vox AC30 as an Amp he has wanted & be told by the members why he shouldn't buy it!
 
I've heard really good things about the Trinity Kits, and I've bought a partial kit from Mojotone (I sourced my own iron & glass). Sourcing a build yourself is not a huge leap from pedal parts...and you get to shop/gather advice about the more important or "personal preference" components. I'd still recommend using a step-by-step for reference when assembling. A few tools you might want to have are, a snubber, a lightbulb box, an amp stand, and a variac.
 
fig said:
I've heard really good things about the Trinity Kits, and I've bought a partial kit from Mojotone (I sourced my own iron & glass). Sourcing a build yourself is not a huge leap from pedal parts...and you get to shop/gather advice about the more important or "personal preference" components. I'd still recommend using a step-by-step for reference when assembling. A few tools you might want to have are, a snubber, a lightbulb box, an amp stand, and a variac.
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When I told a friend of mine that I had ordered a trinity kit he gave me those 4 things to borrow, snubber, bulb box, stand, and variac.
 
With all your pedal experience, you can definitely build an amp. I built an amp prior to building pedals. My build was a Mojotone kit. They are expensive, but the parts are good quality. I would also look at Weber. I have yet to build a kit, but I have had my eye on a reverb unit. I bought an attenuator from them and it is of good quality.

Here is a link for Weber: https://www.tedweber.com/amps/kits/
 
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A Marshall Bluesbreaker (or at least the one that Clapton used way back when) used a pair of KT66 tubes and yes, was around 30W. But there is a huge scene based around the Marshall 18W amps which use a pair of EL84s. Based on the Watkins Dominator IIRC they are cool amps too.

Mojotone makes a kit for a kinda AC15 - the one that Owlexifry mentioned. I've built two of them now but not strictly to Mojo's circuit. I think building one as Mojo suggest would be a great first amp and the thing about these kind of amps is that they are very easy to modify.

I used a choke instead of the resistor between the first two filter stages. A resistor will be fine and you may not even hear the difference. I also used different transformers (because I could) and had interestingly different result with the amps. Again, the Mojo transformers will be great. They're generally Heyboer who make very good transformers. And I had to reduce the size of some caps because I found the amps overly bass-heavy - easy to do and my not be an issue with Mojo's trannies.

Thew real key to these amps IMO is to learn how to bias them properly. Don't assume that the cathode resistor is the right value. It's not difficult to work out which resistor you need and we here can walk you through it if necessary. If you can get plate dissipation at around 100% (yes, a lot higher than in fixed bias amps!) you will get the glorious overdrive and classic Vox tones you want. And I know from experience that it will sound a lot more Vox-like than any new Chinese Vox. And it will last a lot longer if you build it right. FWIW I find you don't even need to use a Celestion Blue to get the beautiful Vox tones - a Celestion G12 creamback sounds killer in these amps.
 
HamishR said:
A Marshall Bluesbreaker (or at least the one that Clapton used way back when) used a pair of KT66 tubes and yes, was around 30W. But there is a huge scene based around the Marshall 18W amps which use a pair of EL84s. Based on the Watkins Dominator IIRC they are cool amps too.

Mojotone makes a kit for a kinda AC15 - the one that Owlexifry mentioned. I've built two of them now but not strictly to Mojo's circuit. I think building one as Mojo suggest would be a great first amp and the thing about these kind of amps is that they are very easy to modify.

I used a choke instead of the resistor between the first two filter stages. A resistor will be fine and you may not even hear the difference. I also used different transformers (because I could) and had interestingly different result with the amps. Again, the Mojo transformers will be great. They're generally Heyboer who make very good transformers. And I had to reduce the size of some caps because I found the amps overly bass-heavy - easy to do and my not be an issue with Mojo's trannies.

Thew real key to these amps IMO is to learn how to bias them properly. Don't assume that the cathode resistor is the right value. It's not difficult to work out which resistor you need and we here can walk you through it if necessary. If you can get plate dissipation at around 100% (yes, a lot higher than in fixed bias amps!) you will get the glorious overdrive and classic Vox tones you want. And I know from experience that it will sound a lot more Vox-like than any new Chinese Vox. And it will last a lot longer if you build it right. FWIW I find you don't even need to use a Celestion Blue to get the beautiful Vox tones - a Celestion G12 creamback sounds killer in these amps.
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You sir are the worst kind of salesman. You're telling me things I already know to be true.

I really really want "glorious overdrive and classic vox tones" I also already have a creamback in my stash of stuff.
 
HamishR said:
A Marshall Bluesbreaker (or at least the one that Clapton used way back when) used a pair of KT66 tubes and yes, was around 30W. But there is a huge scene based around the Marshall 18W amps which use a pair of EL84s. Based on the Watkins Dominator IIRC they are cool amps too.

Mojotone makes a kit for a kinda AC15 - the one that Owlexifry mentioned. I've built two of them now but not strictly to Mojo's circuit. I think building one as Mojo suggest would be a great first amp and the thing about these kind of amps is that they are very easy to modify.

I used a choke instead of the resistor between the first two filter stages. A resistor will be fine and you may not even hear the difference. I also used different transformers (because I could) and had interestingly different result with the amps. Again, the Mojo transformers will be great. They're generally Heyboer who make very good transformers. And I had to reduce the size of some caps because I found the amps overly bass-heavy - easy to do and my not be an issue with Mojo's trannies.

Thew real key to these amps IMO is to learn how to bias them properly. Don't assume that the cathode resistor is the right value. It's not difficult to work out which resistor you need and we here can walk you through it if necessary. If you can get plate dissipation at around 100% (yes, a lot higher than in fixed bias amps!) you will get the glorious overdrive and classic Vox tones you want. And I know from experience that it will sound a lot more Vox-like than any new Chinese Vox. And it will last a lot longer if you build it right. FWIW I find you don't even need to use a Celestion Blue to get the beautiful Vox tones - a Celestion G12 creamback sounds killer in these amps.
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I think I'd likely go with the Creamback
 
I used to have a Vox AC15c2, which is basically the AC15 in an AC30 cabinet with 2x12 Greenbacks. It sounded pretty good, though I've never played any other Vox either vintage or reissue. I changed the tubes out for EHX tubes and once the Greenbacks broke in the amp sounded a lot warmer than what I anticipated given everyone's description of the Vox chimey tones. If I would have kept it I probably would have ended up swapping speakers for Blues or Creambacks I think because even when I was playing at loud volumes I generally kept the cut control to the brightest end of the dial.
 
fig said:
It's an insulated rod, usually wooden, with a center wire core that connects to ground to discharge the capacitors safely...or otherwise poke around where a finger shouldn't be. (y)
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I've heard of people using chopsticks to poke around in an amp and a resistor at the end of a floppy insulated wire but never a snubber. Do you have pics? I just searched and only see snubber circuits showing up.
 
I'm going to order mine after the holidays, getting it built will give me time to think about speakers (1 or 2) and shop cabinets
 
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