chinese Kits

[norburybrook]

Anyone got any first hand knowledge about these;


http://www.ampmart.com/Product.asp?small=167


Specifically the 5e3 kit


$200 for a kit is half the price of anything I can get in the UK.

I've had good experience with Chinese valves.


I think an 5e3 would be a great addition to my studio amps.

Marcus

[duriehill]

Interesting!

I wonder what the quality of the transformers would be?

5e3 is the my favourite amp and worth doing nicely. In the UK I used Hammond transformers via Bluebell, jupiter caps from Hificollective, Jensen P12Q speaker from Hotrox and the rest from mouser.

[mhartman]

I think they sell those on ebay. You might want to search on their and then look to see if they have any feedback related to the kits.

[norburybrook]

Interesting!

I wonder what the quality of the transformers would be?

5e3 is the my favourite amp and worth doing nicely. In the UK I used Hammond transformers via Bluebell, jupiter caps from Hificollective, Jensen P12Q speaker from Hotrox and the rest from mouser.

Yes that was my first thought , then the caps.

The transformer prices individually aren't that cheap so maybe they're OK.


Transformers are quite a primitive thing so no reason a Chinese one shouldn't be as good as any one else.


Might give one a try for $200

I'll keep you posted with my experience if I go for it.


Should buy now before Scotland vote for independence otherwise sterling will drop in value!!!


Marcus

[Leo_Gnardo]

Anyone got any first hand knowledge about these; http://www.ampmart.com/Product.asp?small=167 Specifically the 5e3 kit $200 for a kit is half the price of anything I can get in the UK. I've had good experience with Chinese valves. I think an 5e3 would be a great addition to my studio amps. Marcus

Uh-oh. Don't tell my customer who just spent 3.5 times that much kitting together his 5E3, he'll have a COW!

Transformers "look" OK in the photo, at least they're metal covered, not just wrapped with a piece of inner tube rubber like Reverend amps had 15 years ago more or less.

At least one of the valves is Russian: 12AY7 EH. Probably the rest China.

Personally I would avoid building on black tag board. On a 5E3, it's so simple you could build on tie strips and forego any kind of board. Black "tag" cardboard is colored with carbon black, tends to leak at random, all kinds of noises you don't want. Even brand new ones. "Why wait 50-60 years for your old Fender to get noisy, you can build it that way right now." Don't. do. it.

Besides turrets, as shown in the illustration, will try to occupy the same space as your input jacks, a collision you'd like to avoid. A fiberglas/epoxy board populated with rivets/eyelets instead if you can make one or have it made. FWIW I ran the inputs straight to V1, putting the 68K resistors on the socket instead of cramming them between the 100K plate resistors.

If you can whack together a cab for cheap, it's a hell of a deal. And a terrific addition to your studio. 5E3 very popular for recording.

I favor the current Jensen C12Q, a good deal cheaper than alnico anything. But let your ears & wallet guide your choice.

Besides avoiding the black tag board, the only other suggestion I have is reduce the value of interstage caps to reduce low frequency response. The 5E3 IMHO has way too much of that in stock form with 0.1 uF caps.

[Colossal]

Transformers are quite a primitive thing so no reason a Chinese one shouldn't be as good as any one else.

Might give one a try for $200

If the quality of the steel used in those transformers is anything like the garbage used in Chinese made tools that have replaced virtually everything in every hardware store in this country, I would look elsewhere. Transformers are the most important thing in the amp, then then tubes, then the components. You'll could easily spend the $200 to find out that the tone sucks and wish you had ponied up for the extra $100 for some quality transformers.

I could be wrong and will willingly admit it but you get what you pay for and quality is the last thing I associate with a Chinese export transformer.

Leo (Fender) did not source Chinese steel for his amps.

YMMV

[norburybrook]

Thanks Leo,

Food for thought.

Even at those prices I can buy or make a new tag board.


hhmm

I might be the guinea pig here.



Marcus

[duriehill]

Marcus

Would be interesting to see the result of the Chinese kit, I've gotta say!

I think Modulus Amps, locally, do a kit too which is probably decent. Not sure how much £ it is though.

Brent

[bluesy]

Any indication of the shipping costs?

[Stevem]

Part of what I do as my daily job is to QC Chinese made Audio gear before we ship it to the end user, and all I can say is your without fail get what you pay for!
As fas I can recall the only descent made tube amp from the Far East in a very inexpensive price range was the Pig Nose GV 40 and 60 models that unfortunately are long gone!

[ampdoc1]

Please,..save your money. There is NOTHING being made there but cheap crap. If you do,......YOU"LL BE SORRRRRY

[Phil_S]

When it's too good to be true, it almost always is. I vote with the other guys who say the transformers will be junk. The rest without the transformers isn't worth $200. So, you will not get what you pay for. You will get less than what you pay for if you consider the junk you will discard as worthless ups the price of the other stuff. I wouldn't do it.

Who is it that said, there's no free lunch?

[RWood]

Weber Transformers I got were Chinese.
Not bad...but definitely not the best.
If I'd have known they were Sino, I wouldn't have bought them.

Caveat Emptor

[Gaz]

Please,..save your money. There is NOTHING being made there but cheap crap. If you do,......YOU"LL BE SORRRRRY

Well, I think my Iphone is pretty nice.

[norburybrook]

Please,..save your money. There is NOTHING being made there but cheap crap. If you do,......YOU"LL BE SORRRRRY

Well, I think my Iphone is pretty nice.

Indeed, in fact 99% of Apple products are made in China.


I can see both sides here, I'm also of an age where the term 'made in Japan' was a sign of poor quality initially , that didn't take long to change however and by the 80's Japanese guitars were far superior in quality to what Fender USA were putting out , hence the whole retooling at the Fullerton factory in 1981.

Regarding steel, well China are building some of the most advance skyscrapers in the world at the moment and I doubt that they're using poor steel, so it's not a given all Chinese steel in rubbish, although I have experienced the poor quality tools etc mentioned so know what you mean.


Free lunch? Well not really if you think about it, in some parts of the world $200 is a lot of money and would support your family for a month, it's all part of the globally economy, hence Apple manufacturing there.

I'll see what the shipping charges are and if they're not to bad like I said I'll be a guinea pig, here in London $200 is an average price for a meal for 2 in a restaurant so put like that it's worth a punt as we say



Marcus