Ian's Ampmaker N5X Tube Amp Kit

[TC1600]

Hi all,

Previous to ordering my guitar kit, I found a UK company that sells tube amp kits, having never had a serious amp I started looking around and liked what I saw for the money. I took the plunge and bought their 5W "British Overdrive" kit, which duly arrived a couple of weeks later. After about 3-4 weeks of part time evening work, probably about 1 or 2 hours per session, the kit was assembled and ready to be installed in a cabinet. With some 18mm ply and some bracing from the Big Green Shed and a second hand speaker from ebay I was in business. Once built the cab was covered in a metallic gold/orange vinyl that caught my eye in Spotlight (I was tagging along with the missus, honest!), the kit and speaker were installed and minor hardware fitted. I was very impressed with the tone, I haven't really had a chance to crank it up yet but it seems pretty loud for a 5 watter!

The kit as received:

Assembled:

Trial assembly of cabinet:

The finished item (sort of):

And a quick sneaky pic of my sim racing setup (one day I might even finish it lol!):

Any questions, feel free to ask! and the complete build up can be found here.

[kimball492]

Tc1600 great job I bet you loved building . Well done Bro when you putting the wheels on the car lol.

Best Wishes
Kimball

[bargeloobs]

Nice job man, how much for the kit, is it only one channel, what's the gain like?

[wokkaboy]

nice looking amp Ian, was it easy to tune and setup the tubes?
So the kit is only the electronics and you need to supply the speaker and cabinet ?
Racing sim seat looks cool, what seat is that out of ?

[TC1600]

Hi guys, yes the kit comes on its own, it is a complete kit apart from speaker and cabinet though. It cost about $450ish shipped for the kit, plus the speaker at $75 and about $80-100 for materials for the cab. Just the one channel, and gain is pretty good, there is a bypass switch for the tone stack for extra gain, and a two way boost switch (fat and bright) which doesn't add a huge amount. I haven't had a chance to record samples yet as I don't have any decent recording gear, but it is on the to do list It comes set up for the valves supplied but if you fit different valves for different tones you need to adjust the bias voltage.

The seat is out of an old corolla I used to have as a project car, until I realised how expensive it was going to get!

[wokkaboy]

thanks for the info Ian, sounds expensive when you add up all the parts required for the amp but you can't put a price on the experience and what you learned building it.
Be keen for a video demo of the amp even using a phone camera

[stan]

looks great Ian, and I bet it sounds good too.
But holy crap, it must be heavy with 18mm ply! Would give great resonance though

[kells80aus]

Hi TC.... absolutely fab. being a power freak, what does this kit put out. I've been looking at valve amp kits along the ceriatone line. 18 watt and JTM 45's and JTM45/100's but the later two are out of my price range unless I rob a bank or something.

Love your work.

Cheers PK

[TC1600]

Wokka: For a similar shop built amp I figure you would likely spend at least 50% more, and even if it didn't work out cheaper, as you said the experience is worth its weight in gold

Stan: It's actually not that heavy, but it certainly is solid! I considered putting casters on it, but figured I can live with it, I've carried heavier amps! It's not massive, here is my guitar next to it for scale:

PK: It's the baby amp of their range at 5W, but apparently a 5W tube amp is louder than a 5W solid state, not sure why but that's what I've heard. Check their site, they do a range of different style amps from a tweed Champ clone to an 18W Marshall style. Like anything else, do your research, companies vary in price and support (some don't provide instructions, only a schematic) and some companies offer a complete kit including cab and speaker if you don't want to chase them up yourself.

[DrNomis_44]

Wokka: For a similar shop built amp I figure you would likely spend at least 50% more, and even if it didn't work out cheaper, as you said the experience is worth its weight in gold

Stan: It's actually not that heavy, but it certainly is solid! I considered putting casters on it, but figured I can live with it, I've carried heavier amps! It's not massive, here is my guitar next to it for scale:

PK: It's the baby amp of their range at 5W, but apparently a 5W tube amp is louder than a 5W solid state, not sure why but that's what I've heard. Check their site, they do a range of different style amps from a tweed Champ clone to an 18W Marshall style. Like anything else, do your research, companies vary in price and support (some don't provide instructions, only a schematic) and some companies offer a complete kit including cab and speaker if you don't want to chase them up yourself.

Some people reckon a Tube amp is louder than a similarly rated Solid-State amp due to the fact that a Tube amp has a softer overdrive characteristic compared to Solid-State amps, a Tube amp will tend to clip gradually as you overdrive it more, whereas a Solid-State amp clips sharply, when you overdrive a Tube amp it produces more even harmonics which are said to sound pleasant to the human ear, on the other hand, when you overdrive a Solid-State amp it generates predominantly odd-harmonics which sound harsher, in addition, the soft overdrive of the Tube amp tends to compress the signal going to the speaker and when you compress a signal it tends to sound louder, well that's the theory anyway, another thing is, Tube amps tend to use very little or no negative-feedback to control power-amp distortion so a Tube amp is going to sound more "colourful" or "Musical".


My two cents worth.