Dumpster Diving Guitar Amplifier 

Those are cheap, common design basic beginner/starter amps, just fine for quiet home practice. Definitely not gigable. Nearly all manufactures use the same basic layout. The PC board is likely built to accommodate a more intricate circuit on the less cheap models I build amps like these all the time, usually an LM 386, 4886, JRC386 single or dual variety, lots of filtering, couple MOSFETS, an MSA13, J201, or MPF102 transistors. But I install them into unusual cabinets like a small jewelry box, lunchbox, small radios. The smallest one I made was just 5 components in an Altoids tin. It sounds awesome!

That dumpster room never stops giving. One day Dave will find the meaning of life there.

Well, to be honest, that's what like 90% of guitar amps are, not really anything electrically special. Some older ones might have some opto-electronics for vibrato circuits that are near impossible to get today and there's some with some fancy features that are special in guitar amps but probably quite normal and boring generally (like tube bias indicator circuits in Hughes & Kettner amps). Even the big brands are pretty much "meh", some good building but that's it. Guitar amps might be one of the few things where taking a look at garbage is actually more interesting than taking a look at the high-end because at the high-end it's just an amp with good build quality and maybe some black-goo to seal the magic or sometimes just plain money grabbing. At the low-end you actually have the excitement of finding the probable house burners and "how to not do things" pieces, also the extreme cost cuttings are sometimes fun. But generally they are amps but instead of trying to make magic electronically, they just make marketing with some guy with a long hair and fast fingers and hire some other guy to write some mumbo-jumbo that makes zero sense but sounds cool enough, and the guitar amp afficionados go crazy and start fighting how one vacuum tube made to a spec is so much different from another one made to the same spec.

Awwaa ! don't be so bloody mean on the little guy, some kid out there would love to own it and love for years to come....cheers.

Guitar amplifier usually don't have insulation in them because they want the chamber zo resonate

Crank it up Dave!

I have one of these amplifiers very similar I converted it into a battery operated, rechargeable, busking amplifier It's a 12 V circuit board so 12 V lithium or lead battery will do fine . Any Guitar player ( or Musician for that matter) who busks would love that. It runs over 3 hours, depending on size of battery BTW I found mine in the skip also

I have this exact little amp. lol.. I'm not sure about the name, I'd have to check; But It's the same layout and same size.. I had picked it up back in early 2000's from "hastings".. Which was a movie rental store and they also had a lot of books.. and that's where we would buy all of our CD's too.. (it's closed down now, in my city). For some reason they had an amp With guitar all in one package for one hundred dollars.. and I bought it. And it's the electric guitar that I learned to play on and still have it today... You should have checked it-- I bet it still works fine. The main thing that goes bad is in input jack.... Otherwise, it's a surprisingly useful little amp.

The unpopulated part of the PCB looks to be a reverb circuit. You can see where there are two header pin spots labeled REVO and REVI for reverb out and reverb in to a reverb unit (wobbly spring and transducer).

"Still got the ol' tagger on it, never even played it!"

I feel crestfallen that Dave ended up not being thoroughly enthusiastic about this. Maybe because I also have a "cheap" guitar amp too.

I'm a big fan of this series

It's a cheap practice amp and you can score that kind of stuff at music school, they toss them when they starts to get crusty and crackly. I have a small pile of them. Good for parts to fix better ones, like cabinet angle protectors, pots, pots knobs, the transformer is usually okayish too. Even big name in amp like Marshall sell this kind of practice amps and they actually are exactly the same thing as this one. All sounds decent, it's not crap, it's just low power , no features products. The unpopulated section on the board show that the same thing is used for a better model.

Still a fun quick tear down! Keep em coming!

Yep those look like genuine Rubycon caps! Usually fake ones do not have the K vent indentation on top...

We're Gettin the Band Back Together

Jordins sounds like a kids clothing brand....

It does look a bit crusty. Inquiring minds still want do know if it works. If it works and the the input jack was replaced someone starting out with electric guitars may still find it useful.

Its not as bad as i expected. Definitely seen worse. Its using a discrete power transistor output stage, not just some TDAxxxx amp chip.

Missing components had a "rev" label in it. Reverb?

