Kevin O’Connor has been building amps for ages and sharing his knowledge through his website and super-deep books. He developed PowerScaling – a similar technology to Halls’ VVR circuit and Amp Maker’s VCB. His books are super useful. They are not cheap, but they are very good value for money. Take time to look through …
Uncle Doug has been a HUGE contributor to many amp-building communities. In recent years he’s branched out with a wide-ranging Youtube channel that’s essential viewing for all amp builders. He looks at a lot of vintage amp circuits, but his videos are packed with practical ideas for building/fixing your own projects, too. Highly recommended! Click …
Merlin is one of the best sources to learn more theory about guitar amp circuits and tone shaping. He has shared some of his excellent articles on his website and also publishes a number of books that are required reading if you want to build your own amplifiers from scratch. Click here: click to open …
Another enthusiast and hobby site that, while a little quiet now, is packed with useful information for amp builders and guitar FX tweakers. Click on the “Tube Amp FAQ” link in the top-left corner to get to a very detailed and useful guide, for example. Click here: click to open in a new window
If I remember right, this site originally started as a way for guitarists to recreate classic analogue stompboxes. It has since morphed into a site that goes a lot further than that: amplifiers, digital FX, etc. Click here: click to open in a new window
This forum remains one of the most popular on the Web for audio project builders. Its focus is much wider than valve-based guitar amplifiers, and covers the more esoteric areas of stereo and hi-fi project building. Click here: click to open in a new window
A squillion years ago, the US Navy created a basic electronics course for new recruits. The documentation is still available today and you can download it freely from the Web. It is deep and comprehensive, and while it i not essential reading for anyone building an Amp Maker kit, the extra level of explanation (and …
Ratchford supply a modern type of ‘rexine’ covering. Intended for covering books, but often used on British amps. Looks like there’s a good range of colours. Click here: click here to open in a new window
When I first started out, Syd Chaplin in Essex was a great source of materials for finishing amplifier cabinets. Although his main focus had been on materials for classic radio and hi-fi restoration, he also carried many of the materials that work well for guitar amp building. Syd has since retired, but his son Russell …
This is actually a set of sub-forums, each one specialising in a certain type of guitar amplifier. For example, the www.sewatt.com forum covers single-ended projects similar to the WF-55 and N5X amp kits. Like the 18W forum, this one requires registration to see the discussions. Click here: click to open in a new window
Many of the amp builders and the resources of older forums have migrated to this newer forum over recent years. There are sections specifically for guitar amp building, but many other areas are also covered, such as guitar FX and even pickups. Click here: click to open in a new window
This is another archived forum and amp-building resource. At the time of writing, some of the links to old resources are broken, but the schematics were still available. Visit here: click to open in a new window
Probably one of the best sites for beginners to join when I first started to dabble with amplifiers. The classic projects – P1, P1 eXtreme, H-Octane and SEL – are all very well documented. The Amp Maker SE-5a was very closely based on the P1 project, and the N5X is a development of the same, …
This is the forum that fired my interest in the classic 18W amplifier. I’d had a not-very-well WEM Custom 15 for many years. It was the type that used a PCB. After joining this forum, and reading just about every article I could, I had learned enough to convert the WEM into a hand-wired “18W …
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