Top ten reasons to build your own tube amps

[jurgen]

10 just cant' burn your fingers enough at your day job

9 your JCM triple Boogifier sounds like kak

8 plenty of extra goop in the basement

7 middle aged eyes can't read the numbers on the ICs anymore

6 love the smell of de-fluxer in the morning

5 mastered guitar and no longer need to spend time practicing

4 restores ozone layer a few molecules at a time

3 semiconductors are unmanly

2 apartment too small for Zen Garden

1 ken and howie didn't make enough to go around

[gearhead]

For me, #1 was it.

However,

11. Don't have enough room for a wood shop and paint booth, so guitar making is out

Heck, my hats off to SB who did some building on his boat before he got a containter.

[jimipage]

how about #12:
just plain sick and tired of the crap that's been manufactured for the last 10+ years -- most of the big-names' designs are too homogenized. And if that wasn't bad enough, all of the assembly work has been farmed out of American (and even British) hands and into Asia. So, yep, I'll gladly make my own from here on out*, as well as for anybody else.





(* OK, I'll still buy amps if a) it's a vintage piece I've always wanted, and/or b) if I ever get around to commissiong Allynmey and Paul Ruby to create something for me)

[drhulsey]

#13: So you can build an amp and name it after your wife, getting extra points at home

[LeeMo]

#13: So you can build an amp and name it after your wife, getting extra points at home

Not if your wife is named " Marsha L"

LeeMo

[Icetech]

#1 for me was building my first amp, and not having any shorts, no smoke or fire.... and it made sound on the first try! muhahahah

[CaseyJones]

Same reason I build anything. There's always the gap in translation between what I want and what I get if I have someone else build it.

It costs as much to get that last 1% as I paid for the first 99%.

I'd prefer to be pissed at myself for not quite hitting the mark... than pissed off at someone else for not hitting the mark. Cuts out the midde man.

[nickt]

#14 Hubris
#15 Arrogance
#16 Stupidity

There, all my *best* qualities!

[drhulsey]

Not if your wife is named " Marsha L"

You never know Old Jim may have made a lot of points with Mrs. M

[jurgen]

#14 Hubris
#15 Arrogance
#16 Stupidity

There, all my *best* qualities!

17 Stubborn as a bag of hammers

[LeftyStrat]

"I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create."

- William Blake

[dartanion]

My middle name is Marshall...seriously. My dad picked my first name and my mom my middle name. Guess what my mom's name is?

It's cheaper than Hot Rods, and less hassle from my wife. Oh, and it also gives me the excuse to start building my own guitars

I just started today working with a friend who's a luthier and I cut and glued up tops for 2 LPs today. I'll be making the backs and necks tomorrow. Should be fun.

[jurgen]

I just started today working with a friend who's a luthier and I cut and glued up tops for 2 LPs today. I'll be making the backs and necks tomorrow. Should be fun.

'K now I'm jealous

[dartanion]

I just started today working with a friend who's a luthier and I cut and glued up tops for 2 LPs today. I'll be making the backs and necks tomorrow. Should be fun.

'K now I'm jealous

Both are nicely nicely figured maple tops, one will have a one piece mahogany back, the other a 2 piece. The one piece back will have a one piece neck too, also mahogany. The 2 piece back will have a 3 piece mahogany neck. PF fret boards. Haven't decided which will get the P90s and which will get the Filtertrons.

I also am going to design my own shapes soon. I'll post pics when I get a little further along.

[Structo]

I built mine because it saved me a bundle, was fun, and when I plug into it, I go, wow, that thing sounds great!
Of course I can't wait to open it back up and tweak it a bit.