I began selling The People’s Amplifier about a decade ago. During that time, there have been three different head cabinet designs, more than a few website redesigns, a couple of minor changes to the circuit components, and several hard lessons learned about marketing and the changing landscape of internet presence and social media. Something that … Continue reading Order Now! No Waiting List!
The day I was born, Jimi Hendrix played a gig at the Fillmore East with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox. This would later be released as a live album called “Band of Gypsys.” He was using a pair of Marshall 1959 Super Lead 100 watt tube amps. This amp might be THE iconic rock amp. … Continue reading Are Tube Amps Still Relevant?
I’m on an ongoing mission to demystify some of the voodoo that surrounds discussions of tube guitar amps. Here at The People’s Amp, we’ve always been about keeping things simple, not buying into wacky ideas about specialty components, and maintaining transparency about what goes on inside a tube guitar amplifier. It’s interesting, as many … Continue reading Do You Know What You Want?
Not really fishing, per se. This weekend sees me at the amazing Dublin Irish Festival, and I’ll be busy playing Irish music and hanging out with all of my Irish music buddies all weekend. I’ll be back to the posting next week, promise! In the meantime, if you’ve got any ideas or questions that I … Continue reading See you next week…
The People’s Amp, just like any tube guitar amplifier, should be treated properly and maintained so that it functions just the way you need it to. With just a little bit of love, your People’s Amplifier should be able to pump out great sound for as long as you need it to. The very … Continue reading Care and Feeding of Your Tube Amplifier
Continued from last week’s episode of TubeTalk… I built another amp based on Ace’s design, but I was much smarter about the layout of the chassis. I also simplified the circuit to ditch the presence and bass-boost controls. I used this amp to experiment with, and switched out a bunch of different components to see … Continue reading The People’s Amp Story, Part II
When I was a kid, I tinkered around with electronics projects. I remember building a simple motor from nails and wire, a crystal radio, and a shortwave radio. I had a Radio Shack project kit that used wires and springs to connect components together, and I remember dreaming about making a Heathkit television set. I … Continue reading The People’s Amp Story, part I
Tube amps can sometimes seem to be mysterious beasts. Matching output pairs, ECC83 or 12AX7, “death caps,” carbon comp resistors, standby switches, whether you can touch the glass with your bare fingers (you can, really. It’s ok, so long as they’re not too hot). There is an incredible amount of lore, some mythology, and a … Continue reading What’s All the Fuss About Bias?
The most commonly used tube for pre-amp and phase inverter positions is the warhorse 12AX7 (also known as the ECC83). The People’s Amplifier uses two of these little guys: one in the pre-amp, one in the phase inverter. It’s a high-gain amplifier tube. Other similar dual-triode (two tubes in one, with three elements in … Continue reading So Many Tubes, Such Little Time…
You might think this is weird. I sure do. Vacuum tubes used to be used in everything: radio transmitters and receivers, audio amplifiers, televisions – anything at all that required a signal to be amplified, or AC to be rectified. Beginning in the 1950’s semiconductor transistors began replacing the vacuum tube, and now … Continue reading Yum Yum!
The People's Amplifier 