The Princetoad
(Part 2)
So I had the basic building blocks for my amp. What next? Well, it needed guts & skin. I figured, no problem, there's a million vendors on the web for this stuff. Well, it turns out that is the problem - there are so many vendors calling all the parts so many different things that my initial feeling of slight confusion was multiplied by a factor of 10.

Also, no one had everything I needed - I'll admit that I've become spoiled living in Silicon Valley - regardless, I felt it was important to find one vendor who could help me with all of my problems, regardless of whether I walked in, called them, or sent them a letter. There's a saying up here - "You know you live in Silicon Valley when you stop asking how much will it cost, and you start asking how long will it take". Mea culpa, I am guilty of this behavior, but not because I have an excess of cash. I appreciate a bargain as much as the next person, but I will ALWAYS pay more for good service (and it just happens to turn out that good service is normally very quick).

Anyway, after sending out about 6 emails to vendors I was considering buying from, and recieving no response for a week (the only one that had a reasonable excuse was Rodgers Amplifiers - a hurricane had destroyed their shop, so they were forgiven :), I finally took a look at Torres Engineering's website. I had seen it before, but I hadn't realized they were in San Mateo, just 20 minutes from Mountain View. When I called them, Dan answered the phone and I immediately got a good vibe. I ended up driving there that afternoon, and it was instantly glad I did - it was obvious that these guys knew exactly what they were doing (Dan Torres is actually very well known, but I didn't know this at the time). The first words out of my mouth were the complete truth - "I need all the electronics for a brown Princeton, but I have no idea what they are". Dan just smiled and said "then let's get out the schematic".

About an hour later I walked out a little

poorer in the monetary sense, but far richer in knowledge about tube amp construction. I had seen the schematic for this particular amp before, but I was unsure of alot of the values - allow me to explain. Capacitors and resistors are rated at certain values - everyone knows that. All you have to do is find the schematic symbol, and the adjacent number designates the value for that particular component. Sounds simple, right? Wrong - on the old Fender schematics, it just gives you a number. The number without the appropriate unit of measure (microfarad, picofarad, etc.) is worthless, unless you understand the circuit well enough to know what each components is for, in which case you probably don't need the schematic. When I questioned Dan about this, his reply was "you just have to know". Wonderful. Here's the complete list of the components I purchased:

(3) Eight pin ceramic tube sockets
(2) Nine pin ceramic tube sockets
(1) Lamp assembly
(1) Light bulb
(1) Lamp jewel
(1) Audio Taper Potentiometers
(1) Audio Taper Potentiometers
(1) 3-prong power cord
(1) Orange drop capacitors
(1) Ceramic capacitors
(1) Sprage Atom (electrolytic) capacitors
(1) 56K metal film resistors (1/4 watt)
(1) 56K metal film resistors (1/2 watt)
(1) Fuse holder assembly
(1) Fuse
(1) Switchcraft jacks (shorting)
(1) Switchcraft jacks (non-shorting)
(1) Brown Tolex
(1) Metal amp feet
(1) Wheat grill cloth
(1) Mojo replacement leather handle
(1) Pre-drilled fiber circuit board
(1) Extra circuit board grommets
(1) Brown replacement knobs