Weber kits for Tweed Deluxe and Bassman?

[jelle]

Hi Guys, I was wondering what the overall impression of the current Weber kits is. I am considering doing a Tweed Bassman and a Deluxe some time in the future and wondered about the quality of the cabinet, chassis, Weber Signature speakers and transformers that come with these kits.

I will not be using the pots, resistors, board etc, just the bigger parts.

Thanks!!

[M Fowler]

Never bought a Weber kit yet, some day I want the AC30 212 combo kit.

I've used Weber Tweed chassis and they were very well made sturdy material. I've used Weber 50w PT and OT in my 5b6 build and it sounds great.

I think they have improved the jacks, pots and caps.

[johnnyreece]

Mark's pretty well spot-on. Neutrik jacks, Carling switches. Chassis are stainless steel (for the tweeds). The tubes (which it sounds like you aren't getting) aren't special, but you don't save a lot by not including them, so I keep them as test tubes (not the kind you pour chemicals in ). The cabs are the real value. They had some issues a while back, but I think they either switched builders, or properly motivated the old one. If you're swapping out parts, go ahead and spring for a new pilot light, too. I've had too much trouble with the kit version shorting out, and I value my PT too much to chance it. Some people also hate the wire, but I've been using it with no issues (other than cosmetic).

[Zippy]

For 5E3, Mission is great.

http://missionamps.com/5E3kit.shtml

[jelle]

Good to know. Hmmm, the stainless steel chassis is quite the deviation. How is the noise floor on these chassis?

[super100]

Good to know. Hmmm, the stainless steel chassis is quite the deviation. How is the noise floor on these chassis?

The one amp I heard had a low noise floor, but I personally haven't used one.

From the website:
"And, on a final note, after selling chassis for over 12 years now, we have given up on chromers and platers. I don't know if it is the EPA, pay scale, or a combination of several factors, but we have had nothing but trouble getting decent chroming on our chassis. In many cases, we had more scrap than we had chasses we could sell. For awhile, we were selling chassis at a net loss just to be able to have them available for our kits and other uses. Very frustrating. So, we recently made the inevitable decision to go with stainless steel chasses exclusively. We are using the highest polished steel that actually looks better than the best chromed chassis we had. Secondly, we are putting weld studs in all chassis to allow for the establishment of a single point ground. I had two amps built identically, one with our traditional chassis and one with stainless. I blueprinted them, meaning I used the same set of tubes for testing each and made all voltages identical in both amps. At that point, I could do a reliable test for noise comparisons between the two. I did that because a lot of people poo-poo stainless steel chasses. I found they both had virtually identical noise floors, and their signal to noise ratios were essentially the same at many different volume settings. So, I'm convinced we're moving in the right direction, and I hope you will too."

[jelle]

Thanks! That is at least one report of an identical noisefloor.

I wonder about the Alnico Signature 10S speakers. Does anyone here have experience with those? Thanks again for the input!

[catears]

I would say the only good thing about a weber kit is the chassis and speaker. Out of the half dozen cabinets I have bought from them over the years, every single one showed up with splitting tolex on the corners and a bad grill job after waiting 2 months for them to show up. For the money, you can pay a few extra bucks per transformer and get something made in america that is far more reliable. My .02

[jelle]

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate the input.

[mhartman]

If I were doing a Bassman or a Deluxe, I would probably go with a Classic Tone transformer bundle from Triode Store, a chassis from weber or mojo and then a cab from someone who specializes in doing nice pine cabs and who does excellent tweed work. Beyond that, I've seen your work, you can do the rest with your eyes closed and you probably already have the remaining parts on your bench. Well, you might have to buy some cloth wire f you're going for a nice vintage look.

For speakers, I really like the sound of the Eminence blue frames. Keep your eyes open on ebay for some deals on those.

When I did my tweed deluxe build (a long time ago), I found a bunch of gutshots of the nice modern tweeds (Victoria, Clark, etc.) and procured parts in line with what I was seeing there.

[alvarezh]

+1

Bought a Marshall head cab three or four years ago from Weber, not good at all. Not even the tolex stayed in place without taking it ever out of my house. Have bought two Low Power Tweed Twins and one Tweed Deluxe cabinets, plus a BF Twin Reverb head cab from Mojo, I must say that you probably could not tell the difference between them and the Fender stuff.

Enjoy your project Jelle.

[pullshocks]

I have the Alnico Signature 10S in my 6v6 SE build (AX84 "Blues" preamp). I am no expert, but it sounds good to me. I'd like to be able to get a little more clean output on the low strings, but it is sweet enough everywhere else that I just turn down the bass knob and live with it. Still only $48

[jelle]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the honest answers a lot.

[statorvane]

I don't want to knock the Weber Alnico 10's ( we have a 4 x 12 cab with the signature 12Bs), but I found the Eminence Legend 105s sound really nice. Their website description as ceramic replacements for alnico speakers is accurate. You can certainly do far worse then the Legends in tweed amplifiers. Think they run around $65 each.

[jelle]

I understand that the Signature speakers are Weber's budget line. I will most likely get some to try, I see that some people like them.
Yes, eminence has some great speakers. I really like the Alnico Legend 1028k in a 4x10 configuration. I never tried the ceramic one, sounds like I should! The 1028k is a bit too hifi for some applications, the Sig 10s might be lo-fi enough to work in a 4x10.

Too bad WGS does not have a lower power Alnico. I really like some of the speakers that I have heard from them.

Martin, you pretty much said what I was wondering, thanks for that. The idea is not to build a copy of an old tweed amp, -although I might do that now that I have heard Seasick Steve's Bassman-, but to make a sleeper version with different circuitry and modern parts inside.

Thanks for the input!