18watt.com amps

[sgt mukuzi]

yep go with a kit, ceriatone do great ones too Unless you're willing to put extra time and energy into scavenging - in which case you might as well buy a Marshall 1974 and be done with it! As time is money ...and I wouldn't describe the 1974's as crappy built

For the record I built a 36watt kit from Weber Which reminds me, its about time it was gigged again, praps at Bar159 next month

oh yea i meant the reissues


bro in all honesty, the reissue marshall i had for a month or so was CRAP ! the trannys made high pitched noises because they wernt bolted down hard enough, the tube sockets ratteled inside because they were the absolute cheepest you could get, sure it had a bunch of stickers on the inside but in reality it was toast, and my jcm900 was a joke, made by people who HATE there job, everthing ratcheted it so hard they strip the inners
dude, the marshalls made after 198? are bad imo

[Bg]

bro in all honesty, the reissue marshall i had for a month or so was CRAP ! the trannys made high pitched noises because they wernt bolted down hard enough, the tube sockets ratteled inside because they were the absolute cheepest you could get, sure it had a bunch of stickers on the inside but in reality it was toast,

but did it burst into flames???

[ant]

Im surprised one of the 18 watt reissues *hasnt* caught fire yet, given all the transformer meltdowns.

[Bg]

so the sgt's was basically a replica then?

[B45-12]

Does no one still use the cunning lowcost ancient chinese trick of substituting a mains xformer with a 6volt winding for valve output xformer(whip out the laminations and interleave them/put them back so the xformer does not saturate so easily)???. Dick Smith has them and while it's not ideal, it's not too bad and a hell of a lot cheaper. Also go scrounging for non working old valve radios from about the 50's - the output xformers on them will handle usually up to 5 watts no problemo so a quick continuity check with an ohmeter and you may be in luck.

[TmcB]

I was wondering about those dockery amps ay...
How much tax does one have to pay to bring a kit (be it dockery or ceriatone) into NZ?
I'm happy to pay around $600 all up.
Oh and does ANYONE in NZ make head cabinets?
I'm tossing up buying a sovtek mig 50 and re-tubing it or building an 18watt.
Thoughts?

[rickenbackerkid]

I was wondering about those dockery amps ay...
How much tax does one have to pay to bring a kit (be it dockery or ceriatone) into NZ?
I'm happy to pay around $600 all up.
Oh and does ANYONE in NZ make head cabinets?
I'm tossing up buying a sovtek mig 50 and re-tubing it or building an 18watt.
Thoughts?

Tax is 12.5%, sometimes you get charged sometimes you don't. $600 bucks for just the kit, not including speaker/cab? Sounds a bit low to me, but you may be able to get it for that.

I recomend you have a crack at your own cabniet, I built a combo cab recently and it cost about $50 including screws, glue, tolex, speaker grille and plywood. It is strong enough to stand on and looks good too. I did it with a handsaw, jigsaw, electric drill and a wood rasp, and zero woodworking experience.

I have a Mig-50 and my own version of an 18. Very, very different beasts.
The Mig is loud, clean and sounds amazing. But it needs the right tubes and speakers to sound great. If you want a rock sound out of it you will deafen the entire town - it's got lots of head room. Fully cranked it gets crunchy, but not super saturated. With a Sovtek, a good 4x12, and volume on 8 you can create beautiful havoc.

The 18 is the opposite. It's got hardly any headroom, loud bedroom volume and its beginning to breakup and chime. Medium stage volume, as in 9, and it's pretty dirty. Very much a vox/marshall chime.
The Sovtek is Fender bassman all the way with 6L6 toobs. You can drop EL34's in there and it will get middy-er and breakup more, think AC/DC tone.

[TmcB]

Mate, that's EXACTLY what I needed!
I think I'll keep the sovtek, and build a 18watt; got a stereo cab so I'll just run them through there and A/B as needed.
What tubes did you use in the Mig?

[rickenbackerkid]

Mate, that's EXACTLY what I needed!
I think I'll keep the sovtek, and build a 18watt; got a stereo cab so I'll just run them through there and A/B as needed.
What tubes did you use in the Mig?

That would be a killer rig, Sovtek for clean, Mashall for crunch, fuzz pedal into Sovtek for lead. Maybe I should get an A/B pedal?

I tried a few brands of tube and ended up with JJ's 6L6's. The pretubes are all JJ's 12ax7, except for V1 which is a Mullard ECC83. The V1 position makes a big difference, followed by the power tubes.

I run mine with a 4x10 open back cab with Jensens, which helps to bring out the Fenderish clean character. I used to have a Marshall 2x12, which certainly made it sound bigger, but it wasn't as 3D as the 4x10 cab.

[syd]

Interesting about the tubes.
Just started to build a jcm 800 2204. Using the layout from dreamtone.

Does anyone know a good place for the caps?
Also looking for tube sockets. Jaycar seems to be the cheapest so far.

BTW this is forum is fantastic

[Bg]

Interesting about the tubes.
Just started to build a jcm 800 2204. Using the layout from dreamtone.

Does anyone know a good place for the caps?
Also looking for tube sockets. Jaycar seems to be the cheapest so far.

BTW this is forum is fantastic

of course it is Welcome

[ant]

Sockets are tough to find, jaycar do seem cheapest, I used their brown coloured 9 pin sockets, once, 5 years ago but found they are crappy plastic that melts easily. People charge an arm and a leg cause no one else imports them

They may have changed stock since then though. Better to get ceramic, amphenol or bakelite.

Are you in auckland?

[Timoes]

Hi, new here also. But to the important stuff. I built a Ceriatone 18 watt TMB. God its great! Built my own cab from MDF board.Fitted a Eminence Red Fang alnico speaker. Just need to finish the covering now if I can stop using it long enough to pull it down.

It will owe me around $850 once totally complete. I talked nicely to the dude at Ceriatone (NiK) who was only too willing to mark the declared price down to under $500 NZD as not to attract the dreaded GST. Ceriatone operate from Singapore so the freight is a little more realistic than from the US which has become nearly ridiculous.

I got the valves off Trademe. Good price and safer to send than from overseas. The Redfang came from the US and fortuneatly when the dollar was buying 80 odd cents USD. Well worth looking offshore for speakers. I saw the Redfang listed here for over $600 ! Any one heard of WGS speakers? Wharehouse guitar speakers. They are getting some great reveiws and are a real good buy. They are seriously good copies of all the big name of speaker manufacturers and US made.

But yep the 18 is sweet !! Think I might build a Train Wreck clone soon. Heard one on youtube the other day. Some dude fired up a LP through a genuine one. Fan bloody tastic. The Gibson/Marshall sound is great but I reckon this Train Wreck/ Gibson is killer. Just need to get that dirty ol Kiwi buck back up a bit.

Cool site BTW.

[Bg]

why have 18 watts when you can double your money

http://nzguitars.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... bombardier

[ant]

got the valves off Trademe. Good price and safer to send than from overseas

I didn't think NZ made valves