Is the 5E3 sound easily reproducible without the proper components?

[Satamax]

Hi everybody!

Thanks Matandona.

Bruce, i don't know what voltages i have in there, iirc, it's not a center taped trany, but i can always use two 4007 for the center tap I've seen that done before. The trant was powering a pair of ECL86 and a pair of ECL82, plus a bucketload of ECC83 and 81, may be 8 or ten of thoses.

Bye.

Max.

[stokes]

My very first build was with some trannies I pulled out of an old Pilot hi-fi amp from the '60's.Had no 5volt tap so I used a 6X4 rectifier and later added a seperate 5v tranny.Even tho it was based on a 5E3 it had a voice of its own.It was a great learning platform that I made a lot of mods to over the years and still sounds great,maybe not a true Tweed but sounds good enough that my 18 year old son still gigs with it with his band.Go for it,you wont get a true Tweed clone but you most likely will like what you end up with.Use what you have available,assuming this is your first build I am sure you will like what you end up with,might take a lot of tweaking,but that is most of the fun in building your own.And there is plenty of good advice right here,in spite of some of the A*&^ holes.

[stevesamps]

close counts in tube amps

You know sometimes I think this clone business is way out of control
I think you can get the vibe of an amp from junk parts, and it is an inexpensive way to hear a circuit, I have found its better to only shoot for the soul of the machine and improvise the rest, nothing wrong with accurate clones mind you
but close does count in this game just my 2 pennies...
Steve

[MKB]

You know sometimes I think this clone business is way out of control
I think you can get the vibe of an amp from junk parts, and it is an inexpensive way to hear a circuit, I have found its better to only shoot for the soul of the machine and improvise the rest, nothing wrong with accurate clones mind you
but close does count in this game just my 2 pennies...
Steve

Agreed on this point, you won't get exact but can get close with junk box parts. I have a 5E3 built that way (old lafayette stereo OT, Hallordson PT, G12H30 Celestion at 16 ohms), it probably isn't quite like a real 5E3 but it sounds very tweedy to me (I have an original 5F6A), and is mighty good as it is. It recently brought a friend to tears, he liked it so much; not anything special I did but it is a great design from Leo Fender. You should try building one if you have the parts, you'll probably get a great amp anyway if the parts are of the correct specs and values even if they are not accurate reissues.

You should try to stay with a vacuum tube rectifier or equivalent solid state replacement (Weber copper cap) as the power supply is a HUGE part of the tone in this amp. If it was me I'd add a 5V filament tranny and use a 5AR4 or 5Y3.