£69 valve head...

usedtobe

Anyone seen/tried these? Redwood (?) Dawsons do them, I believe.. There's a vid, somewhere.. Sorry, if I'm duplicating, but the search thingy seems a bit off..

Found vid: Redwood Tube-5H - Five watt valve head

bazxkr

Pretty awesome for £69  

Thks for posting.... 

Cheers

Baz

ICBM

It sounds truly awful in that video…

But at least they did a good comparison and if they can make a JCM900 sound that bad as well, there is hope that the little amp doesn't sound any worse .

For £69 it's probably cheaper than buying the components to build one - although at that price, don't expect decent components. The cynic in me would also want to know whether at that price it can be properly certified and safe too, but perhaps I'm just being overly suspicious.

martinw

That's the kind of valve amp that gets valve amps a bad name. You could get a good used Peavey Bandit for the same money.

I can't understand why someone would want something that would ultimately be so unsatisfying. To me it's just a waste of £69.

ICBM said:

It sounds truly awful in that video…

But at least they did a good comparison and if they can make a JCM900 sound that bad as well, there is hope that the little amp doesn't sound any worse .

 

Yes, clearly they've set the JCM up to sound like the Redwood! Talk about fallacious logic!

LooseMoose

That sounds like total arse.   £69 worth of arse.

thermionic

To be fair he even makes his JCM900 sound crap. He'd get a better sound plugging in to the washing machine.

Danny1969

 

I expect you could get a good sound out of it, prob basically a Marshall clone with cheap transformers, cheap pots and switchs  and caps swiped from broken switch mode power supplies Chinese manufacturing is  amazing. I did some design work for Goodmans industries once and changing a whole bunch of stuff changed the Chinese OEM price to Goodmans  by 14p

Neil

Are these the same/similar things that are sold by Gear4Music?

Some tube amp/heads on their site for hardly any money.

http://www.gear4music.com/Guitar_Amps/SubZero.html

I've never dared order one though.  

Anyone ever bought one?

daveww

I can recommend the Tube 20R.  Used to be called a Belcat now it's a Subzero.  Like a blues junior but better - believe it or not.....

Grumpyrocker

I actually liked the sound of that.

Drew_TNBD

Yup. They're gonna be ethically built.

ThePrettyDamned

Sounds weird, but since getting my mooer, all other 5w heads look absolutely massive...

57Deluxe

I remember the Epiphone Valve Jr obsession. I bought a Harley Benton equivalent for £58 from Thomann (was half the price of the Epi but identical) and sold it for £85 a bit later after I decided my Pignose G40V made it totally redundant.

I love my Pignose - I in turn sold my 59 Bassman LTD cos the Pignose does tweed Bassman better! (same circuit and valves) Pig new (old stock)  was only £180 and is 40watts of totally portable sonic mayhem through a 1x10"!

chrisj1602

Them Sub Zero amps look good, and a full mini-stack for £185?!

http://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/SubZero-Tube-H5-5W-Mini-Stack/Q1U

dindude

I think the sub zero is the same as the redwood, just different name. The controls are in the same place an' all. Basic OEM shit, but for £69, still not sure how they do it.

ICBM

dindude said:

Basic OEM shit, but for £69, still not sure how they do it.

That's the thing that bothers me. The Epiphone Valve Junior isn't very well-made and is a much simpler amp, that sells for 50% more money - so how can the Redwood be built to any proper standard...

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;90570" said:

dindude said:

Basic OEM shit, but for £69, still not sure how they do it.





That's the thing that bothers me. The Epiphone Valve Junior isn't very well-made and is a much simpler amp, that sells for 50% more money - so how can the Redwood be built to any proper standard...

I assumed it would be a tweed champ, which surely has one of the lowest parts count possible, but it obviously isn't. I doubt I could source components and chassis for a tweed champ for that money, let alone the rest!

Chinese labour rates, I'm afraid.

I would like to know what working conditions in the mooer factory is like. I know the pedals have a few shortcomings, but then again, so do fulltone... But the amp I have is pretty solid, but for the mini switches being a bit flimsy feeling.

Danny1969

You gotta buy direct from China to believe the prices. The dearest components in the whole amp would be the transformers but even those would only cost a few quid each. I expect the build cost is around £25 for the whole thing. Getting them over is expensive, shipping cost is prob around £5 per unit. 

When I was buying laptop chargers by the thousand I could buy an original HP \ Dell \ Toshiba charger direct from the factory at £5 each when the same item brought bulk in the UK was £17. (real stuff not fakes) 

daveww

Yes, dependant on the industry our cost rate excluding profit in the uk is around £40 per hour. In china the same industry inclusive of overheads etc can operate at less than £6/hr.

Maxi

It looks alright Im thinking of getting one ,throwing the guts in the bin and wiring Some behringer inards to the control panel .

robwright

I want a Pignose!