(Another long post...) So this is an amp we received at Thermionic Studios a few months back. We've finally had an opportunity to take a look at it. It was a "steal" off eBay at $150 + $30 shipping. It stank of stale cigarettes. The headshell was dinged quite badly. The tolex, while a cool pattern, was brittle, ratty, and tearing off in multiple spots. This amp had clearly been abused. Even the original Randall nameplate was trashed and had to be repainted.

The Snorkler is an amp that people talk about in hushed tones - as if it were a holy relic. It's almost mythical in the lore that surrounds it and the way in which people speak about the guitar tones that issue forth from it. It is a one-of-a-kind butchered Marshall JCM800 combo amp that, at the request of the owner, was turned upside down and converted into a custom head amp, by Reinhold Bogner. The speaker / combo amp shell was done away with and the owner (Ronnie Champagne, as referenced below) had another tech shop build him a headshell for it.

For a few years now, I've been scouring the Internet, looking for snippets, and bits and pieces of information - and putting them together in order to try and build a reasonable educational curriculum on how to master the building of, and the repair of, tube amplifiers. I've wanted to do it whether the amps built are for Guitar, Bass, Vocals, or public address (PA). I've bought Merlin Blencowe's books on building tube amps. I even have his out-of-print "Designing Power Supplies for Tube Amplifiers".