This is an updated version of the C10 called the C10+. Built on a 10" X 6" Hammond Steel chassis with a tube cage for a nice portable and durable head.  The amp has a modified power supply with a beefy power transformer, large choke with extra filtering. A 15 watt single ended output transformer pushes a single EL34 output tube. It can also run a verity of different octal output tubes (6L6GC, KT66, etc.).  Right now it's running a 5U4 rectifier tube and a 12AX7 preamp tube, both of these can be substituted for different tones also. Front panel features are a fat switch, volume and tone controls, and a foot switch jack label SOUL that bypasses the negative feedback for a beautiful creamy lead boost. On the rear panel there is two speaker jacks, a four p ...

I have been wanting to try an amp with a EF86 preamp. I studied the Vox and Matchless circuits out there and came up with and 18 watt two channel amp. The first channel has volume, bass and treble controls with a beautiful glassy clean tone with single coils. The second channel (EF86) have volume and a six position tone switch that excels with humbuckers for semi dirty and full out overdrive tones. The power amp has a cut control and a master volume on a pull switch, so with it pushed in the MV is out of the circuit. This amp is all about driving those cathode biased EL84 into smooth overdrive, and singing feedback is possible at reasonable levels. A little bonus, when this amp was done and sitting in the living room I got to teach my twelve year old son what feedback and sustain was.

Here is an old Marlboro solid state amp I rebuilt into a C38. It is the stage amp used at the local blues jam at the Rusty Nail in Ardmore, Pa.with The Blues Mercenaries. http://www.bluesmercenaries.com/index.html   It's has been in for various repairs over the years, but finally died after it took a face first fall off the stage. I reused the chassis, cabinet and the speakers. The guts are all new with some nice beefy Hammond transformers, custom circuit card construction with Mallory caps and a mix of carbon comp, carbon film and metal oxide (power) resistors. It has some power supply tweaks to add a bit of compression and sag for a nice bluesy feel. The bright and normal inputs are internally jumpered, so the player can plug in to either channel and dial in the right amount high and low en ...

Hi Chandler,

First, just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work and suggestions.
I've been playing the C5 for about a week now, and it sure is a fine amp - it really fills that space I had where I needed a low-power amp for practice/trying out song ideas, recording,etc.
I've played the amp using a Gibson Les Paul Standard, ES-135, and Telecaster fitted with Seymour Duncan humbuckers in both the bridge and neck.
The amp's been set, both tone and volume at 5.  The solidbodies play equally well, with fat (lead) and soul (rhythm) switches on, giving really good note articulation and sustain.  As a matte ...

The C5 is finished and the blonde and oxblood cabinet looks great. The layout is volume, tone, a negative feedback defeat (or soul) switch and a fat switch. The circuit is based on the tweed Princeton 5F2A but has some of my changes and tweaks. The cabinet is loaded with a Weber AlNiCo Sig 10, a 15-watt straight coned speaker that is warm and crunchy. The amp has a real nice clean tone at low volumes, and overdrives like only a class A amp can when turned up. I tried a 6L6GC in place of the 6V6GT, and that provided a bit more volume and fullness. I hope Mark S. enjoys it.

After a longer then expected hiatus due to moving to a new house and building a new shop Chandler Amps is back in business.

The trend lately has been towards small low power recording amps. The next amp on the bench will be a C5, which is similar to the C10 without the beefed up power supply. The idea is to have a lower power amp that has a wide range of tones. This one will run a 6V6, 5Y3 and 12AX7 in the stock configuration, although all can be substituted for different sounds. A fat switch along with a hi/lo power and soul switch will provide even more tone options.

The next one will be a C4. An EL84 based single ended class A amp in a head format with similar options as the previous amp. More on this one later.

OK, I admit I was bored last weekend, the wife and kids where away visiting family and it was to hot to leave the air conditioned shop. So I scrounged up some leftover and salvaged parts and decided to try the Matchless Spitfire circuit. I needed something simple with a max of 4 nine pin tubes to fit in this 7.25"x4.5"x3" cast aluminium chassis. It uses a really small PT from a reel to reel machine, delivering about 300 volts to the plate of the EL84's and gets a bit warm after an hour or so of playing. The OT is from a stereo that was running 6V6's so it a good match for these tubes with a 4 or 8 ohm speaker. I used terminal strip point to point construction and kept most of the components mounted right to the sockets, pots, etc. The controls are volume, tone and master which work well to dial in the amount o ...

Just finished up a the C14 and new circuit I'm experimenting with. It's based on a brownface princeton with a few modifications. It's running 6V6's at about 320 volts on the plates(for approximately 14-18 watts) close to the BFP specs but with a larger output transformer. The phase inverter was modded to a fixed bias design and switches where added to lift the negative feedback (Soul) and disconnect the first preamp tubes cathode cap (Fat). All this results in an amp that has nice warm tone with smooth break up. You end up hearing the 6V6's going into overdrive before the OT saturates. It's kind of a hybrid of a blackface princeton power section with a tweed princeton preamp section, a nice mix IMO. It also has a very lush bias vary tremolo with a standby switch, bias jacks and adjustment pot that are nice modern conveniences. I used this at rehears ...

I finished up the C60 in the industrial powered coated steel cage head chassis. I changed a few things since it was first fired up. I added dual bias pots so the prime old stock KT88's (unmatched) or any other tubes could be dialed in to an optimal range. Removed the master volume, I didn't like the sound of it in this amp. Plus it already has preamp, volume and level controls to adjust the overall loudness as well as a very effective tone stack. The bass, midrange and treble controls really work in this circuit allowing many different tones. The presence and meat (adjustable nfb) do a good job finishing off the highs and lows for the user. I experimented with the preamp voltages and lowered them a bit for a smoother sound. This amp is very sensitive to preamp tubes also, tried a bunch from my stash and ended up with RCA's V ...

I've been working on a new circuit based on the *umble schematics circulating around the net. It's a dual channel switching amp with a clean and overdrive channel. The single white knob is a pull switch that activates a boost by bypassing the tone stack. Resulting nice midrange/ gain boost  that makes leads cut through the mix rather well. I'll probably end up wiring it up to a footswitch along with the channel switch. It also has a switch on the back to disconnect the negative feedback for even more gain and a nice open tone that works well at lower volumes.  I used some salvaged transformers for this prototype that came out of an old Dynaco mono block along with it's choke and KT88 output tubes. I'm still in tweaking stage at this point but it has a nice range of clean and crunch tones with plenty of sustain and controllable feedback. It's going up to Optimus studios next week for a test run through their 4x12 cabinets and hopefully I'll get to hear it in a band situation. More in ...