Artist Guitars Tweedtone V - Vs - Achillies Nyx 5W (Part 1) 

Always enjoy your videos!

Thank you, Brad! Will watch on my TV but wanted to feed the algorithm with a comment.

Yes please, love to be able to see the insides of amp's. Swapping speakers also a great idea. Great initiative.

Mesmerised by the tweed. I could stare at the back of these amps for hours! 👀👀

Bought an Artist Tweedtone V, customer return faulty valve. The valve. a 6V6, was cloudy so obviously air got in. Couldn't see any nasties, and after a struggle with the valve retainer popped a new valve in without trouble. I guess Aussies have bigger bottles than us Brits. A couple of years ago bought a 20R return from Artist as well. That turned out to have a blown fuse in the heater circuit. Inspection showed the power indicator light, powered off the heaters, had a terminal uncomfortably close to a power electrolytic case (earthed). Replaced fuse and insulated the indicator terminals and all was good! As an update on the 'V', as a friend was interested in it I had a closer look. The tube bias dialled in at about 55mA(!!!) and the cooked bias resistor at 460'ish ohm. Even with the 'mark up' of running a 230V amp at 240V (I am in the UK and the mains is NOT 230V, except on very bad days) that current is enough to melt glue in the valves base. Replaced the resistor with a 670 ohm (I ordered 680, but ?) 2W. This brought the current down to just below 40mA, which is warm but not melting, so will do. I also had to replace the 12ax7 as it was 'frying bacon'. As a matter of interest, on mine, the Lucar 'quick connects' proved unusually stubborn. Inspection showed that they might well be soldered as well, so I did all the work from the top side of the board.

Love it! Look forward to seeing more of these

These teardowns are very useful. Excellent idea. Great work!!

Two of my favorite YT channels are yours and Lyle's...very informative stuff, Thank you! Any plans to review the Artist Tweedtone20R??

In Europe the Tube 5 is sold by Thomann under the Harley Benton name - UK price £129. Cheers

Mahalo Brad!

I've bought a few customer returned amps and guitars and anything with damage or a repair is listed in the description,they certainly don't hide anything and repairs are done by a very good tech . I think the biggest problem facing the amps would be handling and a long sea voyage at the mercy of freighters and shipping containers

The Fame is a housebrand amp from Musicstore (that is the name) in germany. Was sold For € 125,- in 2015. I love the content, keep them coming!

Thanks Brad - I had a mouthful of coffee when the Rolf Harris caption came up! Great to see these types of reviews you absolute legend.

A big thumbs-up from me for this new format. I really like the in-depth and EXPERIENCED comparison.

Fender did ground the output transformer that way sometimes, I saw it done like that on a 58 tweed Princeton, which is is quite similar to that amp

Cool vid champ

Dude I just started following you and I have t😅 say how refreshing it is to hear a “Tech” not talk in mojoisms!! Love your approach so I subscribed.

The ad copy from 1955 gives the pronunciation, "Don't be vague, ask for Sprague."

Brad, good review video. There is a YT video entitled "black face vibro champ repair and bias discussion" about why you should not use a 1K ohm cathode bias resistor to cool the bias in a Champ circuit. I'm not a professional amp tech, so I don't fully understand all of what he said, but the gist of it is that when signal is applied and the volume is turned up, the bias voltage changes dramatically and the plate and screen current gets way too high. That's with the standard Fender 1K and 10K ohm dropping resistors. Maybe that's not an issue with a 10K and 22K ohm dropping resistors, like they used in the amp you reviewed. It would be interesting to know your thoughts on the matter.

I believe the Tube5 is a Laney Cub copy, the pcb goes into a few amps like the Monoprice and the Harley Benton.

Your personality and comic relief is literally why I subscribe to this channel, never change a thing!! That QD bit made me spit out drink! 😂

Great vids! 👊🏻

Nice forensics mate re the Artist amp !!!

