Practice Express 1w?

[JamesHealey]

Ok so i've made express' in various wattages..

5W 7W 18w 25w 35w 60w..

35w is the most useful and the real deal..

has anyone made an express with a 12AU7 push pull output section?

I've got a 160mA PT with 0 -190 and 0 - 275 tap which I could either use for an 18w Liverpool or something small like this.

anyone done such a thing? if so? results?

[PlinytheWelder]

I've got a pile of 6N1P-EV's that I'd like to try in something. What would be a good OT?

[bancika]

I made it with 6sn7 double triode, 2w output or so. Sounds good. Haven't built the real TW so can't compare.

I recorded a few clips on http://www.youtube.com/user/bancika

Cheers,
Bane

[Markusv]

Bancika

Nice pics and great playing!

I built the same amp and it is great. The 6SN7 sounds way bigger than 2 watts and I would recommend, James, a lower efficiency speaker if output volume is a consideration
Currently I play the amp through a 2x12 and I still get noise complaints

Great amp for practice though because it has very similar dynamics to its big brother

Cheers

[RJ Guitars]

I made it with 6sn7 double triode, 2w output or so. Sounds good. Haven't built the real TW so can't compare.

I recorded a few clips on http://www.youtube.com/user/bancika

Cheers,
Bane

Nice clip! Can you say how much sustain you get out of the amp if you have it cranked up? Sometimes that is the tough part to get out of a "quiet" amp. There just isn't that much sound in the room and it's hard to get the guitar to ring like it does when you are shaking the rafters.

I do like low wattage amps and would love to see any photos and hear more clips if you've got them.

rj

[bancika]

Thanks RJ.

I'm yet to play it with a speaker, so can't tell about how it feels in a room. IMO it does have decent sustain, I'll try to record some clips with strat and ibanez to show how long it sustains. My greenback cab is back at my parents' so I'm using palmer speaker sim and a dummy load to play in my apartment.

I built a couple of low wattage amps: 5w SLO with EL91 push pull, ax84 firefly, my design with 12k5 space charge (30mW, really quiet ) and a el95 kalamazoo 1 (3 watt). I only have clips of the SLO, but I plan to record the rest of them as soon as possible.

Few days ago I made a little search engine for my you tube clips. Check it out http://diy-fever.com/clips/

Cheers,
Bane

[RJ Guitars]

Small amps are a big piece of my agenda, but I really had to get into big amps to learn what I wanted and now I'm working on applying it to smaller formats.

So far the dwarf tubes are the easy winner, although I do have a couple triode push pull output efforts that work well and are gig proven.

I love the EL95 tube as well as many other 7 pin outputs. I am currently working on a Liverpool with a pair of 7 pin outputs.

Space charge tubes would be a new experience to me... I've always thought of them like a cool science experiment but not powerful enough for what I wanted.

I didn't follow the search engine clip too well... probably web technology impairment on my part. I would love to hear clips of all your builds, especially through a big speaker.

thanks,

rj

[bancika]

it's very simple, just pick any piece of gear from the drop down box and it will list all of my clips that are made using it. 5w slo is for now my favorite, those el91 sound awesome. I'm yet to try 6ak6 which are close in specs, have a few but no time
cheers

[tjauernig]

When I was working at Peavey, I did an amp in the custom shop that was basically a 1 watt wreck. It had a 12AU7 in the output and put out about 1.5 watts. We used to get noise citations at guitar shows with the thing when we'd run it through a 412 cab. Sounded much larger than 1.5 watts, and people were always impressed. (to bad about that logo, was the only negative comment I used to get. And I heard it often.)

[WhopperPlate]

.....Peavey.... (to bad about that logo, was the only negative comment I used to get. And I heard it often.)

I put a Peavey logo on my amps when I go to shady gigs, people don't look twice at my amps

[Decko]

Hi All,

I have built 3 of these 2 watters. They are a Trainwreck Express preamp using a 6SN7 triode in the power section. They are bad ass. Depending how you set up they feedback loop, they can getting pretty agressive. I use Cliff's custom wound Heyboor trannies which give it the tight lowend and everything else is chimey with full bloom. Sounds are clean to light blues....rock to extremely hard rock.

I have one more on the bench which is a double 6SN7 on the power section. The rest is set up exactly like a wreck.

Cheers,
Danny

[RJ Guitars]

Hi All,

I have built 3 of these 2 watters. They are a Trainwreck Express preamp using a 6SN7 triode in the power section. They are bad ass....
Danny

I really like the idea... I have been working through several different lower wattage output tube compliments to put into a wreck build but haven't gotten down to the dual triodes yet. You have done that quite nicely!

If you could post us up a clip I would love to hear the sound of those amps. It would be especially interesting to hear the difference between the dual and the double dual triode sounds. That double should be knocking us over with a total of three watts... enough to make your wife complain at home for sure and I know a couple sound men who would still ask you to turn it down.

thanks,

rj

[Mr.Curwen]

I've built three Trainwreck Express type amps on my testboard with 12AU7 output. The truth is that there is no way to get power amp distortion even from 12AU7 within any reasonable apartment sound levels. No way.

But otherwise it rocks very nicely.

I shot a clip way back (with out of tune guitar, what else can you do to complement this kind of video shooting?);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaBUduKyMIg

[RJ Guitars]

I've built three Trainwreck Express type amps on my testboard with 12AU7 output. The truth is that there is no way to get power amp distortion even from 12AU7 within any reasonable apartment sound levels. No way.

But otherwise it rocks very nicely.

I shot a clip way back (with out of tune guitar, what else can you do to complement this kind of video shooting?);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaBUduKyMIg

Yeah that clip tells a good story. Part of that story might be that you are a little camera shy, but that is cool. Your playing compliments the Trainwreck sound and the clip shares the critical elements of the amp

I think you have to down to about a half watt before it is really a bedroom amp.

rj

[wicker]

You may try do it with ECC81 as the end stage, something like FireFly amp.