Whilst preparing for a trip away, I realised that I wanted a small amplifier to use. I had a Vox Nightrain NT5H head that I really liked but only a large cabinet to use with it. I also had a spare Celestion 10in cream-back spare from the Princeton reverb project. I decided to put together the two into a cabinet that was as small as possible.
I originally started designing the cabinet to house the head upside-down in a similar way to Marshall combos. I decided that in this case, since it is so small and the head would be by far the heaviest element, the result would be far too top heavy. There may also be issues with the heat from the valves rising up into the circuit board. An option could be to mount the head with the knobs facing up in the same way as modern fender combo’s or an old Vox ac15/30. Doing this would however make the cabinet very deep. I decided to mount the head at the bottom of the cabinet. Doing this reminded me of the old Gibson combos of the 50’s. This then influenced the design of the cabinet as I decided to make it look like an old radio or television set with oversize side panels and circular speaker cutaway. It was a very quick build to be in time for the trip and I was quite pleased with the result.