The weirdness you noted at 35:13 isn't all that weird, although it might be a bit of overkill. Because of the way they're constructed, electrolytic caps (or any cap that is 'wound') has a finite amount of inductance (and resistance) in series with the capacitance. The impedance will increase above and below the resonant frequency of the series combination. In high current switching power supplies where you have caps that are rated in farads, it's common practice to have small film caps in parallel with the main caps. Does this cap have enough series inductance that the gain will be appreciably reduced at the upper end of the audio spectrum? I dunno. Maybe?

Fame is the house brand of the German retailer "Music Store". The Fame Tube 5 is alleged to be a clone of the Fender Champion 600.

That output transformer has an HTS in the part number. I believe that is a typical marking from Heyboer Transformers

This is the way amps should be reviewed, and with the the time difference between Australia and Scotland I'm happily enjoying this with a Campbeltown single malt which I wish I could share with you and talk about amps and guitars.

I’ d swap the instrument input switch and make it an NFB cut. Also invest in a chassis mounted octal and move the 6v6 well out of the way of the speaker. But hey, I just doubled the expense of the amp! I want to buy an artist amp now!

The board isn’t Garolite as far as I can see, it’s phenolic board. I had something that looked similar that was conductive. Hopefully Labros has done his homework on the board material. The transformers are made by Heyboer. They are decent transformers. I think that was the way Fender do it as I have seen other companies offer this style output transformer. The components are mounted on the turrets as they are supposed to be, I have covered this on several soldering courses. The SoZo’s are a mustard style cap, SoZo’s do make Astron Blue caps and Jupiter make Astron repro caps. The 10K negative feedback resistor would lowered the gain of the amp making it sound tighter. Switching the 1uF cap in will get greater boost with the 10K resistor. Maybe Labros was shooting for that? The cheap amp is drawing on the Blackface Champs. The 1K choke resistor is bad news for the screen grids on some single ended amps.

Excellent video as usual here.

Did you check the Monoprix or Harley Benton Tube 5? That is apparently a clone of the Laney Cub.

Hopefully you can do a mesa Fillmore 50. I’m too far away to give you mine

Be interesting to see how the transformers in the Tweedtone hold up to some serious rockage

props on the teardown idea man. i see many reviews thinking, "what would brad say?"

The speaker in the Fame 5 clears the 6V6 because it is only a 6 inch speaker!

Hi brad, I think "qd" on the pcb of the Fame tube 5 has to be read 180° turned so it becomes "Pb" witch is the symbol of lead, or lead-free when its crossed out like on this pcb

Over Covid lockdown I built a 5E3 clone head for just under $1k AUD using a diy built pine tweed covered cabinet, and the Evatco knock off chassis and turret board. Otherwise I used all the corksniffer brands for components (Hammond trans, NOS valves, Sprague/Vishay caps, CTS pots, Switchcraft, Belton etc.) but got them the cheapest I could find them online. Comparing it with these Champ clones I reckon the Achilles is at least $500 overpriced, the Artist being typical functional even good sounding, well priced, but horrendous quality Chinese shite.

What's the difference between the artist 5w champ clone and the Joyo sweet baby 5w champ clone? Seems there's major differences between the 2. Which would you prefer of the 2?

Hey Brad I'm considering building a kit amp or maybe modding a cheap Marshall. I want a poor man's Superlead plexi basically, can you supply a kit with schematic? I can build my own chassis and cabinet but I'm a bit of a noob at circuitry. I make pickups obviously but they're just one wire! I've built a couple of pedals but would need someone to design the circuit and source the parts and schematic.

I almost bought a Nyx recently. I thought that it would have been a bit better made. I bought a Tone King Gremlin instead. $2,300 is good for a hand-made amp, but considering it’s a 5w practice amp, that puts a different spin on it.

Hi Brad, this one should have had a more accurate description (that it had been repaired) if you want we could send you one of the 12 watt versions which has a a more unique design on it (it’s more than just a larger power)

good comments on turret soldering for service.

