Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
This is the classic single-knob tone circuit made famous by a number of Fender amps—most notably the 5E3 Tweed Deluxe. Despite not inventing it, Leo must have thought that he nailed it when he first dropped this into a guitar amplifier: it’s simple, clever, and very musical. Despite using only a handful of parts, it … Read more
Another addition to my AWA valve PA family. I hesitated on this one at first—mainly because the power stage is a bit of a beast, and I’ve already got two from the same line. But the price was right, and apparently, I have no resistance when it comes to valve PA heads. This one’s a … Read more
This is a 12w DIY valve guitar amplifier project published in Radio and Hobbies (December 1954), specifically designed to suit the growing popularity of electric guitars. Apparently they were right, more amplifiers would be needed in future. Looks interesting, except for the volume pot being first in the signal chain. That’s not ideal – I … Read more
From Radio, Television and Hobbies, October 1962 PLAYMASTER MODEL 102 SINGLE-CHANNEL GUITAR AMPLIFIER
The Playmaster is an Australian twin channel guitar amplifier from the sixties – these came in kits, with instructions published in a magazine. It’s an usual design if you’re used to looking at Fenders and Marshalls etc. Channel one: The main guitar channel has volume, bass, treble, vibrato speed and depth and has 12″ speaker. … Read more
AWA Model PA872 is a 20-watt Australian valve PA amplifier from the early-to-mid sixties, originally running KT66 output valves and designed for 600-ohm PA speaker lines. I already own its little brother, the AWA PA774, so I had to grab this one. Inputs / Controls: Mic level (250k), phono level (250k) and tone (1meg). … Read more
Branded as Fox Sound Systems, this is really an AWA PA1003. I couldn’t find any information on Fox Sound Systems, Sydney. My guess is that they were an installer who ordered unbranded amps directly from AWA for their installation work—possibly for schools or government buildings. But who knows? I already own one of these, so … Read more
This is an unbranded Philips or Steanes model 956C valve PA amplifier – it’s very similar to the Philips 956B that I have, which is why I bought it. It’s a prime candidate for a guitar amp conversion. The amplifier was unbranded and came from a batch of various types labelled as “Fox Sound Systems” … Read more
Cause everyone needs a 100w valve powered PA head right? Mainly for historical interest & I wanted to note the way the meter is set-up for later.
PLAYMASTER MODEL 103 GUITAR AMPLIFIER From Radio, Television and Hobbies (Australia), 1963. They published their designs for a number of amplifiers in their magazine under the Playmaster name. This was a pretty interesting DIY amplifier for back in the day – speaker driven reverb, trem and ultra-linear output transformer.