turret board vs. p2p vs. PCB

[Webelo]

ok...
so, my brother and I are having a discussion about turret board vs. p2p vs. PCB. I'd like you to shine some light on the discussion.

I am looking to build my first amp and am on the PCB side.

He has built an 18watt Marshal guitar amp (turret board) and feels as though turret board is the way to go.

Can you please shed some light as to the pros/cons of each method. It seems like most people build their amps with PCBs... why? Are there any quality benefits to P2P or turret board?

Thanks a ton!
john.

[erichayes]

Printed circuit boards lend themselves to rapid manufacturing of product, especially now that surface mount technology has matured. Turret board construction and its variants (see any vintage Fender amplifier) was the PCB's main predecessor, although perforated board was also used to a much lesser extent. Point to point started it all, because it all had to start somewhere.

Personally, I prefer P2P for a couple of reasons. First, as a prototyper, it's more hassle for me to do the artwork, expose, develop, etch and drill the board than it is to just build the damn thing on the fly. Second, P2P is sonically superior to PCB, albeit very subtly so.

I've taken up turret board construction over the last two years for limited production, as it is the best compromise between the two other techniques for my purposes. But for prototyping, I can have a blank chassis at 9:00 AM and a working guitar amp front end by 5:00 that afternoon using P2P and drawing the schematic as I go. 'Course, I've had 47 years of practice, too, and that probably factors in.

[Geek]

From a bench point of view, p2p and PCB is great for a build-once-and-forget-about-it circuit.

Turret/tag boards is the ultimate for fast and repeated modifications. Hence, any decent guitar amps (not to say all the new geetah heads aren't decent, they just cheaped out ) use this stuff.

If you're a tweaker of circuitry, go turret. If you like authenticity and classic with reliability, fo p2p. If you're making a million, go PCB :)

Cheers!

[Ty_Bower]

I like printed circuit boards, because someone a lot cleverer (and more experienced) than I can design the circuit and print the boards. All I have to do is buy the board from them, stuff it, and expect it to work flawlessly.

Of course, if I were building something for which there was no PCB available, either commercially or otherwise, I'd have to go with the other techniques. I have no skills to print my own boards.

Point to point wiring has some definite advantages. For instance, you can't very well twist the leads of AC signals on a PCB, now can you? Besides, the component count in many tube schematics is certainly low enough that point to point is downright practical.