Looking For Guitar Amp - Schematics?

do not build it, buy it from ramsey electronics

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/

you can buy a kit or wired and tested

Contact my freind Mr. Ron Tipton in New Maxico, USA at

http://www.tdl-tech.com/

He is a senoir retired army officer devoted to music instrumentation for nearly 25 years now. He helps people and may design one specially for you.

You you can not get help from him then write to me again at

sst (at) sensorstechnology.com and I will try to help.

Tube dirty sound without tubes is an oxymoron, but a tube amp does not have to be big and heavy. Check out the 5 watt Swart Space Tone. Light weight, small cabinet, but it is not inexpensive. I love mine. It does not have a 12 inch speaker, but rumor is that Swart is about to come out with a new 5 watter that has a 12" speaker AND real spring reverb. Dr. Z also has some great tube amps made the old way. Fender has just released the all tube (including tube rectifier) reissue of the old Deluxe (no reverb) that is all tube and point to point wired like the Swart and the Dr. Z. That is a light weight amp also.

You may get a few commercial responses here.

I'm no expert , but I know what I like , and ultimately your audience will judge you on your sound. Old 'valve amps ' do it for a lot of people , though I can't hear the difference if you're playing loud. A Friend who was a good player once told me that a smart move was to buy a guitar (slightly less then your budget) and get a pro to tune it in (alter the bridge /machine heads etc) for what would be a small percentage of cost.It could double the value for a 10% outlay. This may make more difference than your amp.I've known people build their own amps , but from what I've seen it's trial and error (unless you duplicate). Technique is all - a brother in law once visited and made a naff guitar I had sound as though Carlos Santana had dropped by (to this day I'd like to kill him for having that much skill.

A combination of valve pre-drive and solid state final drive should suffice. The soft overdrive from the valves can be amplified in this way. Bear in mind odd and even order harmonics depending whether you have a triode or pentode final drive. The output transformer will also tend to cancel harmonics and change the ultimate sound. Let me not bore you... try www.radiolocman.com a wealth of schematics...have fun.

Aspen Pittman's, "The Tube Amp Book" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tube-Amp-Book-Aspen-Pittman/dp/0879307676/ref=sr_1_4/026-8318636-3846051?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174298007&sr=8-4) has schematics of just about evry classic tube amp ever (and some solid state ones)

EBAY ! ! !

A FEW SAMPLES

Item number: 300091746509

Item number: 300091461901

Item number: 220093855196

IF YOU CANNOT FIND IT ON EBAY IT PROBABLY IS NOT MADE.

The solution to your problem is simple.

Shift to a tube head/speaker cab rig. That way, you get easier to tote hardware without sacrificing the tube vibe. Or, add wheels or a dolly to your favorite, heavy amp.

If you want something different tahn what you're currently using, look for schematics and build one. It's challenging and rewarding! I have no electronics background and successfully built a replica of a mid-60s Fender Twin Reverb (but with an earlier version of Fender vibrato that doesn't use an opto-coupler). It is heavy, as I used a substantially beefier (Hammond) PT than Leo did. I just play it in my jam room, though, and don't have to carry it.

Aspen Pittman's book has a good variety of schematics but most, if not all of them, can be found on the web. I stuck with tube tech, though. I attended a couple of Gerald Weber's Amp Camps and had fun and learned a bit. He has 3 books, which are also available on DVD.

If you want some help with tube amps, let me know and I'll be glad to share the resources that I found.

Good luck!

You may want to look into some of the smaller "modeling amps". Digital reproductions of many of the tube amp sounds. I use a Line6 modeling amp and have been very happy with it for about 6 years now. Behringer also has a modeling amp that is small and inexpensive. Are you using this for practice or gigs? You may want to consider a 10-20 watt practice amp and then put a mic on it and run it through the PA. Hope that helps.

The sainted Rory Gallagher had your complaints and had something called a "Stramp" built in Germany. I've seen the schematics numerous places online, but I'll let you google it.

Since you have "limited background in electronics" I don't think you will build a better solid state amp than all the pros out there. Go and buy one. Buid one only if you really want to do it for fun; but don't expect it to sound better then the one you buy. You want a 12" speaker, so it won't be "light", since you need a good frame to handle that without undesired vibration. Most of your weigth will be just the speaker and the wood needed to enhance the resonance, plus the transformer and the radiator. So it won't matter too much if it's tube or solid state.

http://www.schematicheaven.com/

http://www.thegearpage.net/

have fun