After completing my mfgLuxe 5E3 build with reasonable successful results, being that it was up and running reliably albeit I wasn’t super stoked on the sound I was getting out of it at that time (eventually remedied with a new alnico speaker). The important goal was achieved in that I was able to take the raw parts from the kit and assemble them following the manual(s) to end up with a working amplifier!

Now it was time to build the amp I really pined for: a Marshall JTM45 clone! Long ago in the mid 90s I had owned seven (7) Marshall heads and four (4) 4×12 Marshall cabinets – which was a lot of gear for a guy making a living as an art director, but apparently I was still death gripping the rock & roll dream. 

My life typically ran in two cycles. One cycle was where I was making good money working a full time job that allowed me funds for lots of wonderful music gear with little time left to enjoy it, because the job…

The second cycle was where I’d find myself between jobs often with time to spend on making music but needing to sell my gear due to being broke without an income. It’s the classic rock & roll catch 22 and how I was left with one Marshall head & cab.

One of the amps that was sold was a Marshall JTM45 reissue. I picked this amp for cheap in new condition. It sounded great stock but I wanted it to be closer to the real thing, so I got a matched pair of KT66s which seemed to improve the amp. 

I really liked sound I got from my JTM45 ri although it did have less headroom and the bands I was playing in at the time were still fighting the war against the sound guys constantly pushing bands to turn down and play quieter. Truth is that the sound guys already won the war but the dunderheads like moi didn’t get the memo.

When I did wake up to the fact that playing at a reasonable volume sub blowing people’s heads off actually came with high value benefits such as not driving audiences away from the stage and a little tinnitus relief for my own ears, all things I could get down with. 

Finding a way to make a great guitar sound at reasonable volume levels found me embracing the lower wattage amplifiers in way that I never had before. 

Much to my surprise in 2005 I found myself getting quite busy playing music again. As I started playing shows at a lot of different venues large and small, I’d often long for my JTM45 thinking it would’ve been the perfect solution for the gigs I was playing. I was using a Badcat Hot Cat 30r for a while and it was perfect especially for smaller venues but it was just as great when I used it at the House of Blues. 

My collection grew by a two Vox AC30s, point to point with the blue Celestions which are great and would get played more often if they weren’t so very heavy. 

I also have a Blackstar Artisan 30, a 212 combo and a head with matching 412 cab. These a wonderful hand wired PTP amps that I’ve used but suffer the same weight tax as the AC30s and more so with 412. I learned about these amp watching a video of James Williamson talking about his live Stooges rig, he was using the BS Artisan 30s and I thought if he liked them I bet they’d work for me – I was right!

So, I found myself in the 30 watt amp camp, which still plenty loud enough to get you yelled at, ask me how I know! 

After all this I still wanted the JTM45 back. Other than the great sound it would be easier to lug around the light weight small box head and my 212 Blues Breaker style cabinet than my AC30s. Being that the prices of the Marshall JTM45 reissues had climbed up quite dramatically and still high on the success of my 5E3 build, I was ready to build the amp I really wanted. 

Once I was committed to my next amp build I went to purchase a Metro kit only to find that I was too late as their amp kits had been discontinued. The good news I learned was that valvestorm.com picked up the Metro amp kit business offering most of the parts needed to complete the kits with different component options available. Everything was available à la carte on the site but for power tubes, transformers and cabinets for which they provided vendor links and specs. Assembly manuals and reference docs were free to download. 

I wanted to buy my Metro JTM45 kit as it was originally sold with all the parts in one box without the added complexity of piecing a kit together from different sources. I found the exercise turned out to be a benefit allowing the builder (me) to choose the tubes and transformers that I wanted, and to source the parts for the best price. 

I chose to go with Hammond power and output transformers as per my amp building friend Dan’s suggestion as he found they offer great performance at a reasonable price point. I bought a matched pair of Golden Lion KT66s from a vendor on eBay. My semi kit from valvestorm.com included a choke from Mercury Magnetics and preamp tubes. The single most expensive part of the build was cabinet which I purchased from Guitar Cabinets Direct for $320 shipped (purchased in January 2022, the price has gone up).