Hope you all don't mind I start a new topic about my Plexi, as it has been a long time since I have been to the forum and wanted to let you all know how my built went.
The most important thing is that this is my first amp, so really everything was new for me, I really had no clue. Fortunately I have a friend who knows everything about electronics, so he offered me help if I needed it. If I didn't know him I would have also started to build my first amplifier, but probably would have annoyed every forum there is online.
I finished my Plexi some time ago. When everything was ready (in terms of ready to fire it up and measure all the voltages) I called my friend and he came to my house to check if I soldered everything the right way and to help me fire it up for the first time. Well, what can I say, he didn't find any mistake. That was a good first sign!
Thanks again to Unimind to point out to me, that I needed to turn the power & std by switches the other way around. Thanks Stephen for helping me with the OT!
So, my friend fired up the amp, and it seemd to work. We measured voltages, all were around the suggested values. We put in the tubes, first the EZ81. Everything worked!
Then we connected the amp to a speaker. I flipped the std by switch, listened. No hum, no squeal, no hiss. No noise, I mean, when I remember now how some articles described how much noise carbon composition resistor cause, I really can't relate to that. So, I played the first chord, and it was amazing. Probably because I did most by myself and it is simply such a great experience when you finish such a project and it works!
The chassis is on my Mesa Combo, this is where I borrowed the speaker for testing purposes. All tubes glowing nicely!
While soldering and figuring out how to solder the input jacks (I had some trouble because of the lack of space, this was the hardest part while soldering) I orderd the combo cabinet. I took the specs from Mike (Modulus amps) but changed some things, for example the cab itself is made out of spruce wood (18mm or 0,7 inches), not birch plywood. It is a bit lighter because of that. The baffle (12mm or 0,47 inches) is birch plywood. Now, I don't know if there are differences if the baffle board is 10mm or 12mm, but I took the thicker one. As you noticed, the cabinet itself is also thicker than the standard cabinet.
So this was the cabinet naked:
I ordered some tolex from eBay and started tolexing, also for the first time.
The next thing I had to decide was the speaker. As I did not know what would work and be a good choice, I bought a G12M 25W Greenback and a G12H Heritage 30W, so I could test them and decide. I actually read a lot of good stuff about the WGS 55Hz Reaper 30W, but would have had to order it online, and that would have taken some time to come to Croatia, so I bought these 2 speakers as I could buy them right away in a shop here where I live.
Well, after I finished tolexing, and put in the speaker and the chassis, I played it with the new speaker for the first time. I tried the Greenback first. Ok, it is the Chinese Greenback, but it really had a nice tone. I would like to know if there are significant differences to the Heritage Greenback, but this speaker sounded great.
Then after some days of trying out the Greenback, I wanted to see how the G12H Heritage sounded. So, I removed the GB.
What a difference, I was really glad I bought both speakers, so now I finally know what people are writing about.
The G12H30 sounds amazing! The tone blew me away. This is it! And it was just right out of the box, the thing isn't even broken in yet! And of course, I bought the 55Hz version. Now, it makes me wonder, are the differences to the 75Hz big or subtle?
Ok, the only thing that is missing now is the grill cloth and some piping, I haven't decided which one to buy, but here is my Plexi 18 Watt:
One thing I forgot, the amp is the best amp I have played so far.
Thanks to everybody who helped me decide which version to choose, especially zaphod and Unimind. Thanks again to zaphod for helping me with speakers some while ago. And of course, thanks Stephen for making such a great product!
Because everything went well with my first project, I am already on my 2nd build. This time it will be the original tremolo 18 Watt. And this time I ordered a 2x12 Combo cab.
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