Progress report

[Yoder]

I like the tube, but I might have to cover up the face.  Its sort of creeping me out. 

I guess you probably won't like the evil clown version either.

The moon face (BTW: super moon was last night) reminds me of the old silent film where the spaceship embeds itself in the face of the moon. Evil clowns + spaceship moons produces only one result: Killer Clowns from Outer space! (A very creepy flick.)

[Grainger49]

I got the exact same image, the space ship in the moon's eye.

[Doc B.]

Things are moving along nicely. PB is now working with us four days a week, and he has been doing a great job of expediting this project. We should have some prototype panels with the new grill tomorrow and we have worked out what we hope to be a cost effective graphic overlay for the controls. Today a new midscoop circuit that PJ came up with is being installed in the POC protoype. I've had a couple more players by to try out the prototype - among them David Robinson of Positive Feedback Online (quite a good player) - and the response continues to be "put me on the list for one". Color me stoked!

We're shooting for being ready to take pre-orders in the next week or two and we're trying to plan our first order of components, including the cool new air gapped version of the S.E.X. output transformer that PJ cooked up for this kit. It would be great if we could get a head count to see how many we might want to make on the first run.

[Alonzo]

Sign me up for the first run!!!!  This should be a great project box.
Alonzo

[Doc B.]

Mid scoop works as planned! You can switch from flat response to a more or less Marshall-ish mid scoop of about 15dB at about 1kHz, or a more or less Fender-ish mid scoop of about 15dB at about 500Hz. They both sound nice and quite different. We're feeling pretty good about the circuit and controls now and we're seeing just how low we can get the noise floor on this POC prototype.

The third of the three speakers I am considering arrived today, so I will be evaluating that tonight.

[Doc B.]

Here's a quick rendering of the front of the Tode with the new grill and the graphic overlay for the controls:

[Doc B.]

We did a minor bit of rework of the input circuit this afternoon and the amp is super quiet.

[Doc B.]

Woo Hoo! The first raw panel arrived this morning. We will be investigating a couple of different finishes.

[Doc B.]

Getting very close! Tried a slightly different Weber speaker with a bit more controlled break up, that really seems to hit the sweet spot with this amp. We are waiting for the graphic overlay for the controls in order to be able to shoot a photo of the functional prototype in the next day or two. Once we have that we will be ready for pre-orders. We are hoping to move quickly on delivering the first run like we did when we released Crack.

[Doc B.]

Time for an update:

Getting close!
About 3/4 of the first run is promised. We have most of the parts in stock and the manual is being written. Probably the longest wait will be for the speakers, which we hope to see in a week or so.

[Doc B.]

OK, we are very, very close. A few final hardware bits are arriving next week. A minor panic occurred when we couldn't easily locate our tube of choice. Best delivery time I could get was mid-August - !!!!!!! However I think found enough tubes, arriving next Friday, to let us get started shipping.
Thanks to everyone who has ordered for your patience. I'm really excited to get this kit into the hands of some players.

[saildoctor]

I am getting very excited about getting a Tode kit!  And I will be bugging my UPS guy like crazy until it comes. 

[Doc B.]

Oh man, we are so close to shipping the first kits that I'm starting to grind my teeth! As bad as I sound when I struggle to play,
the amp still sounds good to me. Some boring little details have held things up - as usual. The graphic overlays didn't have the same easy to install setup as the sample we were sent, so we are asking for a corrected redo. One batch of polystyrene caps for the mid scoop control was sent to the wrong address. So we are working on getting that fixed. And there has been a famine on the brand of tube we chose for the front end. But we found a few and the rest will be here in a few weeks.

We are working through all of these niggling details and, if I have my way, the first kits will be shipping by early next week with more to follow when the Russian and Ukrainian postal services decide to pull their ebay lovin' (hating?) thumbs out of their, um, outputs.

[Grainger49]

Dan,

It sounds like you are as excited about getting the Tode out into the builders hands as they are about getting it.  I would guess it is like wanting to show off your offspring. 

[Doc B.]

If it's not one thing it's another, but we now have one thing and another covered to ship the first Todes. The first kits should be shipping out Thursday. I think we have about 5 or 6 kits still available from the first production run.