Love these videos. The Achilles is clearly and older model thats been hacked by a tech. Its was made out to be a new,first time check over of the amp.which is a bit BS.Just my opinion . Love this channel.

A Canadian made vacuum tube? That probably cost us taxpayers $54,000,000. 😉🇨🇦✌️

Fender put out a hand wired Champ reissue that sells used for around $8-900.

Since the majority of Artist's gear is also sold as Harley Benton branded, I suspect this amp was also sold by them. HB's GA5 was apparently a modified Fender Champion 600 clone.

Great video Brad, but nothing compares to the Lazy J J20, that was the damnest abomination of an amp I have ever seen. Rock on my Aussie friend..!!

I'd honestly buy the Artist one so I could gut it & rebuild it into something better. The Achillies one looks pretty jank for that price

1 watt ist zu wenig means to small use 2 watt. rausknipsen is remove, sadly i cant read it very well but if i get a proper copy i can translate to English should anybody require. These amps followed in the footsteps from the epiphone and vht 6 and special 6 and if i remember correctly Fame were sold rediculously cheap here in Germany. Of all these champ copies the best was the VHT. Brad there may be some worth in doing a spot where you just go thru all of the schematics for all of these copy amps please take a look if you can at the VHT line from 10 years ago there is some realy interesting stuff in them.

Really interesting comparison. I bet they sound about in line with their build quality... but we shall see!

I’d imagine the 1k cathode resistor on the expensive amp is to allow for a higher B+ in solid state mode. Just a speculation though.

Hi Brad. Very enlightening video. Keep up the good work and keep the jokes coming. Electronics is always much better with some humour thrown in. I might pass on the joint or I will start having flashbacks to the 70's. Not that I remember much of that.

A 5F1 for 2,300 Aud - ~1,500 USD. 👀 good grief

When you know , you know .

Don't be vague, as for Sprague. Now you'll never forget how to pronounce it!

What happened to the demo

Insane money for a 5 watt champ clone.

Would love to hear your opinion after a sound comparison of the 2.

After analysing the Achilles line for a while now I'm glad I found you. I wondered are these Webber style kits with some custom work? (Can include barrets too I guess?). Seems to be everything is not under $4k. And what you thought was good fender reissue was just good marketing? The vids are good to watch good stuff brad 👍

ooof!

Do you know where to get some ludes so I can not operate that amp? It's been years!

gotta love a four screw faux leather handle ;)

19:34 this is a BIG no no. Why are they just blindly copying this stuff? Safety ground mounted on unsafe screw... 20:10 is it that hard to put a normal washer there? One will flip this switch maybe many times and when this washer go loose - congratulations :D 25:45 and $200 amp can do the ground to industry standard :D but $2,2k amp fails. 28:20 really?! Someone has no idea about the tube amps. Just copying the schematics from 60s :D Most of these "butique" brands have no idea. Death cap in 2023 hahaha

9:55 holy crap seriously?

#117_ElementaryMyDeerWattsunn😎🇺🇸@25:53🧐☑️

Excellent comparison. Most so called 'gear review' vids on YT are utterly useless because they tell the viewer NOTHING they couldn't find out for themselves. Just ill-informed gushing about features. Your break down vid is a welcome morsel of objectivity amongst the shameless shills.

Shout out to Brian Cox then champ!! Great idea comparing the two next to ea other mate, how shit shd be done!👍

I'll take 8 of the Tweed Tones over 1 Achilles, ...even with stereo, I still would have three back up rigs ; )

$2k plus for a 5 watt kit amp is a felony. Absurd!

2+K for a chassis with rust? Another company with poor quality control. Love the breakdowns, thanks for the good work

it makes me smile seeing a jaycar cap next to a sozo, pick a lane bro

You said dodo @ 01:39 - yes I rewound the video to get the time stamp to make a lame poop joke.

Brad, I say Fu-- 'em if they can't take a joke; perhaps such folk can take their marching orders from the song "5 Letter Word": " It's a 5 letter word, baby: leave...."