Built my first 18W, some observations
Posted: Sun 01/17/21 4:57 pm
Good Sunday Morning to the 18Watt world. After some years of thinking about building an amp, I took the plunge and built the Ted Weber 18Watt TMB kit as a combo. I have held off on posting while I got used to it for a couple of months but now have some questions and observations.
1. First off, I am shocked at the almost total lack of hum or hiss when it is on. I have worked on tube and solid state amps in the past and they all make some noise but this thing is silent. I did not follow any of the grounding scheme shown on the layout that comes with these kits and instead ran a solid 12AWG copper bare wire down the length of the circuit board that floats in the air between the board and the pots. All grounds are soldered to this with little jumpers and one end is bonded to one of the mounting posts on the power transformer. Which brings me to observation #2..
2. The amp really only comes alive with volume pots at noon or higher. The amp works at lower volumes but there is no compression or fullness of the tone below the noon position. I am not terribly shocked at this, just an observation. This may or may not relate to #1 in that maybe the amp is supposed to have a full, rounded tone at lower volumes?
3. I can't wait to get a set of beam blockers, the high pitch harmonics that shoot out like icepicks from the speaker cone are sometimes unbearable. The speaker is a new 25W Celestion G12H greenback.
4. I was not sure I loved the amp until I added a compressor pedal, things really came alive after that addition. My guitar is an Ibanez AS-83 which is a copy of a Gibson ES-335. I was sure I had crap pickups before compression was added, now I am sure I will never have to blow $2500 on the real thing. The pedal is a Keeley Compressor.
5. The vintage-y and blues-y tones are amazing, it is what I expected after playing one of the reissue Marshall 1974X's in a guitar shop a few years back. Really no complaints. Really nails Keith Richards tones from old stones songs. I use an A/B switch to go between channels as well as an Ibanez Turbo Tube Screamer pedal (it has 4 different distortion modes). The one question I have is can you get a modern high gain distortion sound from this amp by using a certain pedal? When I really crank up the Tube Screamer I get distortion but it mostly just gets louder. This is not a complaint, I built an 18watt to get a certain tone but it would be nice if it could transform when needed. I am thinking about something that is essentially another tube gain stage, like the Firefly preamp turned into a pedal (from the AX-84 site).
1. First off, I am shocked at the almost total lack of hum or hiss when it is on. I have worked on tube and solid state amps in the past and they all make some noise but this thing is silent. I did not follow any of the grounding scheme shown on the layout that comes with these kits and instead ran a solid 12AWG copper bare wire down the length of the circuit board that floats in the air between the board and the pots. All grounds are soldered to this with little jumpers and one end is bonded to one of the mounting posts on the power transformer. Which brings me to observation #2..
2. The amp really only comes alive with volume pots at noon or higher. The amp works at lower volumes but there is no compression or fullness of the tone below the noon position. I am not terribly shocked at this, just an observation. This may or may not relate to #1 in that maybe the amp is supposed to have a full, rounded tone at lower volumes?
3. I can't wait to get a set of beam blockers, the high pitch harmonics that shoot out like icepicks from the speaker cone are sometimes unbearable. The speaker is a new 25W Celestion G12H greenback.
4. I was not sure I loved the amp until I added a compressor pedal, things really came alive after that addition. My guitar is an Ibanez AS-83 which is a copy of a Gibson ES-335. I was sure I had crap pickups before compression was added, now I am sure I will never have to blow $2500 on the real thing. The pedal is a Keeley Compressor.
5. The vintage-y and blues-y tones are amazing, it is what I expected after playing one of the reissue Marshall 1974X's in a guitar shop a few years back. Really no complaints. Really nails Keith Richards tones from old stones songs. I use an A/B switch to go between channels as well as an Ibanez Turbo Tube Screamer pedal (it has 4 different distortion modes). The one question I have is can you get a modern high gain distortion sound from this amp by using a certain pedal? When I really crank up the Tube Screamer I get distortion but it mostly just gets louder. This is not a complaint, I built an 18watt to get a certain tone but it would be nice if it could transform when needed. I am thinking about something that is essentially another tube gain stage, like the Firefly preamp turned into a pedal (from the AX-84 site).