5E3E

This was my very first amp build, so I was looking mostly to learn and not lose a lot of money if/when I make a serious mistake. Which i did( My meter lead touched a heater pin when I was checking plate voltage, fried the virtual center tap resistors) and due to the apparent quality of components there was no serious damage. All resistor checked very close to stated value and the PT and OPT appear to be the same as what comes with their 25watt amp kits so pretty beefy. There are no step by step instructions but combined with the schematic and layout guided by some common sense it was not hard to figure out. That being said if you have never assembled a tube amp before I suggest researching and watch some videos about it. Search YouTube for Uncle Doug and peruse Rob Robinettes website as these are invaluable resources for technical knowledge and "Safety" procedures. I used a old solid state amp chassis and built my own cabinet and I am very pleased with the end product. The original circuit is solid and sounds great and also lends itself well to modifications. Being as both inputs are identical I opted to modify the second channel with the lead channel mod for a 5e3 from Rob Robinette website. I now have a channel for single coils and one for humbuckers. I also added a master volume that allows for distortion without blowing the neighbors out and coupled with the channel options, tone control, and bypass cap/nfb switch allows for a great deal of tones. I only have three pedals, a tube screamer, boss ge7, and a cheap slap echo delay that I can coax into a reasonable reverb tone. It takes the tube screamer and the eq(as a boost) up front great especially on the lead channel. The echo is ok but I think I'm gonna get their buffered fx loop for it.Also I think a eq in the loop would make this close to a doall amp if there is such a thing. Overall I believe I have an example of a whole that is more than the sum of it parts. Reasonable quality for a bargain price. My total investment including kit, tubes, wire, mods and cabinet is around 272 and I wouldnt sell it for twice that. Granted my experience is based solely on this one kit but I would not and will not hesitate to do it again.

My first build here. With chassis and 6p3s tubes in place of 6l6 I only spent around $250 USD. I made a mistake with the wiring and put high voltage the virtual center tap and fried the resistors. After replacing the resistors everything was including the transformers. I think that speaks to their quality. This is a great sounding amp through my 12 inch cabinet. It is worth every penny and then some. Being it was my first build I chose this versus other kits as this was much more reasonable price and I am SO glad I did. Do yourself a favor and buy it!