For months I've been working on The English Channel from the good people at runoffgroove.com.The English Channel is a FET pre-amp that is supposed to sound like the Vox AC30.
I started building mine way back in August or so. After assembling it over a weekend it didn't work. Yea!
That's not the entire truth. It did make a rather loud squeeling (for the record, it is not supposed to make a loud squeeling).
Not really wanting to pick up the soldering iron I let it sit.
And sit.
And sit.
It sat collecting dust until about 2 weeks ago when I became interested in the circuit's potential again. I took it to work to let a couple of engs look it over but they couldn't find the prob either.
So I let it sit.
Until last night. I went over the pcb with a volt meter for a billionth time. I re-re-re-biased the transistors again, plugged it in and it worked.
It worked. WTF? I have no real idea why it works, but it do.
It makes my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and Tele sound real close to an AC30 and a Tele. Real close.
The problems I had with the project are a reflection of my lack of skills and not any shortcomings of the circuit design.
In short, The English Channel fucking rox0rz your box0rz and while it can't replace a Vox AC30 it is about $2,000 cheaper.
We're supposed to get a new HP tomorrow so I'll post pics soon.
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