New Amp Gas - Princeton…

Dan0h said:
Agreed! Transformers are one of the key ingredients.

I priced this route out before looking at Sweetwater for a fender built one. The problem I keep running into building is once you add all the extras ( cab, speaker, so on) the savings is there but it’s not that much less and even though I do plan on building an amp soon I think I’d rather have the fender built Princeton. With that said, I know I’ll have to swap caps at least sooner than later. Ugh. If thing was on sale for $1,200 I’d be showing photos of it in my room instead of going back and forth over it. Lol.
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You can save Cab money by buying from Sorry Charley aka RAWCABS on eBay. Extremely good work and you get something you can stain and oil, or varnish or just oil.

www.ebay.com

Rawcabs Princeton for sale | eBay

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RetiredUnit1 said:
You can save Cab money by buying from Sorry Charley aka RAWCABS on eBay. Extremely good work and you get something you can stain and oil, or varnish or just oil.

www.ebay.com

Rawcabs Princeton for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for Rawcabs Princeton at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!
www.ebay.com
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I’m also not opposed to building my own cab. I built this Walnut Cab for my Super Champ with a 12” Jensen. Pretty much the same thing. Buts let’s not even talk about wood prices these days!

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Dan0h said:
I’m also not opposed to building my own cab. I built this Walnut Cab for my Super Champ with a 12” Jensen. Pretty much the same thing. Buts let’s not even talk about wood prices these days!

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Hey, now you're talking! That's nice!

Just curious, what did you use for the corner joints? I'm going to try planing down some 2x4's and using a biscuit joiner join them side by side to make them thicker, and on the corners too. Was thinking of routing the edges to give it a 2x4 look and maybe burning a brand on it. Something to that rough finish look....

I have a Vevor thickness planer and a Grizzly biscuit joiner. Got the Grizzly 2.5hp table saw a couple decades ago. The motor starts so fast it goes BANG when you turn it on. Like cutting wood with a laser beam....
 
RetiredUnit1 said:
Hey, now you're talking! That's nice!

Just curious, what did you use for the corner joints? I'm going to try planing down some 2x4's and using a biscuit joiner join them side by side to make them thicker, and on the corners too. Was thinking of routing the edges to give it a 2x4 look and maybe burning a brand on it. Something to that rough finish look....

I have a Vevor thickness planer and a Grizzly biscuit joiner. Got the Grizzly 2.5hp table saw a couple decades ago. The motor starts so fast it goes BANG when you turn it on. Like cutting wood with a laser beam....
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Nice! I was going to do finger joints but this little guy is never leaving my room so I just went with butt joints with ample glue and lots of clamps. It’s rock solid for home use. I’d never take it to a gig.
I know that BANG sound very well as my dad had a nice wood shop when I was a kid and many of his tools Bolted into action lol.
 
RetiredUnit1 said:
The new Fender transformers are made in China. I don't think their QA is very good. Myself I'd rather buy some Heyboer transformers and put one together. I think Mojo makes a princeton kit. umm... ok I checked. Cabinett and speaker sold separately. Mojo is an official Heyboer distributor.

I started building amps about 20 years ago, not sure of the exact date. I do not think they are any harder than pedals myself, actually easier in the sense that you don't need tweezers to pick the components up.....


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Speaking of iron and Princeton Reverbs. My first tube guitar amp build was an Allen V18. This was in '07 and David's nomenclature for a Sweetspot kit was 'V18' at the time. The Sweetspot is David's take on a Princeton. Great little amp! I believe all of the iron that he used was either Heyboer or Hammond. David has since sold the business. I suspect the prices today are quite high. I paid around $1000 for the kit with a 12 inch Eminence Patriot speaker. Good luck with your purchase Dan0h!
 
Do you guys notice any tonal difference with different cab woods? People swear the cab wood affects the sound but I’ve never compared.
 
Oh yeah! And whether you use tolex or not has an effect too.

The main materials I have used for open-back combo cabs are 18mm birch ply and 19mm (3/4") solid pine. The difference in tone is quite obvious. The ply cabs, being denser and stiffer, sound harder, boxier and more directional. The solid pine cabs are more open sounding and more diffused. Particularly if you use the thin "floating" baffle as used in tweed style cabs the sound spreads out more and fills the room. The baffle is only attached with four bolts so acts almost as an extension of the speaker.

The pine cabs have so much more liveliness to them that I have almost stopped using ply.

I have built a couple of cabs for friends with just a thin lacquer finish rather than tolex. I don't recommend it because pine is very soft and won't wear well, but without the tolex it has a crispness to the tone which is dampened by tolex. I'm perfectly happy with the sound of a tolexed pine cab because the extra high end is possibly not noticeable to many seasoned players! And it's not necessarily better, just different. It's not a huge difference, but it is there.

I haven't experimented with various hardwoods but would imagine that the sound would be closer to ply than to pine. The other reason I like pine is because it's easy to carry. Solid pine is significantly lighter in weight than birch ply.
 
That all makes a ton of sense! I am a firm believer that woods influence the sound and feel of guitars too. I feel like it’s sometimes hard to explain since the difference between various woods can be subtle.
 
giovanni said:
Do you guys notice any tonal difference with different cab woods? People swear the cab wood affects the sound but I’ve never compared.
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I’ve built a number of hi-fi speakers, and almost always experiment using MDF on the cabinets, until I get the volume, ports, etc, all finalized, and will then rebuild with another material. There’s always a big improvement in pretty much every aspect of the sound. And unlike amp speaker cabs, which are basically unbraced and expected to resonate and add to the sound, hi-fi speakers are ideally super braced, to make them as inert as possible—and yet, the move from MDF to wood (or bamboo plywood, probably my favorite for speakers) still makes a big difference. (When you rap your knuckles against a hi-fi speaker, ideally you should get a knock with no “note” to it.)
 
giovanni said:
Do you guys notice any tonal difference with different cab woods? People swear the cab wood affects the sound but I’ve never compared.
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I have only built this Walnut cab and it sounds great, but is heavy has hell. Different woods have different density and resonate differently so I would bet money that every wood imparts some sort of tone to the sound, even if it is minute. In my case it most likely doesn't come into play that much because I am 90% of the time playing at low volumes. But at high volumes you should be able to A_B the difference.
 
I have put up a good fight and still havnt clicked the Buy button, I did however get out my strat, which has been cased up for months and have a go with it. I actually like it again and completly love the sound of a strat through a big muff! I think if I can get another pedal project moving along I can hold off the gas for this princeton a while longer lol.
 
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