Matchless style amps

Take a Vox amp and add a few tweaks to it and you get some great sounding designs that are not really like any other amp but very pleasing to the ear for sure.

I built my first Lightning circuit amp several years ago. I liked the 15 watt power rating for home use, although it will gig no problem, and I like the tone controls and the implementation of the Master volume circuit. Its just a great amp.

The Spitfire circuit was out of production for a long time but the schamatic was available to look over. I build these as amp conversions as another flaver to the 18 watt amp family I seem to have gathered in my offerings. Its a great clean tone circuit with an intersting overdrive that sounds juicy, reflecting it Vox origins.

Here are some builds of these circuits I have done.

 

 

Lightning circuit amp built in a Hammond steel chassis with a steel bottom and steel cage. I added a handle and its a great relatively inexpensive head cabinet vs. a wooden tolex covered cabinet. This amp featured a nice set of Mercury Magnetics power and output transformers and you can see its heritage of the Vox beginnings on the front panel with the "cut" control that was their version of a presence control. This amp was sold for $600.

 

 

 

 

Here is the custom turret board I build for this amp. This chassis let me lay things out in a nice logical fashion and this amp was super quiet. I even used nice bright colors on my wiring runs- kind of brings a little sunshine into the workshop when I am inhaling solder fumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closeup of the preamp section of the turret board. I like to use a mix of components on some amps. See the red capacitor on the far right? That is a NOS tone capacitor I was saving for just the right spot, this was the spot. Then I mix Mallory and Sprague brands for different spots. Its like mixing two speakers in a speaker cabinet for your guitar. You can mix a bright speaker with a dark speaker and get a great blend. Same with components.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a shot of the tone control and master volume wiring. You can see the central grounding wire soldered to the back of the pots and running to the input jacks and then ground. You can also see the way I twisted the wiring together to keep things quiet. This is a technique I took from Fender amps from the Brownface and Blackface era that did this in building their amps to keep interaction noise down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a few shots of the Spitfire conversion style amps I build. These are built in the same chassis donor amp as my 18 watt amps in the Marshall section. They are $330 shipped in the lower 48.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some shots of this little screamer. Sparkly clean tone but with a bite when cranked. Unique addition to the tone arsenal. Short wiring runs and central grounding combined with isolated jacks make for a super quiet amp.