Guitar Amplifier Kits

High Octane Valve Guitar Amplifier

My newly built, a little modded Inebriated Octane Valve Guitar Amplifier. The tubes are: 2 x (6v6 S JJ) and 1 x (12ax7WB Sovtek) The website which has schematics, margin diagrams, kits, and even a valuable support forum is here: http://www.ax84.com/

Tone Tips: Tube Amp Maintenance

 Another accommodating insight into the world of amp care, thanks to those guys at Gbson…Like lately about anything worth owning, even the best tube amplifiers elbow need occasional maintenance to keep up performing at their peak.

In this age of low or no-maintenance consumer goods, where you’re more no doubt to toss your DVD player in the nearest Dumpster and wigwag by the local big box retailer to pick up another one for £20 than to in reality get a small fault repaired (which, no vacillate, would cost you considerably more than the new unit), the inclination of routine maintenance for electronic goods has chiefly fallen by the wayside. Genuine all-tube guitar amps, however, even marque new ones, are not like other consumer electronics products; they are the archaic technology of a of old era, and thanks to that they can sound sweeter than any pipedream box of bits that has been conceived to replace them. As such, though, they exigency a regular check and tune up. Action towards them right, and they’ll reward you not only with stunning tone of voice, but flawless performance.

I have known lots of guitarists who were very much into tube tone, but went from amp to amp with a turnaround under any circumstances that found them changing amps every couple of years or so—coincidently, about the amount of meanwhile it took for the new tubes the amp came with to plant a little tired sounding, and for a few other lad maintenance items to raise their heads. Re-tubing an amp is something you can almost always do yourself (although some unchangeable-bias amps will require rebiasing when production tubes are changed, and that’s a job for a professional).

If you are gigging or even rehearsing regularly, yield tubes are almost certain to need replacement every two years at most, and possibly even every six months or so if you are really playing a lot. Even tubes that are sonically “profit” can become noisy or microphonic, and thus coerce replacement. Preamp tubes as a rule last a lot longer, but it’s worth swapping in a unconventional, high-quality preamp tube in the preamp and withdraw inverter positions every so often—ideally after you have put in new result tubes—to see if it perks up your amp considerably. If so, you’ve got a dog-tired preamp tube or two on your hands as well. Find the malefactor by process of elimination.

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