which of those Marshall amp designs are the 'best ones'?

[Jimbilly]

My amp builder/tech friend has the itch to start a new project; I know there's a very popular and simple 18w Marshall circuit that a lot of guys are extremely happy with. Which circuit/model/schematic is that? Or is there more than one near the top of the heap?

I'd have him build me one if I wasn't so happy with the Fender-ish 18w combo he already built for me.

[jaberwock]

My friend has a Ceriatone 18 watt Marshall "Bluesbreaker" clone which sounds fantastic with just about any guitar, but simply, spectacular with a really, good Les Paul, he's used Mullard EL 84's, Harma ECCC83's, a Celestion Alnico blue, Mercury Magnetics trannies, and a dovetailed, pine cabinet , so it was a pretty high end build; it's a time machine back to 1965.

Jaberwock

[Brewmaster]

The very first 18 watt I built was from a Ceriatone kit. I ended up tweaking the circuit a lot but it was an early version of their circuit. I just looked at his layout and schemo and it now looks to be more in line with what most builders now use. I use different values for the cathode cap and resistor as well as a few other places I tweak the circuit.

GDS and Trinity both have excellent kits. Like your tech friend I have built both kits for people who purchased them. I will say this, their transformers are better than what comes with the Ceriatone kit.

I personally don't care for the Mercury Magnetics, even the stock Heyboyer OT from Mojo sounds better.

Having built dozens of these I would go with either GDS or Trinity Trannies.

GDS kits use Orange drop tone caps and Trinity uses Sozo. Mallory 150's are fine as well. I prefer to use Sozo myself. They give the amp more warmth and more of a true Marshall tone. Don't get too hung up on carbon comp vs carbon film resistors, there is only one spot where they make any noticeable difference and then just barely. Speaker choice is more critical.

[Jimbilly]

Thanks for the inputs, I think I mis-spoke my question. He's going to build it from 'scratch', which schematic/designs are the 'best ones'?

[tbabinec]

You may already know this, but anyway...Many of the builders hang around at www.18watt.com and related forums. You can access these via a simple registration process. I haven't poked around there too much lately, but recall that they used to have different blueprints and plans available. The original 18 watter had 2 non-jumpable channels, both with volume and tone controls, one with tremolo added. A popular modification is to put controls in one of the channels for volume, treble, mid, and bass (so-called TMB version). I have built one amp with my brother's help, and have learned something about the work involved! Good luck.

[DaveH]

If he wants a good hard rock amp that's loud (but doesn't induce bleeding of the eardrums), I'd suggest he build a JCM800 preamp and mate it to a lower powered output section....maybe 6v6 or el84/7189.

[Brewmaster]

If he wants a good hard rock amp that's loud (but doesn't induce bleeding of the eardrums), I'd suggest he build a JCM800 preamp and mate it to a lower powered output section....maybe 6v6 or el84/7189.

Like I said earlier, I have done the 6v6 version using the 18 watt footprint, it needs to be tweaked a bit for the

6v6 but the base layout is the same. Transformer selection is critical. The Heyboyer built trannie from Mojo is what most builder use.

The layout and schemo at Ceriatone is about the same that is at 18watt .com but more recent with a lot of the tweaks. Nik at Ceriatone used to be a part of the 18 watt board and worked with many builders over the years to get his to where it is. The schemos and layouts at 18 watt.com are about 5 years old and don't have all the tweaks. The voltage chats are helpful.

http://www.ceriatone.com/images/layoutPic/marshallLayout/18wattTMBceriatone.jpg ://http://www.ceriatone.com/images/lay...ceriatone.jpg ://http://www.ceriatone.com/images/lay...ceriatone.jpg ://http://www.ceriatone.com/images/lay...ceriatone.jpg ://http://www.ceriatone.com/images/lay...ceriatone.jpg

If your buddy wants the tweaks to this you can PM me or he can join the 18 watt forum and go through the download section and the posts to get all the tweaks for all the variations( Jcm800, Plexi, cascade mod, etc) he could want. I still have some of my own though.

Edited to add: Look at the Trinity forum as well.

http://www.trinityamps.com/phpbb/index.php

Join there and get all kinds of good stuff to download.