building amps aint easy.

well as the title says, building amps aint easy. and its been pointed out to me that this blog was supposed to be about building amps. and its 100% true, but i seem to have run a little (or a lot) off topic....

to build an amp you need and understanding of electronics, the tone in which you are setting out to acheive, schematics, and lastly parts. it all easy except for the parts thing. In canada we don't have that many places to buy parts for building amps. well there are a few places to obtain the resistors, capacitors and various diodes needed. those parts are pretty unimportant in comparison to the irons (transformers) needed. and those are widely available in the u.s. but they are also costly. transformers are also the heavy component in an amplifier, and shipping over borders is a pain in the ass when it comes to shipping cost plus duty because the transformers can cost upwards of 600.00 us dollars before shipping and duty.

for instance i have been asked to build someone an ampeg svt head. its 300 watts... those are some big irons. the cost for those irons; the output and power, is approximately 400.00 us. the weight of these two together is nearly 60 pounds. so the shipping alone is 100 bucks and duty fees close to 50 bucks. with the current exchange rate that total 696.00 cdn dollars.... kinda outrageous. 

the only way to beat this is buying in quantity to save on shipping and get the initial cost of parts down and then the duty fees can be spread over all the parts. so i have been saving my pennies in order to operate in this fashion. but do not fear there will be more amps built soon.

heres the short list of amps that i have to build now for a bunch of people in the order they will be built.

1. all tube tremolo/reverb unit. (think fender reverb with tremolo added)

2. fender style princeton. about 20 watts i think.

3. 100watt hiwatt dr104 (this thing will be a tone monster)

4. 70's style orange head. 10owatts.

5. ampeg svt style bass head. 2-300 watts.

and on the list of amps i would like to conquer for my self 

1.jcm800

2.marshall jtm 45.

3. and probablt an svt.

so needless to say i have my work cut out for me.

i guess i better keep putting those pennies away!!!