Monoprice 15watt Tube Amp $149 and Free Shipping

[BrianS]

This deal is on for right now.  This is the best price that I've seen especially with the free shipping.  I know there are a few people on the forum who have bought this amp and most had good things to say about it.  Just thought I would put this up if anyone was looking for a fairly good practice amp that will not torch your pocket book much.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=115&cp_id=11501&cs_id=1150102&p_id=611815&seq=1&format=2

[culturejam]

That's an amazing deal.

But I wonder why there is a TONE knob if there is also a TMB stack?

[cajone5]

^maybe it's more of a presence knob?

I still don't know what the difference between treble and presence is though...

This one really has me interested and wondering if I should make another purchase... but I will try to hold out...

[orbitbot]

Don't remember exactly how I came over the website about a year ago and thought it looked like an amazing deal, unfortunately none of the amps are available directly in Europe and the shipping + import costs would basically kill any savings to be made. I did spend enough time looking at it to determine that the amps and designs are essentially "white label" versions of some commercially available amps, based on internet forums. At least the 8, 10 and 12 watts seemed to be the same as the Laney Cub series of amps, as well as the similar Fame (Musicstore.de house brand) amps. Can't of course verify, so take it for what it's worth,  but I left with the impression that you could use the aforementioned commercial amps as a reference for how they would sound (or as the European alternatives, they're a bit more expensive but definitely still on the more affordable side).

[Yahoo67]

150 $ man that cheap.... its weird i builded 3 amps from scratch and even if you buy dirt cheap componants you still cant even get the transformers and speaker for that amount... how do they turn a profit ?

[raulduke]

150 $ man that cheap.... its weird i builded 3 amps from scratch and even if you buy dirt cheap componants you still cant even get the transformers and speaker for that amount... how do they turn a profit ?

Build a sh*t ton of them 

Buy the cheapest components at source (China), in massive quantities, at trade cost.

Then have them built using Chinese labour.

Whether or not it's a real Celestion that is in there, who knows.

I'm sure it sounds just fine though, and if it is all through hole (I would imagine so being a valve amp) then it would be a nice modding platform.

[Yahoo67]

Yeah i have been tempted to buy this kit from ebay just because its so cheap

https://m.ebay.ca/itm/TMB18-hand-wired-amp-DIY-kits-board-power-and-output-transformers-of-guitar-amp/272914607329?hash=item3f8afa6ce1:g:1HgAAOSwc-tY5waR

But i am scrared it will blow up in my face xD still 100$ no cab no speaker and i still find it super cheap and its still not as cheap as the monoprice one !

[pickdropper]

Yeah i have been tempted to buy this kit from ebay just because its so cheap

https://m.ebay.ca/itm/TMB18-hand-wired-amp-DIY-kits-board-power-and-output-transformers-of-guitar-amp/272914607329?hash=item3f8afa6ce1:g:1HgAAOSwc-tY5waR

But i am scrared it will blow up in my face xD still 100$ no cab no speaker and i still find it super cheap and its still not as cheap as the monoprice one !

I'd be nervous about buying any tube amp kit that doesn't spell "High Voltage" correctly.  ;-)

[madbean]

I'd be nervous about buying any tube amp kit that doesn't spell "High Voltage" correctly.  ;-)

Maybe it's supposed to be more like, "Hi,...errr, VOLTAGE!"

[culturejam]

I still don't know what the difference between treble and presence is though...

I think it's a frequency thing. Like, presence would be a higher frequency adjustment range than treble. So, sort of like alto vs soprano. I think.

Peavey uses the term (at least lately) to denote a low-pass control in the power amp. They also have a power amp high-pass control called Resonance. These really help make lower-volume and attenuated tones sound far closer to higher volume. Here's a schematic for the 6550 Mini so you can see what I mean: http://www.prowessamplifiers.com/schematics/images/6505112.pdf

[BrianS]

That's an amazing deal.

But I wonder why there is a TONE knob if there is also a TMB stack?

After going through a lot of posts on the tdpri forum about the amp one person compared the tone knob to the tone cut on a Vox AC amp.  Is he right, I will find out when mine arrives.  Surprisingly out of the 15 out of 30 pages of posts I went through there were very few complaints about the amp with exception to the reverb tank which was changed in the newer model. 

As far as the speaker being a real Celestion there was no mention in any of the posts that would lead me to think they were not.  But the 70/80 was not a fan favorite with many of the posters and several changed it out. 

[Yahoo67]

200 $ including shipping to canada .... :x you guys are making me wanna buy the monoprice oneeeeeeee... but i still got all the parts to build a vibro champ on the bench but i just dont have the time to get to it T_T ...

[m-Kresol]

I'd be nervous about buying any tube amp kit that doesn't spell "High Voltage" correctly.  ;-)

Maybe it's supposed to be more like, "Hi,...errr, VOLTAGE!"

looking at the solder joints, I'd say that none of those look ok. At least 90% look like cold solder joints to me. But at least the cable is "pure single wire"