Super easy to build and super quiet

[peterinaz]

Building this amp was a pleasure. I’ll add to that the customer support was outstanding. When I encountered a self-inflicted build problem all it took was a couple of e-mails and I was back to work.

Based on my experiences, I would recommend using the Kester solder recommended in the instructions. You don’t even really need to clean the board when you’re done if you are using a low-activation rosin core. My problem was caused by my use of a silver bearing solder that required higher-temperatures. Regular 60/40 solder is what this project wants. 63/37 will work just as well.

I also found the test procedure very, very helpful. It validated that I built it correctly and gave me the confidence to complete the build, plug in my guitar and ROCK! Keep the sheet you write the test voltages on in case you need to trouble-shoot this in the future.

The design itself is awesome! First off, it’s a quiet as a mouse with no detectable hum (so long as your guitar is plugged-in). With my guitar volume set to 0 and the amp set to max, there is no hum at all.

The sound is great too. You can get some really rich, harmonically complex overdrive with a single coil pickup. The humbuckers on a Les Paul will easily, easily give you some classic AC/DC type tones before you max out the volume.

Personally, I like it with my Strat. I set the amp volume from about 3/4 to max and use the volume control on my guitar. It’s responsive and varied. You get a pretty big sound palette once you start playing with different pickup, tone and volume combinations. For having a single control knob, this amp does A LOT!

Thanks ZDL!

• This topic was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by peterinaz.

[peterinaz]

I forgot to mention, I’m running it through a 1X12 cab with a 12” Celestion® G12P-80 speaker. This amp has plenty of power to get a lot out of this speaker. It’s a closed back so there’s plenty of low-end. I’m pretty sure it would work just fine with an open-backed cab as well.

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