Phaez Daisycutter Amp

[Astronaurt]

Hey folks, I just had the opportunity the other day to play an 18W Phaez Daisycutter amp at a Jam session and I was kinda shocked by the sheer volume and, well, actually good overdriven tone that was coming out of this little thing. With just 2 12ax7's and 2 EL84's too. So I guess I'm talking more to the Tube heads of the forum, but is anyone familiar with Phaez amps at all? It got me thinking I might want to build something like what I played to get some experience before moving up to trying to build some bajillion watt monster, haha. Anyone know where to find a schematic of such a creature? or If anyone's played something like it, a lower power tube amp that they've been a fan of, I'd like to hear what people have got to say!

[iccaros]

18 watts is not by any means low power. With the same speaker, a 18 watt amp is only about 8db quieter than a 100 watt amp. Add in some efficient speakers and you can change that to 3db, only changed on the 18watt amp. What you get with high wattage amps is clean power headroom. This is why you have to crank them to get a good overdrive, while lower power amps overdrive quicker in the power section. Now Solid state this goes out the window as they have sections made to sound overdrive even at low volumes.

there are a few low wattage amps around the forum, and AX84.com, you can find the Daisycutter.
Rick has a nice take on the firefly amp http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=78302.0,
and Zambo has posted his three 12ax7 amps on the thread.   http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=91500.0



I am currently working on 1 and 2 watt amp designs as my single el84 5 watt is too loud were I play most of the time

As for overdrive, I have that in my 24volt car radio amp I built, don't need a lot of power for that, its running 1/4 - 1/2 watt. The key is the speaker needs a min amount of power to produce bass waves, so with my emmanence wizard it sounds good, celeston, well its bright with little bass.

[theundeadelvis]

Here are a couple good forum threads on that particular amp:
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t19503/
http://www.ax84.com/bbs/dm.php?thread=417287