JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Guitars and Guitarist Forum What amp do you use?

For guitar, I have a number of amps that I've built that I use. The most used are:

1) My AK-40, which consists of a homemade cabinet covered with black vinyl, a Line 6 Pod Pro as the preamp, a 100W Bogen vacuum tube PA amp which I drastically rewired so that it is now very similar to a '65 Fender Super Reverb 40W power amp, but with EL-34s as output tubes (as used in Marshalls), driving a 12" speaker salvaged from an Ampeg Gemini II.

2) My AK-30, which is my most used amp. I started with a defunct Ampeg Gemini II amp, gutted it except for parts of the reverb circuitry (I always preferred the Ampeg reverbs), designed and built new electronics for it which is based mostly around an Vox AC30 Top Boost except a) it has one "Vox-like" channel that by switching one switch converts it either a Vox bright channel, Vox normal channel, or halfway in between (which makes it more like a '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb preamp), and has two selectable volume controls so I can overdrive the preamp or not with a footswitch without a volume increase, b) a custom designed channel built around a 7199 pentode tube, an unusual design (sounds great with my Gretsch Country Club and my 12 string Rick 330), c) a master volume control which, when turned up all the way is completely out of the circuit, d) power amp switchable between 15 and 30 W (usually use at 15W setting), and a custom designed (and probably patentable) distortion unit. I replaced the original speaker with a Celestion Vintage 30, though I have a Weber 30W Blue Dog on order to replace that. I still debating converting it to twin 12" speakers.

3) My AK-10, which is a custom designed and built 3 W Class A tube amp head that I can crank all the way up to get that natural tube distortion without blowing my eardrums. It can use either an EL84 (like in Vox amps) or a 6V6 or 6L6 (like in Fender amps) output tube. I use it with any of about 7 different speaker cabinets I have laying around (My half of a Shure Vocalmaster, with a 10" and two 7" speakers often sounds best.).


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Stone Marmot
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