I want to look into building my own tube guitar amp because the guitar amps in Taiwan are either extremely expensive (30,000-100,000 NT or more) or crappy as hell. I can find parts kit for tube amps at a pretty reasonable price online, but I will need speaker cabs to use it… but the problem is they start at 20,000NT and up… and that’s just speaker cabs, no amps or anything. So I was wondering if anyone has a broken guitar amp that has a 10 inch or 12 inch speakers that they no longer need, because I want to gut the electronics and either use the speaker or install new ones, so I can drive a tube amp with it. Or is there any where (except Tony’s music) that I can find speaker cabs (1x12 or something) that don’t cost more than 20k?
I am using a multiFX pedal right now but I will want a tube amp other than a Fender pro junior…
I’ve seen lots of guides to building your own cabinets. You’d just need some wood, and then use software to determine the best dimensions for the speakers you’re using. Just a thought…
The problem is I don’t have a table saw, router, jointer, and all kinds of wood shop tool needed to build a cabinet. I also don’t have the space to house all these tools assuming I can afford them. Or is there any speaker cabinet builder in Taiwan that will build them for you, or places that sells empty speaker cabinet that can accommodate a 12 inch speaker?
Well I rather not go there but if I don’t have a choice… that place is full of scammers and stuff who will try and sell you stuff for more than 30,000NT. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to sell me an empty speaker cabinet for 30,000… That place is also filthy and disgusting and for the most part, deserted, I wonder how people there stay in business…
I seen a guitar shop near ximen MRT station maybe I will try and see if they sell extention cabs…
Near the guitar shop north of Ximen MRT there are also a handful of electronics and stereo stores. I’d check in some of the other stores over there while I’m at it; they might well have premade 12 inch speaker cabinets. Also, that guitar shop sells used equipment.
I dont want to pay 23,000 NT for a SPEAKER CAB!!! its a LOT! I can get a Fender Twin Reverb for 20,000 and its a 2x12 AMP (tube at that…) its in another yahoo auction. All I need is a box to contain the speaker because I am planning on building a tube amp and need a speaker for it… its far cheaper for me it seems to gut a 1x12 guitar amp…
I don’t have 20,000 NT right now otherwise I might have jumped on the twin reverb, problem is I dont need more debt and another problem is that Twin reverb is not the sound I am looking for (I heard it before and it is CLEAN, it will not distort under any circumstance… unless you have very tolerant or no neighbors)
I guess I will have a look around some electronic shops around the Taipei station area and see if they sold speaker cabinets…
I’d say build them… you can get either B&Q or wherever you get the wood from to cut the basic sizes you need, so all you’d need to do is some basic sawing, gluing and maybe routing, you can rent power tools from most big tool shops as well… Marshall and other high end cabs are built tough with fancy wood joints and stuff, but cheap cabinets are likely to be half arsed chip board boxes anyway, so I’m sure a “DIY” guy like you could do better…
I’ve been thinking about that NT$20k Twin Reverb on Yahoo as well, but they seller says they’ve just switched out the orginal speakers in it… fat lot of good having a vintage amp with random new speakers in it… plus who knows what the tubes are like, not to mention electronics after 20 years in Taiwan humidity… still tempting though…
I found someone in the Xi-ning market that will build me a cabinet for me for 1800 NT… problem solved, for now… I spec it to 47cmx47cmx27cm, open back with a hole in the front for a 12 inch speaker. I hope he does a decent job at it… cause I don’t trust Taiwanese too much when it comes to workmanship (a lot of cha bu duo) so I only left a 500NT deposit. I don’t want to go for the Twin Reverb because I am not looking for that sound. I played with a twin reverb in the states and those thing will NOT distort or otherwise overdrive under any circumstance. I guess it could but it will be so loud that temple parade right now in danshui will pale in comparison… and most likely not without a tubescreamer or something anyways. Another reason is I lack the funds for it right now and I DONT want to go into debt over a guitar amp… just not worth it. I plan to build a Fender 5E3 Tweed deluxe from http://www.ceriatone.com/
Next thing will be to find a speaker locally… I don’t know what works but I rather not mail order those, shipping on those will be too much.
this will be a 6 month project… 6 months to gather the funds needed for it (at 3000NT a month… I need to save the rest for other things)
Please report about this later if you could; I’m just curious to hear how it’s done.
I think you could try shops that do car audio projects. They know speaker suppliers. Does anyone know a good place? (in Taipei) Would be interesting for me too…
As a side note, there is this thread: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=48656
…but it doesn’t sound promising (at the date of this writing at least) (if it must be the real custom built car audio).
I had the guy build a cabinet and he never got it built so instead he just got a board and cut them out of a jig saw… not the best workmenship but its ok…