This amp was purchased used as a pre-built 18W TMB "kit" amp from Weber. Unfortunately it was not well built and sounded dreadful. In my eyes the only solution was to gut the amp completely and start over.
Since the owner is a big fan of British amps and owns several Voxes, I decided to attempt a low-power Hiwatt DR103 type amp with 6V6 output tubes. The owner wanted to use his two Celestion Gold speakers in series for a 16Ω load, and as luck would have it I had an output transformer from an old Lowery organ that, with a 16Ω secondary load, provided just the right primary for a pair of 6V6s at high (460+) voltage.
Though the original Hiwatts were solid-state rectified, I went with a GZ34 rectifier to keep from running the JJ 6V6s too close to their maximum voltage rating and altered the power supply a bit to keep the 6V6s happy and to avoid overdriving them them too early. I also paralleled the triodes in the 2nd stage to better drive the tone stack and to give the amp a fuller sound. Other than that, it's basically a 22W Hiwatt DR103. Sounds just like one too, though I did sort of miss my goal of the DR103 tone at lower volumes as this thing is still REALLY loud!
UPDATE:
The orange tolex was getting ratty so I recovered it with a more appropriate "Hiwatt" tolex.
