With the economy being the way it is lately alot of people are just having their amps repaired or spending less on a new or used amp purchase. For repair shops that's a good thing. Not so good for the high end boutique amp market. An amp that costs around 500.00 or less is what can be appealing. For instance you can get a used Blues Jr and have it overhauled with a new Heyboer output transformer, Change the tone stack to the Princeton style (Bill M mod), lower the amps idle current, install a Weber speaker &  change out the stock accutronics reverb tank for a Ruby reverb tank and you have a decent sounding amp for around $500.00, which includes the cost of the used amp.

  You may also consider revamping an amp you already own by modding it. Lets say you have been wanting to get that $10k amp sound but just can't afford to throw up that kind of money. You may  have a Blackface or Silverface amp sitting around that has a channel on it you do not use (The Normal Channel). Well you could have the reverb jumpered to the Normal channel. Have a rock Jazz switch replace the vibrato channels bright switch. Have a Push/Pull pot installed on the Vibrato channels treble knob for a boost control, replace some resistors and capacitors and you've got the elusive Dumble tone for a few hundred dollars. Or maybe you want to turn the normal channel into a tweed or British channel? No problem. All this can be done in house, and if your not local you can bubble wrap the chassis and mail it here for 20 dollars or so. Email your inquiries to wholetonemusic@yahoo.com

Another option to save money is to build a kit. There are alot of good kits out there that can be less expensive than the real amps. The Mojo, Weber and Ceriatone kits are appealing. You don't even need to be a tech to get the Ceriatone kits, They can build it for you. Also you can have any of the kits listed above built by us. For the soldering iron wielding tone warrior it's a win win to get a kit. Plus you have the feeling of accomplishment when you built it yourself. If you need any Ceriatone kits please email.  There is still hope for the tone seekers in a down economy.