NAD: Phaez Daisycutter 14

[culturejam]

I had some cash burning a virtual hole in my PayPal account when this guy popped up on TGP at just the right time.     Got a really good deal on it (sans tubes). I've been stalking this amp (or any of the Daisycutter models that have been made over the past few years) for a while but never saw one at the right price or the right time.

A lot of Phaez amps are sold without a cabinet, and this one was no exception. But it has a nice faceplate. This one is from 2009, back when Randy Fay built everything 100% true point-to-point. Looks like a mess, but it's very quiet (especially considering just how much gain this thing has). He uses a generic preamp PCB these days for many of the builds. This particular build also has a tube-buffered effects loop.










I knew that Randy used to gut Valve Jr heads and combos, save the chassis and PT, and build his designs in the shell. So I had a hunch that this one would probably fit in VJ head cab. I have one I'm saving for some imaginary project ( ), and wouldn't you know it fits like a glove! But, the amp chassis is vertically opposite from the VJ (tubes point up rather than hang down. So I had to flip the cab over and swap the feet/handle around. I took off the Epiphone badge, but that left some holes, so I glued on some spare pseudo-rune decorative stone things I got at Michaels a few years ago.

This was basically years of hoarding random shit finally working out for a project.   

[jkokura]

Brilliant CJ.

What's the deal with a daisycutter amp. Never heard bout em.

Jacob

[pickdropper]

Hey that looks pretty good after your mods!

It also probably has your ideal number of knobs on it.  :-)

[jubal81]

Gotta love it when a plan comes together. (chew cigar)

Love to hear what it sounds like.

EDIT: Watched some demos and WOW! Sounds really great. Grats on the snag!

[culturejam]

What's the deal with a daisycutter amp. Never heard bout em.

I think the guy builds almost exclusively to order. Here's the site:
http://www.phaezamp.com/ampshop/en/

Love to hear what it sounds like.

EDIT: Watched some demos and WOW! Sounds really great. Grats on the snag!

This is pretty much the same amp (and that's the guy who builds them):

From what I can gather, the Daisycutter preamp is a modded JCM800 preamp. I haven't compared the schematics yet, but Morgan (at BYOC) said there was a fair bit of resemblance.  He and I are actually about to start working on an amp project that is the JCM800 preamp with a single-ended EL34 for output.

[jubal81]

Looks like he's contributed to AX84. The Asheville sounds pretty great, too (and it's named after my hometown)

[jubal81]

Offers an amp PCB for sale, too. Hmmm....

[culturejam]

Offers an amp PCB for sale, too. Hmmm....

Yes, that's the one he uses in the builds now (or one almost just like it). It doesn't include the power filter caps and all of the tranny connections, but that's no biggie.

[slimtriggers]

Those are badass amps.  I had no idea he sold a PCB for them.  Your cab turned out great, too!

[culturejam]

After exploring it a bit more, I'm quite surprised (and pleased) that the clean tones are really nice.