VOX AC 15 DIY

[CJ]

going after an old 1960 Vox with 6BQ5's or EL84's depending on what side you butter your toast,

got a Fisher 600 OPT , shock mounted socket for the EF86 pentode preamp tube and some ussr surplus radiation contaminated ceramic sockets for the tubes that carry the heat and some Belton 9 pins for tubes that you have you use a crowbar to remove, wtf?

 

[CJ]

hopefully we will have enough pegs for all them vibrato parts,

 

[rock soderstrom]

Uhh, nice project. I like the AC15

going after an old 1960 Vox with 6BQ5's or EL8's depending on what side you butter your toast

EL84 is the name The anti shock mount looks cool!

 

[CJ]

thats part of an old us divers wet suit i bought back in 71, shark skin 2,

parts is parts,

we gots a matched pair of NOS Amperex Bugle Boy Holland glassware and a Telefunken EZ 81 rect to give it the funk,

 

[CJ]

had to do a re-draw because there are not a lot of ac 15 re-draws out there,

stare at this for 5 seconds without blinking, then look away and see what happens,

 

[rock soderstrom]

thats part of an old us divers wet suit i bought back in 71, shark skin 2,

we gots a matched pair of NOS Amperex Bugle Boy Holland glassware and a Telefunken EZ 81 rect to give it the funk,

and a good selection of time-correct capacitors from West Germany

 

[CJ]

front panel, complete with copyright infringement,

still debating on the 3 way switch for vibrato speed or a 1 meg pot,

got a tv model cabinet built for one 12"

any suggestions on a speaker? blue alnico? nice but $$$ and a long break in to get rid of the ice pick hi end, celestion creamback gets mostly positive reviews,

 

[CJ]

one of the better chassis pics out there, nobody has done a layout diagram on the original, so this is a good ref on where the parts go, although some people get oscillations from the vintage ac 15's

 

[rock soderstrom]

front panel, complete with copyright infringement,

I like the front panel design

 

[fazer]

I thought Steve Lucky had a full set of drawing on Amp Garage.

1960 Vox AC-15

 

[fazer]

Here are plans from same site

https://sluckeyamps.com/VAC15/Vox_AC15.pdf

 

[CJ]

awesome, fazer, Thanks!

heard anything about jupiter speakers?

 

[musipol]

Re: Speaker suggestion. I like the weber blue dog, but I haven't bought one in quite a while. I see they're kind of expensive now ~$245. If you go that route, make sure to spec, at least, the light doping (unless you enjoy cone cry)

 

[fallout]

I have a scumnico paired with a weber alnico blue in my AC30 and it sounds great. I usually mic up the scumnico side, FWIW. I've also used the scumnico on it's own in my Vox Pacemaker tube version (poor man's AC15) and it definitely keeps the ice picks in check and sounds great. Looks like all speakers are $$$ these days. Modern blue's don't do it for me.

Awesome looking build CJ!

 

[fazer]

Haven’t heard about Jupiter speakers. I have celestion H and M. Old and last esr speakers were some 10” alnico from Weber for a tweed Princeton built wich worked well. Speakers are ver expensive. I what to try a cream back. Still expensive.

 

[dmp]

I tried out a creamback recently. Amazon threw it loose in a box so it got a little broken in on shipment lol. But I tried it out before returning it.
Maybe it would have chilled out with more time, but it wasn't as nice as the scumback M75 I was thinking of putting it in for. Decided to keep the scumback
A friend just bought a Celestion alinico blue and I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Cool AC15 - will watch with interest - I've wanted to do a Vox inspired build for sometime.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Eminence Red Fang (blue clone) is another Alnico option, but it might be hard to track one down since they went out of production some years back. It's a very efficient speaker (103dB 1W/1m) which may or may not be what you want. I have one paired with a Wizard (G12H30 clone IIRC) in a big Fender style open back cab. Loud.

That build deserves a nice speaker.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Here's one...YMMV, no affiliation, caveat emptor...

https://reverb.com/item/6755200-eminence-red-fang-alnico-12
Oops...sold already

 

[fazer]

I have some old fane 12” that are like 96db 1w. I’m liking less efficient these days. My H30s are 99db and I love the tone but I just don’t need loud all the time. 103db would be smoking high level. There was a speaker made by eminence that had some kind of adjustable magnet structure physically moving. And of course there is a company making field coil speakers with adjustable efficiency like down to 80db. That would be cool to keep the tubes grinding and lower efficiency with out screwing with dampening factor like with an attenuator

 

[Flatpicker]

I started on a Vox type amp build (sort of a 15W version of a DC30 or Trinity TC15) about a couple years ago. Bought the parts, made the turret board but then got side tracked. Just now getting back to it.

On the speaker subject, here is a decent Alnico for a little less $ that lives below the radar. I'm currently using it in my homemade '65 Deluxe style amp (built in a 5E3 chassis/cabinet). Sounds very good to my ears.

https://avatarspeakers.com/shop/speakers/avatarhellatone/hellatone-a50-alnico/
Lastly, I just recently learned about this new company, supposedly started by a couple of the main guys from Eminence. Demos sound pretty good. ToneSpeak | Guitar Speakers By Musicians For Musicians