18 watt at the Philadelphia Guitar show

[HeeBGB]

Just got back from the show where I saw an original 18 2x10. It had basket weave grill cloth and a step up x-former in the bottom of the cab for running on 120VAC. It was in really nice shape too. Asking price was Around $3800. I didn't ask to play it. Now that I think about it that was probably a mistake. I don't have that kind of money to spend on an amp but it would have been nice to play a real one in person. There was also another guy who had an all white JMP full stack and a 4x10 bluesbreaker. I didn't ask prices for either though. I know they were going for big dollars.
A pretty good show though.


Greg

[Plexi]

"""I saw an original 18 2x10. It had basket weave grill cloth"""

It was most likely a 20 watter...they had the basketweave cloth.

Richie

[Wannatone]

Or a 10 watter.
If it had a rectifier tube (total of 6 tubes) it was actually an 18 watt amp.

Adrian

[Wannatone]

Richie,

I just hit submit before I started thinking.
I´ve never heard that Marshall ever built a 20 watt combo. AFAIK, 20 watters had only been available as heads?

Adrian

[HeeBGB]

They built a 10 watter with 2-10"??!!

[Wannatone]

Hee,

of course!
Check Wilko´s amp:
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showt ... adid=62390

They even made them with pinstripe
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showt ... t=Marshall

Adrian

[HeeBGB]

Well now I'm just pissed that I didn't investigate further!! It was pretty clean though. Just wish I had the $3800. I could've been telling you about my newest amp in detail. Oh well...the one that got away.

Hey was anyone else at this show? I can't have been the only onethat went!

Hey Jersey_aaron...where in Jersey are you?

Greg

[Plexi]

HAHA.. i went over there and checked it out. Lots of suggestions.
I also looked at there 18 stuff.. the one pic of the blockhead chassis.
cool...

But these guys are saying its one of the firstborn? but it dosen't have the cab like the firstborn Blockhead amp.. Looks more like the other 18 they build..
And these parts i clipped from Blockhead site..
""This amp has a different circuit compared to our Firstborn 2x12 Combo (c.1964); """

Which we all know what they are talking about..

Then they also say this..

""Every part of this amp, layout and all, is Exactly like the original. Exact.""

Hmmm well I see Graydon already pointed out some things that were changed..V2 And V3 were swapped positions..
And quite a few other things..they talked of, even tying the cord just like the original.. so it don't make a lot of sense..
I'm sure it still sounds great..but this one statement i didn't care for..

"""the others are just generic kit amps-""" meaning compared to theres..

HA i'll put mine against theres any day..!!

Richie

[Graydon]

Ritchie,

I agree. I'll put any of mine and any of my customers' amps against any other clone any day. Seriously, I don't care for competition, but OTOH, I think our clones sound as good as any currently built amp out there. I think all the individual builders here are doing great work too. I've had a few guys email me lately raving about the 18W amp they just heard and after asking which one, I find out it is a customer built kit or a scratch-built 18W amp. Makes my heart warm.

[zaphod_phil]

also looked at there 18 stuff.. the one pic of the blockhead chassis. cool...

I was fascinated to see that Blockhead had what appeared to be a genuine vintage Celestion G12H in it, made in Thames Ditton and with the label slightly peeling at the edges. Either that's a real vintage G12H or a very cleverly done fake, indeed....

[Graydon]

also looked at there 18 stuff.. the one pic of the blockhead chassis. cool...

I was fascinated to see that Blockhead had what appeared to be a genuine vintage Celestion G12H in it, made in Thames Ditton and with the label slightly peeling at the edges. Either that's a real vintage G12H or a very cleverly done fake, indeed....

I think the owner of that particular amp installed that G12H himself.

[Wannatone]

Well, while we´re discussing BH..

I wonder if they really hacked that original amp completely or if there might be a certain amount of clever marketing involved.

To reproduce any drifted component, they would have had to disassemble the amp almost completely, IMO. And, to create EXACT clones of the trannies, slaughtered the originals...

Hum... just look the thread about the RI Bumblebee´s on the Les Paul forum... they look like the originals, but they perform differently. Think it would be a major scientific project, just to create EXACT clones of the original caps...

So, the supposedly exceptional original would no longer exist to compare the results of the cloning process with it or, would at least likely have changed it´s performance, more or less. (Somehow like Heisenberg´s relation... the closer you look at the original, the more it gets blurred...)

Thus, I think we should be careful not to assume things that can´t be true. And, I think that any clean forum member built amp can be as close to one or the other original as their´s.

Just my $0.02 ideas about accurate cloning, though.

Adrian

[Komboking]

I'm guessing it was a 20 watt - he had a 20 watt head also - pretty clean all and all. Philly certainly is a high end show - more $20K plus guitars than one usually sees! Didn't have too much tome to check it out as I was helping at the JK Lutherie booth.....Next show - Columbus!! My favorite - lotsa junk....

[Plexi]

""Next show - Columbus!! My favorite - lotsa junk"" Ah yes i will be there.. hope to see ya.

Richie