Review:

Here is my review of the G2 Valve (tube) amplifier kit. I decided to write this review to share my experience with the building of this kit with other people who are thinking about building this kit. I should say that I had quite some experience with electronics before I build this kit but NONE with valves (tubes) or anything like this. All I ever worked with before was solid state on printed circuit board or stripboard. A few days after I ordered the kit came an email from www.Musikding.de informing me that the kit was on its way, that included a .zip file with all the documents nesessary to build it: Instructions, schematic, circuit and drilling plans in .pdf files. I thought that a cheap small kit would have nothing more but a couple of pages of instructions and a plan to go with it. I was so dead wrong!!! What I found was a very well written manual with instructions that even a beginner would be happy with. All the images were of excellent quality and provided all the visual information needed!! The good impression of the manual was matched by the impression left by the package when it arrived. Everything needed to build the kit was included and was neatly organised in ziplock bags. When I say everything I mean everything and and loads of it! There was enough cable to build two such kits and all the components were of high quality. The power transformer is a toroidal one which is always a good idea when dealing with audio and the output one is an industry standard Hammond. Building this kit took me two days. First day I drilled the chassis and the second one I built the cicuit. Drillind the chassis was a breeze since the soft alluminum was easily cut with standard drill bits and a unibit since the larger holes for the (ceramic!!!) valve sockets were already drilled. Buildind the circuit was rather awkward for me since this is actual point-to-point wiring in there, just like in the old collectable amplifiers from the 50's with only the power supply being more convensional. Of course the simplicity of the kit makes builing easy anyway... After I finished building the amplifier, came the biggest surprise. The tone this little monster has is UNBELIEVABLE!!! With my stratocaster it has the sweetest clean tone I've ever heard and as the volume goes up the tone gets dirtier and the little amplifier turns into a perfect blues machine!! The smooth/normal/fat switch makes a real difference as does the tone control. The power delivered by this little beast through my 12" Eminence speaker in a 1X12'' Fender open back cabinet is marginal for home practice. It actually sounds as loud as my DIY 5 watt solid state amplifier!!! This kit combines low price, excellent instructions and quality components to make a very good practice and recordind amplifier easily and most of all having lots of fun. This is definatelly no metal monster (although it does sound nice with any distortion pedal I put through it) but it makes a hell of a blues box and its clean is unparalleled. This must be the ultimate small tube amplifier kit out there. Congratulations to Martin from Madamp for designing and Klaus from Musikding for selling this little beauty!