Sometimes it's really only possible to recognize an earlier victory that you've captured only after you've put a whole lot more hard work in. Going through this slog was pretty tough. And it was only after starting to go through it that I'd realized the possible mess I'd gotten myself into.

Here's a view of the carnage after the fact (what we'd won)...

It was an auction site that was new to us, and a slightly new way of bidding, so there was some discomfort, naturally. But the site and the auctioneer also made available something I'd never been able to do before on eBay: Actually go look at the real, physical items I would be bidding on!

The impetus for this article came about from a scrap piece of shag carpet that I'd collected and the happenstance of some pieces of plywood that were slightly bent but that were workable and that came my way in the past 30 days or so.

"Huh?", is what I hear you saying in your head right now.

Let's take a step back. In the process of building a business that mostly centers around renting out older tube amps, it follows that we also work on our own personal electric instruments. At the end of the day, we don't just love heavy music, we love playing it.

Carvin Audio is shutting down.

Wow. As of now, they've already sold out of their most popular model amps...

...The competitive pressures in the amplifier business are enormous right now - and they don't show that they're going to be abating anytime soon. Despite massively increased competition domestically, the relatively-new advent of tube amps from China and other low-wage nations, it still seems like more people are getting into the "I'm gonna build tube amps" business...