My NEW AMP being born

[Firebird V]

wow that is looking good scott. can't wait to hear it. i have a few cabs here that i would like to hear it through if you don't mind. i can bring them down or you can head up too. ttyl.

[j2379]

looks great few question, i know you said that the 800's lacked the gain u wanted. is that a mod you have to plan for ahead of time. or after you test drive it can u go back & mod it for more gain. i know they mod amps for more gain all the time but is there any advantage to building more gain into the amp ahead of time.

[StukaJU87]

Very cool Scott! $1200 isn't bad, when you consider he's using good parts (looks like mercury magnetic transformers, etc) - I'd bet he probably has a couple hundred bucks in there for his labor. Even if he builds the thing in 10 hours including debugging and burn in and biasing/etc, he's only making $20 or so an hour. I would bet he probably bought a Mojo or equivalent kit.

BTW, for previous posters who wanted to find out how much profit marshall makes... remember also that marshall doesn't sell directly. So what you pay at GC isn't what they get... Marshall sells at a discount to the music store or chain so when THEY sell it to you the music store can make a profit also.

Pete

Pete, just to be clear, the total for parts was 1200. I am paying 1500 total for the amp. The 100 watt mojo kit is almost 1200 and that is NOT what he used. He ordered the head box seperately which was about 300 bux and I know he ordered the transformers and some other parts seperately because he prefers them over the ones that come in a kit or that Marshall is using in current reissues. Let's hope he made good decisions.

If it's not good sounding you can always use this amp as a door stopper and you know what ? Nobody on this earth will have a door stopper as nice as you have

Flo

I hope it does not come to that.:ROTF:

[Infernal Death]

Me too. or else it'll be a waste of hard earned cash for me.:ROTF:

If it's not good sounding you can always use this amp as a door stopper and you know what ? Nobody on this earth will have a door stopper as nice as you have

Flo

[Twisteramps]

Very cool Scott! $1200 isn't bad, when you consider he's using good parts (looks like mercury magnetic transformers, etc) - I'd bet he probably has a couple hundred bucks in there for his labor. Even if he builds the thing in 10 hours including debugging and burn in and biasing/etc, he's only making $20 or so an hour. I would bet he probably bought a Mojo or equivalent kit.

BTW, for previous posters who wanted to find out how much profit marshall makes... remember also that marshall doesn't sell directly. So what you pay at GC isn't what they get... Marshall sells at a discount to the music store or chain so when THEY sell it to you the music store can make a profit also.

Pete

[StukaJU87]

Looks like your brother-in-law is pretty handy and is doing you a professional job. Give us a report as soon as you get to test drive it.

Will do. Should not be too long now.

Very Nice dude, ..I hope it sounds as good as it looks.

Me too. or else it'll be a waste of hard earned cash for me.:ROTF:

It looks tits!!

Thanks, Bill!

[mountain dave]

Looks like your brother-in-law is pretty handy and is doing you a professional job. Give us a report as soon as you get to test drive it.

[horns666]

Very Nice dude, ..I hope it sounds as good as it looks.

It looks tits!!

[StukaJU87]

Few pics from today.

[StukaJU87]

The truth is, I was not in the market for a new amp at all. I have a 5150 head that is in pretty nice shape. It is just that when I test drove the JTM45 clone that Jeff made, I really liked it.

I told him it would be cool to have a 100 head Marshall head, kind of like my old Super Lead that was modded with a master vol. He went home and perused his schematics and books and asked if I would like him to build this 2203 since it has a master volume already. Fukk it, why not?

Truth be told, I need this amp like I need a hole in the head. But hey, I'll take it anyway.

[Infernal Death]

Oh ok. Well from a simple "safe-money" point of view i wouldn't start to build a JCM 800 clone. Especially if you consider that used JCM 800 aren't very expensive. If that's your desire i think you have to step up a bit for example for a SLO100. There you can save quite some money. It's realistic to build one for maybe around $1k and i guess you know what the originals cost.

It makes sense if you want to have one build to very high standards, or you want to learn to build amps. Or if you want to mod the amp to suite your tastes. That's one of the biggest advantages, it can make your selfbuild amp the perfect amp for you.

Personally i feel that the best way to get into amp building is building some pedals/meanwhile doing research on how to build amps. Then move on to simple amps. Like 1 channel, 5 watt single ended amps. A great starting point is the AX84 project, look here: http://www.ax84.com/
And then jumping into bigger stuff, more channels, higher wattage, high gain, whatever.

Flo

[Spivonious]

Spivonious i don't think you can equal "Retail cost - parts cost = profit". After all the part cost normally is just a small cost part. Cost of Labor, renting a factory and many other things add to your costs.
Marshall definitely has some nice price breaks for their parts. I mean they probably buy their parts in ten-thousands of quantity. So you really cannot compare the cost of a homebrew with the cost of a professionally manufactured amp (note here that professionally manufactured doesn't mean better build quality than homebrew).

Flo

Oh I know there's other costs. I guess I'm wondering whether or not it's worth it to build it yourself, or to just shell out the cash to Marshall. Sure the build quality will be much higher if you make it yourself, plus you learn a whole lot about how amps work and how to fix them if something goes wrong, but if it's going to cost more, then I have a hard time seeing the bonus.

I'm coming from the world of computer building, where building it yourself is often hundreds of dollars cheaper than going through a big-name computer maker e.g. Dell, HP.

[Infernal Death]

I think $1200 really isn't unreasonable. After all this is a complete handbuilt one-off amp. And from what i can see in the pics, the parts are really good quality. And from my own experience i can say it takes quite some hours to build such an amp, even if you use premade cabinets and a already punched chassis.

Spivonious i don't think you can equal "Retail cost - parts cost = profit". After all the part cost normally is just a small cost part. Cost of Labor, renting a factory and many other things add to your costs.
Marshall definitely has some nice price breaks for their parts. I mean they probably buy their parts in ten-thousands of quantity. So you really cannot compare the cost of a homebrew with the cost of a professionally manufactured amp (note here that professionally manufactured doesn't mean better build quality than homebrew).

Flo

[StukaJU87]

Just out of curiosity, what is the parts cost of this amp, i.e. how much profit does Marshall make on every 2203?

Ya know, I am not 100% positive. Jeff had to buy the parts at retail price since he is not buying in bulk. The total he gave me was 1200 bux. Now he may have worked in something for himself in there too and that is ok. I do not expect him to do this for cost. I know that some parts he is putting in mine are like the early 2203's, not the stuff Marshall is pushing now.

[Spivonious]

Just out of curiosity, what is the parts cost of this amp, i.e. how much profit does Marshall make on every 2203?