https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSLNWTQ8?
After watching several people play and review these on Youtube with too many good comments to be believable, I bought one. One commenter stated that he would pay the $120 just for the neck. It is made in China. The negative comments are all centered on the use of "cheap tuners" but I have no issues with mine. So far it plays better than both of my other "Strats." I have a 1980's Korean Squier that I bought new at Ace Music in Miami. It has been rebuilt due to a spontaneous rapid self disassembly one day that left me bleeding resulting in me throwing it across the room. I also have a Chinese "CovidCaster" that I got for $59 on Ebay when everyone was stuck at home playing video games or learning how to play an instrument on YouTube. The new one is the sunburst on the right.
Post #3629 here:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/what-did-you-last-repair.313739/page-182#post-7290844
The problem with the HBAC today is that transformers have gone up - didn’t you mention rumblings of a THBAC? Or an HWAC (hundred watts for minimum cost)? The Antek route is $20 for the OPT and $42 for a 100VA PT (Which has the required 6/12V heater winding included - the Triads don’t unless you are allowed to add turns per challenge rules). By the time you add sockets and pots you‘re over $100. $6 OPTs is quite attractive. Even without a formal “challenge”.
The HBAC occurred when someone joined diyAudio just to hawk his amp kit. He was implying that we were wasting our time since nobody could do it better than he did. All occurred in this short thread:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/need-recommendations-for-diy-small-guitar-amp.190449/
There have been a few mentions of a new challenge, but nobody has thrown down the gauntlet yet.
The reality of the challenge, and its results are uncertain. How many of us who designed and built those amps still use them? How many used them at all after the thrill of the contest was over? If the amps did, or did not get used for a good period of time, why or why not? If the amp did not see much use, what would you do differently? I have thought about making a new guitar amp, by answering these questions, watching too many guitar amp videos on YouTube and making a list of features that I would want. I grew up playing 60's surf music, so number one is REVERB! Unfortunately the list keeps growing. Fulfilling that list for minimum cost will be an engineering design challenge in itself. It would be easy to build three different preamps and two or three different power amps and switch them in and out with relays or LDR's. See The latest iteration of the Hughes and Kettner Triamp......that is a killer amp that sells for over $4000! Too many parts and too many knobs......
The 4 tube amp that I designed for absolute minimum cost worked, it fulfilled all of the contest criteria, but it did not ROCK. Well after the contest started and the rules that allowed silicon in "supporting roles' the irritant that started the contest stated that no TUBE AMP could include ANY silicon, except in the power supply as this was how his "pure tube amp" was designed. As the contest was winding down, my engineering career was also running out of time, so all the HBAC stuff got boxed up for the eventual road trip. That box was one of a few that got damaged during the trip or a year of storage. The 4 tube amp survived but got torn apart and rebuilt into the amp I use today. A pair of added mosfets gave it the ability to ROCK and created a circuit I now call the Saturator, since even a wimpy guitar can drive it well into saturation. I have not looked up the prices, but I believe that it could be built for under $100 today. The tubes are still on the $1 list.
The larger amp was "inspired" by an "18 watt Marshall." It was damaged, but still plays sometimes. Both used series heater strings to allow for use of isolation transformers for power. The Triad N-68X that powers the 4 tube amp was about $15 at the time and the 80 VA Triad was under $20. The little guy runs a pair of 32ET5's (similar to a 6AQ5 with a 32 volt 100 mA heater), an 18FW6 (6AU6) and an 18FY6 (6AV6 Mu=100). The larger unit runs 3 X 26AQ6, and 2 X 45B5 (a 45 volt 100 mA 6CW5). It would be easy to use series heaters with TV sweep tubes, or even old radio tubes to make guitar amps with isolation transformers for power. Two 50L6's (6W6) and two 12AX7's could make for a 30 watt amp that DOES ROCK! That continuous heater current on the isolation transformer blunts the pulses from the rectifiers so that the cheap iso transformer doesn't buzz. I use a pair of voltage doublers wired out of phase to keep a symmetrical load on the transformer in quest for quietness. I call it the "way too many diodes power supply."
"Yeah, that S.E.X. amp was the very first Bottlehead product, before it was called Bottlehead and before I was designing. Came out in 1996, and was replaced in 1997. Two 6DN7s with power triodes paralleled and small triodes in mu-follower, per monobloc."
When I was a kid in the 60's I learned that you could rip the entire vertical sweep section from a TV set, lift the feedback cap and connect it to a 1/4 inch jack to make a guitar amp. They weren't half bad either. I finished that amp kit for a co-worker and we both wound up with a case of the Single Ended Fever. Mine resulted in something I called the TSE which is still around. I think my friend satisfied his fever with an amp called a "Bugle 45" but both of us used the same Electra Print OPT's.