Not exactly PRS related

[NBW]

I finally built my kit amp to use with my diy cab. I will say that the bud kit is dead easy to build and is probably a decent circuit. However I am having a super weird problem. The amp mostly sounds fine. But open sting G and first fret G# clunk almost like a dead fret.

This doesn't occur with my goldtone and the cab is fine. It's probably a cold solder joing adding some stray capacitance. But any other ideas are always appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 5962]

If you know the tubes are good then you're probably correct that it's a solder joint somewhere. Go through, check and reflow.

And, what is a "bud kit?"

 

[NBW]

Yep. I need to reflow everything. I'll work on that this evening.

The Bud is a 5W tube amp kit sold by tube depot. It's nominally sold with a cab, which you assemble and a 10" speaker. But you can order it as a stand alone head (with some savings) it has decent parts and come with a predrilled enclosure, which is nice. It uses a 12ax for the preamp and an el84 for the power amp and features just tone and volume controls. It's built on a pcb. Once I get it working I might do some mods.

 

[NBW]

That did the trick. I reflowed a bunch of joints. Now I’m going to add a 90% attenuator from Rob Robinette’s page because I really wanted a one watt amp not a five watt amp. I’d love to add a pentode triode switch too.

 

[Deleted member 5962]

I looked it up and it is a neat little kit. Haven’t looked attenuator up but I would make sure it’s switchable, or make it so

 

[NBW]

It’s indeed switchable. It’s pretty much a voltage divider between the output transformer and the output jack. I could do 1/4 power or a 90% cut I was trying to find the right three-way switch to do both, but so far I can’t find the switch.

 

[NBW]

I really want a low power clean jazz blues amp. I was running my Monoprice 15W in the 1W mode. The Goldtone sounds incredible but it’s a lot of amp.

 

[matt3310]

A friend of mine designs all those kits from Tube Depot. He can make and mod anything you can think of!

 

[NBW]

In doing some research it looks like triode mode isn’t super helpful.

 

[NBW]

A friend of mine designs all those kits from Tube Depot. He can make and mod anything you can think of!

That is cool. The kit is super nice and well packaged. It was almost exactly what I wanted. Except maybe a bit more power than I wanted.

 

[NBW]

This is the head with my diy cab. Note the matching side panels.

 

[bodia]

This is the head with my diy cab. Note the matching side panels.

Nice work!

 

[Deleted member 5962]

In doing some research it looks like triode mode isn’t super helpful.

Generally agree with that on low watt SE builds.