Homemade amp rules

[Sam Pajanna]

I recently built a tube amp, based upon the venerable Supro Thunderbolt(I named it the Mjolnir). I built it for guitar and it sounds really great for that purpose. But I've also recently started playing bass and since I didn't have a bass amp I plugged into it. It sounds fantastic! What is weird is that this thing is a 30W combo using 2x 6L6 tubes with a 15" Eminence big ben. and it is plenty loud enough to keep up with my band in our practice room. And we play metal. Loud. In fact, our bass player started using the amp because it sounds better than her own bass rig. Nothing about this should be true but there it is. The Thunderbolt was originally marketed as a bass amp, but I modified the circuit pretty heavily to attempt to improve its tone for guitar...and created a killer bass amp.

 

[with_joerg]

Can you share some blueprints / building plans for building a bass tube amp? I could imagine that I also try this.

 

[BassmanPaul]

@Sam Pajanna Just be careful you don’t enrage Thor by stealing his hammer!!

I’m really happy you built an amplifier and got it to work. It’s a great feeling! Without meaning to be patronising I say well done. Now how many shocks did you let? LOL

 

[BassmanPaul]

Can you share some blueprints / building plans for building a bass tube amp? I could imagine that I also try this.

Building an amp takes some skill with high voltage electronics. In the days of Heathkit and the like, many ordinary folk were successful with such projects and learned in the process. I built my first tube amp when I was a 12/13 YO kid. It sort of worked but had instability that I was too immature to cure. Now I know exactly what I did wrong - poor layout! This was way before I got involved with bass but to this day I like having tubes in my signal chain and I like having designed and built part of that chain.

There are kits of one sort and another that would introduce you into the construction of tube electronics. May I humbly suggest that you try one or more of them before you get into 450/500V B+ amplifiers. It’s just too easy to slip and have an ‘oops’.

 

[Stumbo]

Building an amp takes some skill with high voltage electronics. In the days of Heathkit and the like, many ordinary folk were successful with such projects and learned in the process. I built my first tube amp when I was a 12/13 YO kid. It sort of worked but had instability that I was too immature to cure. Now I know exactly what I did wrong - poor layout! This was way before I got involved with bass but to this day I like having tubes in my signal chain and I like having designed and built part of that chain.

There are kits of one sort and another that would introduce you into the construction of tube electronics. May I humbly suggest that you try one or more of them before you get into 450/500V B+ amplifiers. It’s just too easy to slip and have an ‘oops’.

And die.

 

[b-b-b-bass]

No guts, no progress, no glory!
Act and proceed safely, and one can safely do anything.