18Watt.com

Greetings y'all!

I'm totally amazed by the sound clips of the 18watt amp, and the great work put up by forum members.

I play largely blues/rock, with influences ranging from SRV, Hendrix, Cream, to Guns N' Roses. My rig is a very basic one, consisting of a Les Paul, a Strat, a 15watt Fender Blues Jr amp, and a few pedals for tonal variation. I mostly use my vintage rat pedal for that marshallesque touch to the Blues Jr.

My main motivation for building a tube amp from scratch, is driven by practical reasons of my situation. I need a low wattage amp for my home use, recordings, and small jams. I live in an urban city area, making playing at normal volumes near to impossible.

I hope to learn here how to build a low wattage version of the classic 18watt amp, perhaps a 1watt version would be extremely interesting. Do let me know your thoughts, as to whether I should just stick to the Fender+rat combination with the "pseudo Marshall" tones, or invest time and effort making a homebrew 1watt marshall.

Thanks!
Wine Red.

You can build a something like that, using a 12AU7/ECC81 dual-triode for your push-pull power stage. I have heard of others doing this, and it produces about 1.8W - so you get a Marshall 1.8watter! You can either build it based on the Lite II version without trem, or go for the full 18W sound with the Trem channel included. You may also get some help from the AX84 board as well (www.ax84.com) as they're into experimental designs, and some of them have already built 12AU7 power stages.

Please don't take this as an offense to your Fender, but you need to start with a full-on 18W to see what the 18W thing is all about. Then try a lower watt version if the 18W version doesn't do what you need it to do. The Blues Jr. is a good little amp but it isn't anywhere near the level of an 18W in terms of aggression, touch response, and richness of tone.

Hi Phil and Graydon,

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm indeed very very tempted to try the full 18watt model, but loud volume it generates might be a little too much for a weekend warrior like me.

Anyways, as suggested, I'll try my luck.

I am a telecom engineer by profession, however, my experience with analog electronics are largely academic, and guitar electronics are the most I've ventured in terms of analog stuff. So this adventure would be quite interesting.

Firstly, what tools would I need? During my university days, I did build an audio amplifier for a project. It required the usage of an oscilloscope, signal generator, and a rheostat at a minimum. Do I need these equipment for building the 18watt too? Or is it possible to get around without investing in these lab equipment?

Many Thanks!
Wine Red

Yup - the scope and sig gen would be nice to have, but they're not essential. A soldering iron and DMM are all I've used (so far).

If 18W of volume is a problem (it is for me, too), Graydon stocks Weber's MASS attenuator, which will keep things in check even for midnight rocking I use the THD HotPlate for the same thing.