The Matchless Style amp
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. Then add in an impeccable build layout and high quality parts and you have one of the very first "boutique" builders.
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 schematic was available to look over. I build these many of this circuit but with a few tweaks I have liked over the years. Its a great clean tone circuit with an interesting overdrive that sounds juicy, reflecting it Vox origins.
Above is a 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.
Above 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.
Here is a shot of the tone controls 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.
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 schematic was available to look over. I build these many of this circuit but with a few tweaks I have liked over the years. Its a great clean tone circuit with an interesting overdrive that sounds juicy, reflecting it Vox origins.
Above is a 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.
Above 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.
Here is a shot of the tone controls 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.