Magnatone 213 Troubadour Amplifier Clone Demo by Leon C

[ksammut91]

FIRE AND WATER SHOULD HAVE MADE YOU THEIR DAUGHTER!

[herc122]

Who built the head chassis? Great job btw! It sounds beautiful!

[leonc1234]

@herc122 - I built it. Thanks!

[TheWebsterExperience]

Was it expensive to build this clone ?

[leonc1234]

@TheWebsterExperience - not terribly expensive. I could have done it a lot cheaper if I had used cheaper parts or had been buying in quantity. But I used Mercury transformers, NOS varistors, etc. Cost a bit over 800 as I recall.

[TheWebsterExperience]

@leonc1234 Okay, 800 $ for a tube amp with a such quality isn't that expensive. Were the schematics easy to find ?

[cenizasblancas]

Hi, i´m Juan from Uruguay and i´ll want to build a magnatone valco but i need help!!! i have some schematics but i don´t know the transformer values and other think. do you have any web page with info?

Thanks

Sorry about my english

[Lucho2602]

Hi man! The amp sounds great! I was wondering if you could send me the schematics. Thanks

[richarco]

Did you ever get around to demoing this with p-90s??? MMMMM this + LP junior = RAWK!

[leonc1234]

@richarco - Haven't gotten around to that yet, but I will.

[odgeUK]

Wow, that old style PTP wiring is pretty crazy! Were you tempted to try and put that circuit on a tagboard and fly leads to the tubes and power/ fuses etc? ala Marshall?

[greenfish88]

would be nice to hear just the amp without all the reverb and delay stuff going on

[leonc1234]

Conrad...well I think it's pretty subjective. I like them both quite a bit, but for different reasons. I think the Timmy is intended to give you more of what your amp does on its own. The Diablo can do this too, but where it really shines, IMO, is adding thick distortion. But check out Greg Hilden's Diablo demos--he uses it more the way I use the Timmy.

[kalif97]

Oh yeah.. forgot to mention...You opened with my favourite FREE song. Nice playing on all your videos. That Vibrato is the sweetest...Fender who ?...lol

[leonc1234]

Thanks very much! Yes this amp sounds very, very close to the original. I was able to get the MM transformers at wholesale cost, so it wasn't as bad as retail, but they were still on the pricey side. Check out my thread about this amp on The Gear Page for a complete rundown of costs.

[leonc1234]

@kalif97 - I thought about doing a tag-board type layout...but not for long. The P-t-P wiring is actually pretty easy to follow and the guys at Magnatone seemed to really know what they were doing when it came to laying things out. I'll say this, it's a very, very quiet amp laid out this way.

[kalif97]

Very nice P2P build. how much did it cost total ? Mercury magnetics xformers are top notch, witha a price to match. I've been contemplating building a magnatone.. love the sound. Does it sound close to an original ?.

[leonc1234]

Conrad thanks for the kind words. IMO, the two are completely different pedals. I use the Timmy as a transparent volume booster, but you can certainly add some gain with it. I use the Diablo more as a distortion or overdrive pedal. The Timmy is definitely more transparent...there are few pedals that match it in that way. But the Diablo is generally more useful for me.

[byusnowboarder]

that thing sounds incredilble.

[leonc1234]

Thanks bud!

[TheeLoveland87]

hey man whats the difference between this troubadour 213 and a tonemaster custom 213?

[leonc1234]

Another Phil X fan, huh? LOL!!!

I love him but he's gonna drive the price of these things through the roof.

Magnatone made many models that were identical to or very similar to the 213 under different labels. Tonemaster was one of them, others included, Titano, PANaramic and Americana. I think the Titano 314 is essentially a Magnatone 213a (5Y3 rectifier and higher value filter caps when compared to a "regular" Magnatone 213). [More...]

[leonc1234]

...

I think Phil's 314 may also have a bright switch which probably throws an additional cap in the signal chain...something like that. Otherwise, probably identical. Someone else told me that Phil's has a ceramic Jensen speaker in it (I'm not sure about this). If it does, it's probably non-original because Magna Electronics (and later, Estey) pretty much always used 12" Oxfords in these amps.

[TheeLoveland87]

@leonc1234

lol...yea man his amp sounds good and i would love to build one like it. ive found schematics but none were for the tonemaster version, so i didnt know how much different it is compared to other 213s. im a member of the magnatone-valco group just as you are and i saw your video link in one of the forums. so i decided to ask you on here rather than in an open forum because i know i would get reamed for asking about the tonemaster because everyone would make a philx comment lol.

[TheeLoveland87]

@leonc1234

....but anyways, yea man thanks for the reply. i want to build a simple amp with nice medium gain and the tonemaster sounds good so it was an option. but finding info on them is harder than i thought.

[leonc1234]

I'll ask the guys on the magnatone-valco group if any of them know if/how a Tonemaster 213 differs from the Magnatone. Like I said earlier--the speaker in Phil's amp will make a huge difference. HUGE.

[TheeLoveland87]

@leonc1234

ok, i appreciate it.

[brooklynstudio]

Beautiful telecaster, and awesome job on the amp man! How long did it take?

[leonc1234]

The amp really went faster than I thought it would, having never built an amp from scratch (and I mean, drill all holes, order all parts, etc. myself). I think it was about an hour and a half to measure and drill all holes. Probably an hour to wire the AC and heaters. Probably another 3 or 4 hours to wire the rest then another hour worth of testing and touching up. Another hour to draw up measurements for the faceplate I'm having built. So what's that 8 1/2 hours or so...

[leonc1234]

Tom - thanks very much for taking the time to check it out and for your kind words! I'll try to do another clip, next time with humbuckers.

[dinkotom]

Leon, sounds sweet!