Thanks one and all.

I find I can get very Marshall like tones with my Egnater Tweaker and it's ability to change out the tubes very easily 6V6, EL34, EL84, KT66, ... You can really get close to many different amp tones between it's tube changing capabilities and the various tone shaping switches including ones for [font="verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; "]selectable AC, British and American tone controls,  the Modern or Vintage Amp voicing switch.  Add to that the Tight/Bright and the Hot/Clean gain switch and anything from Fender cleans, Vox chime, and Marshall drive is only a few minor adjustments away.  I love this thing, some of the best guitar related money I've spent.

Gaffpro


Egnators are excellent amps.....switching the tubes out is a great feature, does it have a self bias control?  They are way more expensive than a Blackstar

The Tweaker is cathode biased so there is no adjustment required when replacing tubes, it's the only Egnater amp according to their FAQ  without a fixed/adjustable bias.  It really is an extremely versatile amp and at 15 watts it's a great recording/home studio amp.

One way to make an amp: This photo is from a public enthusiast site:

It'll probably last 5 years before someone tells you it's cheaper to buy a new one than repair this ugly mess of potentially bad connections.







Another way to build an amp. These are from a manufacturers website where they are showing off the build quality of their products:


It'll probably last 20 years before you need a repair and when you do someone is going to tell you that it is a keeper and it will always be cheaper to maintain this amp than to go out and buy a new one.

Plus it sounds like a Marhsall. :-)

there is nothing wrong with pcb.

my 1981 mesa boogie mark2b can testify to that.

6 years of fulltime (6 nights a week, 5 hours a night) road work, plus falling off of a halfstack onto it's face on a carpeted drum riser, never missed a beat, still going strong.

do it right.

and it will last forever.

from:  http://www.mesaboogie.com...th/point-to-point.html


Conclusion
...four specific advantages of the printed circuit board:

1.Consistency of location,


I'm guessing the girls who he says used to hand load his circuit boards while sunbathing topless on the porch may have put some stuff in the wrong place. (In)Consistency is a matter of assembly and execution rather than specific to a PCB technology.


2.Ability to use the board for intentional coupling,

?????? Like, WTF, does he mean to suggest you can't do that with hand wired circuits?

 I think maybe, just maybe, he's trying to describe the capacitance, or coupling, that occurs between a PCB's ground "plane" and the rest of the circuit traces as a virtue rather than the high frequency squelching capacitance "problem" that some designers describe it as.

 That seems like an original take on the issue, and I do acknowledge that one can make clever use of the effect, but you can do it with hand wired stuff too.

 Yep, that's what he's talking about:


 "Great care and many scrutinized revisions result in a circuit board layout that avoids any unwanted "stray couplings" that can rob tone, or may even include a few nuances of intentional interaction (black magic) which cannot be reliably duplicated in the point-to-point style."

 He's talking about "black magic" :-)
 

3. Immunity to noise-causing moisture,

Absolute non issue with the use of garolite board material, Randalls refering to the old oil paper which did sort of absorb moisture after about 20 years of being stored in a non air conditioned HVAC environment. The kind of environment most of us older folks remember as kids.


4.It does not warp.

Another complete non issue with contemporary garolite board material, Randalls refering to the old oil paper which did sort of warp a bit after about 20 years of being run through a heating/cooling cycle inside the amp.


BTW, if the term Garolite seems unfamiliar... it's a name brand for the same stuff that most printed circuit boards are made out of. In other words, printed or turret board, it's pretty much the same exact piece of "board".



There are actually lots of problems with many PCB boards, but no one has to listen to me, here's what Mr Randall Smith says about "most" pcbs:


"Most manufacturers use singlesided boards where there is only one solder connection per part on thin foil glued to the boards surface. Moreover, these boards, once installed can't be hand-soldered for repair or replacement without totally dismantling the amplifier."

I don't know if you see it in there... but he is describing 3 major problems with pcbs... and I agree with him.

:-)



all the best,
mike

I stumbled upon this while looking,this morning, for some info on a solder station I want to buy.

It seems to be a very well written explanation of why the author feels that good PCB work is superior to hand wire.

I disagree with his basic premise that hand wiring is inconsistent. I'd point out that only inconsistent hand wiring is not consistent while the good hand wiring is.

Never the less, I think he did a very good job of presenting his opinion.

http://www.bogneramplific...customshop/Pcboard.php


best regards,
mike

by the way, THD is in seattle...

and that's where BOEING is, and laid off hundreds of FAA-approved craftsmen/women.....


i guess that's where he hired his crew from....

my boogie's gut shot.


a couple of years ago, i hired a local authorized boogie repair guy, to 'tune up' my vintage'y amp.

new caps, everything that was out of spec (which was not a lot) was replaced.

any pots with loose solder joints, were repaired, all the basic stuff.

and it did indeed tighten up the sound, which of course, had drifted a bit since 1981.

but i got to look at the inside work very closely, and it looks like something that would come out of a Military lab.
LOL
 
 
i never gave it a lot of thought when i bought it (i knew i wanted something road-worthy, and all my friends with marshalls were having failures, at the worst times!)....

but now, years later, i appreciate the method that randall smith adopted so long ago, and pretty much set the bar for all to follow, using the pcb approach.


and i've seen some real cheap amp guts, with cheap pcb builds, and there really IS a big difference in the way they sound, versus the quality they have, compared to my boogie (and other similar build quality amps)



i guess back in the day, boogie was THE boutique builder, because you could not buy these amps in any store.


you had to order them, pay for them, and wait for 6 weeks for them to build them.


Mesa has come a long way from where they were, but when i play a lot of the modern boutique amps, and compare their sound and feel to my old 'boutique boogie', they almost always pale in comparison.

that's why i've held onto it for so long.


the only amps that really talks to me, that i've played in recent years, that could supplant the mark2b, would be:
1. Bogner Shiva
2. Marshall JVM410H
3. Mesa Road King
4. Mesa Mark V
5. Suhr OD50


my requirements:
dual channels, killer clean channel, killer gain channel.
secondary requirements: graphic eq, fx loop, multiple ohm speaker outs 

The image of the hand wired circuit I posted above is of a clone of a Marshall 18watt circuit.

http://www.avatarspeakers.com/Avatar%2018W.htm

Made in USA. Right around $1k.

:-)


best,
mike