Introducing "The Kitchen Sink" submini amplifier

[petemoore]

  Wood grain adds resonance, WoW !
  I can look at it tomorrow and smile again !

[frequencycentral]

Lovely work on the cabinet Brian. But where are the guts shots and schematics?

[Renegadrian]

Impressive work...

[Ripthorn]

Thanks for all the kind words.  Rick, the guts of this thing would disgust the likes of you (I have seen your perf work).  I mean, this makes a rat's nest look tidy.  I will see if I can get some, it involves taking the cabinet apart (that's what I get for making the chassis, some things just aren't quite square).  Schems are in the works, and I actually got to record sound clips this morning, though on one of them my daughter walked in and started swiveling the microphone around on the stand, but it was my only chance.  I'm at school right now, but everything will come, I promise.

[kurtlives]

I would also really like to see schem/guts.

[Ripthorn]

What packages do you guys use for schematics?  I have been using the free version of Eagle CAD but it only allows a single page width schematic, and if I do a master schem, it will need a lot more than one page.  Maybe I will put everything into a pdf.

[doitle]

I'm surprised you can't fit it all on one page. I use the free version of Eagle too and I've gotten some pretty big embedded development kits fully laid out on a single page schematic in there. I'm sure no one here would mind though if you split it up into a few functional chunks and either posted them as seperate images or put them together as you said in a PDF.

[Ripthorn]

Okay, the schems are going to take me a bit, but here are the soundclips.  The signal path is PRS CE24 - amp - 25 year old celestion G12 - Sennheiser E825 - firepod.  No processing (they are fairly quiet).  The first 5 seconds of each clip I don't play so you get an idea of the noise floor (though with how quiet they are, I was hearing some noise from my computer's sound card).  Please excuse the sloppy playing (I have played maybe an hour in the last week and about another hour over the last month, so let's say I'm rusty).  Tonestacks are bypassed, fat switch is off, presence is maxed, gain on each channel is maxed, except on the last clip.  Also on the last clip, the sound starts cutting out because my daughter started moving the microphone.  You will hear her at the end asking to listen to music (she loves listening to my recordings, and feels that makes it okay to interrupt whatever I am doing, and she's mostly right ).

Clean Channel: http://www.box.net/shared/vvb77sxny9

Clean Channel w/Lead Boost: http://www.box.net/shared/izy29hdziu

Clean Channel w/Rhythm Boost: http://www.box.net/shared/4pygr0eqeq

Dirty Channel: http://www.box.net/shared/pkfys7phun

Dirty Channel with Lead Boost: http://www.box.net/shared/54unimbson

Dirty Channel Half Gain: http://www.box.net/shared/6qoz1yv3ay

[doitle]

Wow that thing sounds great! I hope my amp project sounds 1/20th as good as that. Can't wait to see the schematic, maybe I can learn a thing or 10.

[tranceracer]

Classic Nuge Strangle Hold!  I just bought and watches his Sweeden Rocks concert last night dude still rocks!  Amp sounds GREAT! Nice job!

[Ripthorn]

I think Stranglehold is one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time.  There are very few other songs that, when they come on, I just stop what I'm doing because listening takes so much attention, it's so good.

[Ripthorn]

Okay, so here are some guts, but before I do that

WARNING!!!!

The following photographs may be considered extremely offensive to some people (like Rick and his beautiful work).  Some people make beautiful music with beautiful circuits; I make (debatably) beautiful music is dang ugly circuits.

With that out of the way, here you go.



The Power Supply


The Switching Circuit


The Big Picture


Positive and Negative voltage multiplier (+/-17V from one TC1044)


Bottom of Preamp Board


The preamp board was a beast.  I etched it, but the right side of it didn't heat right, so the copper tape was supposed to work, but didn't work as I thought, so I had to improv and it was not pretty.

[Taylor]

Hey man, if it works, it works. I think it's a "different kind of beautiful". 

I am curious, though - and if this sounds like hatin' that's not how it's intended - why did you decide to do the subminis in this case? I kind of get the interest in submini tubes for pedals, for size reasons, but with a chassis and cabinet that big, why didn't you want to go for full size tubes?

[Ripthorn]

The main reason is because my wife didn't want me working with 400V+, the ~120V in this thing is about as high as she wanted me to go, since when I started she was pregnant with our second.  I do plan to do a full size one at some point, but for now, they offer her peace of mind so that is a good compromise for me.

[Taylor]

It's interesting and cool that your wife pays enough attention to your hobby that she knows about high voltage. Occasionally I mention electronics stuff I'm working on to my girlfriend - her eyes glaze over and she says "Neat." before I even finish my sentence.

[OwenF]

I was wondering if you managed to get the final schematics finished for this project? I'd love to see them.

Congrats on a fantastic build, the cab is stunning and the clips sound amazing.

Owen