The knobs don't go to 11??

Dave, as a side hustle, have you thought of conducting tours of your "Dumpster room". Charge $50 for tickets; call them "Lucky dip tours" !

Eol it like photonic induction

Looks a lot like how the Fender Frontman 15G/R is constructed. Not exactly the same but certainly they took 'inspiration' from it. The Frontman has a TDA2050 as a 'power' amp IC.

Best guess it probably came in a cheapie no name beginner guitar/ amp combo packs.

I have one of those for practice, but it’s badged as an Acoustic Solutions EG-10J. Otherwise identically cheap. Mine has an overdrive switch.

That can go back to the dumpster room

Even tube based guitar amplifiers use the cheap way of mounting tube upside down that was used back in the day to cut coast. It's a better practice to put the tube the right way and to insulate from the speaker among other better design practices

Davo, they were selling this one at the back of the boot of the unmarked vehicle... and when you look inside the amp its just air

The missing stuff might be for the guitar distortion effect, i had a similar amp with different branding back when i was a kid here In Beirut and it had a button for distortion.

Rubycon caps!!! 😮

Those little amps are great, they are made on some many names though. I suspect the missing components are the overdrive circuit.

Surprised you didn't plug it in.... I scored a dead 'Peavey' branded version of that from a music shop, was going to turn it into a general purpose (as opposed to guitar) amp for general music listening in my bedroom, having a guitar amp in there seemed a cool idea at the time. However all I can keep was the box, as even the driver will have to go as it's a weird muso special which will probably sound terrible with HiFi audio fed into it.

At least it's got a transformer you can salvage for the parts bin....

The missing stuff looks to be parts for a reverb circuit.

What a rave! 🤘🤘

Does anyone have an idea of the levels I can expect on the input from an electric guitar pickup? Similar to a moving coil record pickup maybe? Just building a guitar amp for my daughter!

This is what's known as a 'practice amp'.

It looks the same as some cheap practice amps with brands like Marshall written on them. Really not bad.

Marshall, Fender, Blackstar, Orange, BOSS, erm... I'm not so up on them either, even though I probably should be! Although, I mix/master rather than record. I just "fix it in the mix".

I’d keep the transformer and take some components off the board and toss it back out. Maybe keep the speaker too

So the big let down these little amps is the crappy speaker, however if you fit a speaker out socket then you can use these things as an amp head and run them into a bigger guitar cab for a much better tone. If this one still works then why not donate it to some kid to use rather than send it to the land fill.

I could see Dave in a Prog-Alt-Rock band.

My nightmare is David tearing down one of my product 10 years from now and completely destroying every choice i've made.

Most beginner and even some not so beginner amps are like that.... completely hollow inside, basic electronics, not much to write home about. I honestly think you won't get that much of an upgrade for amps that size even for the more fancy brands. I had a Fender back in the 90s not much bigger than that one that was just like that inside. Sounded like squeaky sh*t tbh... but hey, I also sounded like squeaky sh*t, so fair is fair. xD

Appear to be copying the Fender Frontman 10G amp (I have a couple). Worth stealing the transformer maybe.

To be fair, guittar amps are naturally janky if you compare them to propper listening speakers. Even the nice ones.

"it's clearlly old" yeah, most of these guitar amps have this "vintage" design to them, this amp could have been fabricated eighter 30 years ago or last year

The difference in copper wire in a cheap product from 20 years ago and now is night and day.

Yea nah...yea

Yeah white van speaker scam decent size speaker tho

I think Dave buys cheap crap from thrift stores or Gumtree to make content :)

Keep the knobs at least.

It doesn't have gold plated connectors so it's garbage 🤣

can i have it please i wont it

"It's a hyaena..." Totally meh indeed, cheap and run-of-the-mill practice amp. Way too crappy for a Keritech Electronics Totally-Tubular-Transition. The piece of sheet metal semblance of a chassis ain't even gonna hold an ECL86 with a pair of transformers. Send it over to Brad's Guitar Garage if you want, I'd like to watch him roast it. Truth be told... even big brand amps of this class ain't nothing special. It's all just there to cater to beginner guitarists with cheap axes - but egos big enough to care about logos.