Well, I haven't posted much on the blog lately, but I've been busy with some great stuff coming. I thought I'd put out a teaser for a few things I have in mind and general updates...
2A3 SET amp coming soon!
I built a custom 2A3 amp last fall for someone, and really enjoyed it. Occasionally I get questions about whether I'll put out a SET amp such as a 2A3, 300B or other directly heated triode. So I've been tinkering with a nice circuit and am finalizing the prototype now. I'll be making this available as a kit and a fully assembled amp. Stay tuned!
Bare Bones kits
Sometimes folks like to make a custom amp using some type of vintage cabinet or other personalized chassis. I thought I would start offering some bare-bones kits that includes all of the components except the chassis so you would have everything you need end-to-end for the actual circuit of a single-ended amp and could put it just about anywhere you like. I would probably include some best-practices for layout and such, as there is a bit of an art to how you design the physical amp.
What am I listening to and building for fun?
I tend to go on listening streaks, and my tastes span the gamut of music. Lately it's been Pet Shop Boys, and then the Pretenders. I'm inspired by some of the Pet Shop Boys album covers and colors to explore a cool design I have in mind for a really awesome push-pull amp, somewhere in the 20W per channel range. Will I get to it? Who knows, but I'm thinking about trying some YouTube vlogs to share the build and do more to show how I do custom amps and construction techniques.
Supply chain woes
Well, I guess it's COVID-related or other factors that have had an impact in a few ways on my supplies. First, I really like EdCor for transformers that are inexpensive but high quality, and EdCor has sort of been letting me down on delivery times. In normal cases, they run 6-8 weeks, but lately it has been more like 10-12 or more. It's really just difficult to manage that long of a lead time, and I don't have the scale to manage large inventory, so I usually rely on placing orders when I'm close to running out of stock. As a result, I've been out of stock at times on the AE1 and Exordium kits. I expect an order to come in the next few weeks, so hope to be back up and running. In the meantime, I am trying another supplier and hope to have some diversity in choices.
Related, several suppliers have also increased prices recently and I'm going to need to increase my prices slightly in the near term. I have always tried to keep prices in a manageable range so I can operate this business successfully, but I'm not out to drive a huge profit. I will also be starting to charge for shipping.
Welcome Canadian tube amp friends!
I have been meaning to try and expand some of my geographic reach, and just haven't had much time to get into the details of shipping and customs regulations for most countries, but I did get this set up for Canada this year. Hope to expand more later.
What would you like to see?
I would certainly value any ideas you have. I always have a long list of projects and fun things going on, and simply never enough time to do it all, but would certainly love to hear your feedback or ideas for products you'd be interested in, or Blog series that might be helpful. Please post a comment on the blog, or simply shoot me an email at analogethos@gmail.com.
Thanks! Happy listening.
