18Watt.com

Guys
I just came over all impulsive and paid £80 for this. It looks like the business, but who knows? Some of the nicest amps I've ever tried have been 60's Selmers.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... :EOAB:UK:6

Any comments?

Colin

Colin,hows it going.. lets see, cool croc hyde..retubed with mullards..and that tranny..i'd say you did very good. the tranny alone is worth what you paid for it..probably the mullards would be close to about the same ,meaning they are worth more than what you paid total.
How does it sound? Looks cool,i bet the sound has some bite to it..with the croc hyde..

Richie

Oh i forgot.. looks a little weird the way the tech put in the orange axial cap.. Still a cool Selmer amp,and one i haven't seen.

Richie

Hi Colin,

Congrats on the score!
Looks way cool!

And, I bet it sounds awsome through the right speaker.
Some minor tweaks might help get it sound top notch but I don´t know the circuit details and I´ve never heard this model.
Basically, it appears to be quite close to an 18 watt Marshall w/o tremolo.

I´m just wondering where the output transformer lives?

Adrian

Hi Adrian

I´m just wondering where the output transformer lives?

Yes, me too - I'm guessing it's behind the PT. Such are the joys of buying obscure gear on Ebay
The seller's a reliable ebayer, and seems to know what she's talking about, so we'll see...

I wonder how easy it would be to put a better OT in... The output is fixed on 15 ohms. Would 15 watts at 15 ohms translate to 18 watts at 8 ohms?
Perhaps doing this might compromise the tone - assuming it has one

Best wishes, Colin

Hi Colin,

let´s first see what tranny it has. It might even have taps but we dunno.
Any 18 watt or AC15 tranny would work though.
15 watts is pretty exactly what you get out of an 18 watt Marshall when it just starts clipping.

Once I scored a cool looking tiny head that turned out to have a 100 volt output tranny but it will be fun to replace the OT with an 18 watt iron. It has EF86 - ECC83 - EL84 - EL84 - EZ81. Cool AC15 conversion candidate.

Best wishes
Adrian

Hey,

I love Selmer amps, I have the big brother to your little amp, it's a Zodiac 30 I brought over from the UK. It sounds killer! I wish I could get that croc tolex to cover one of my 18 watts in.

http://mysite.freeserve.com/selmer/amps/sel34.html

Cheers,

Antonio

I found this, it may not be his amp..but it could be.. was the only 15 head i found.

http://britamps.mysite.freeserve.com/wa ... /er15.html

Richie

That's another WEM with a CF across the legs of the OT primary... one of the more interesting Marshall/WEM differences.

There's something interesting happening at it's first PI grid as well. Instead of the PI grid leak going to the tail resistor as usual, it connects to the junction of a 100k and 33k resistor. Some versions of the Dominator also seem to have that PI bias arrangement.

Guys
I got the wee Selmer up and running this weekend, having rewired a 2x12" for the apparently mandatory 16 ohms. It's a beast !!



It sounds very similar to the normal channel on my original 18 watter. It's a little bit on the 'woofy' side with humbuckers - I may resort to my old trick from 20 years ago, and use a treble booster - but sounds fab with a Fender.
Have I landed an 18watt 'lite' head for £80? Sounds very much like it...
The OT, by the way, is tucked in behind the mains cable cavity.

Regards, Colin

Mark Durham? Newbie??

Mark
How are you doing?
Great to hear from you - how are things in the Lone Star State? Built any nice amps recently?

I tried out a Boss EQ pedal last night, with 'treble boost' settings, and it worked great! The only problem was the severe amount of hiss coming off the pedal. I'm watching a rangemaster reissue on Ebay at the moment. I may well 'pounce' in the next few days

If that turns out to be too noisy, I may well change the resistor as you suggested. I know it's 'vandalism' , but it's easy enough to reverse.

Again, good to hear from you,
Best wishes, Colin

"""Mark Durham? Newbie?? """ That is funny...


Mark,just wanted to say hello,and hope your doing ok.

Colin,after you see the link pics,a person can see how the amp and cab went together. Seemed alot of amps around that time were latching or connecting the head to the cab. You still got a great deal,on a cool little proably rare amp.
Richie

Hi Rich
Yes, I know - it would be great to have the cabinet as well!
I'll be keeping an eye open - these things do surface from time to time...

I had a longer high (and I do mean high ) volume play on the Selmer this afternoon, alongside the clone. The Selmer is 'woolier', but ever so slightly louder. This could be due to the fact I'm playing it through a 2x12" cabinet however, although the clone runs at 8 ohms, the Selmer 16 ohms.
Using the Boss eq pedal, (and comparing with the 'normal' channel on the clone) I could get the two amps sounding pretty similar. It has to be said that the clone sounds a bit more 'polite', the Selmer a bit 'wilder', although I'd need to try them through similar speakers to make any real comparison, I guess.
Looking at the posts that are happening elsewhere on the portal, I must try parallel wiring the two amps
Mark's suggestion concerning the pots could be a winner. What do you think?
I'm giving it some thought right now on how to use these two amps together in a live situation. I have gigs this Summer which may well suit these amps to a tee
Best wishes, Colin

ps: ain't it great to hear from Mark

Hey Guys,
Well, I am a newbie here. Hopefully I can make some time to post here. I am doing fine, but haven't really touched a soldering iron for about 2 years. Want to look at all the photos of Ian's amp. I wonder what makes it more original than Colin's amp? But I need to read through a lot of post to catch up. I still owe someone here an amp, one of these days.
mark

Mark: Glad to see your doing ok..

As for the amps,Colin and Ians amp are the same, except a few very slight value changes here and there.

It was something we just overlooked,or couldn't see clear enough on Colins amp,and i believefrom the start, we used the WEM for the things we could see,and our early layout had a few things different,thats all it was.
But its all straightened out now. Every wire goes where it should..lol

Somewhere in the files are a couple pics i drew,and they show the changes or corrections. So you can see very easy.
The value differences were the PI tail ..Colins was 56k Ians 47k
Maybe some other things like .0047 changed to a .005
or bypass cap 35uf or 50uf..
The wireing on the PI, and V3, The V3 sides of the tube were swapped.
Which i believe you and someone else did that,way back when the voltage chart was posted.There have been a heck of alot of amps built since we started..!!

We probably lost some posts,when we were hacked,and you may not find all the posts. I'm sure there is alot to catch up on.
Its nice to hear from ya.

Richie