The Build · No. 04

Slow.
By design.

REF / B–2026

From a first conversation to a soldered chassis to a voiced cabinet — every Honeymaker amp passes through the same set of hands. Here is how the process unfolds, slowly.

The build bench — placeholder
Soldering iron · 700°F · 60/40
Process

Six steps
to a finished amp.

01

Listen first

Every build starts with a conversation. What kind of player, what kind of room, what kind of records are on the turntable. The amp's voice is decided here, not on the bench.

02

Sketch the circuit

Topology, transformer specs, voicing decisions. Schematics are drawn out by hand and prototyped on a breadboard before any chassis is cut.

03

Cut, drill, fit

Steel chassis are cut and drilled to fit the chosen layout. Cabinets are built from solid pine; baffles are floated to keep the speaker free.

04

Wire by hand

Point-to-point wiring on turret board. Components are sourced for their character — carbon comp resistors, paper-in-oil caps where they belong, transformers wound to spec.

05

Voice it

Once the chassis is alive, the voicing begins. Bias points, capacitor values, and speaker pairing are dialed in until the amp sounds like itself.

06

Burn-in & ship

Twenty-four hours on the bench under load, a final inspection, and then off to its player.

A good amplifier is mostly a series of small decisions made carefully. The work is in the listening between them.

— Pete Hensing

What's next

Ready to talk about a build?

Lead times are typically 8–14 weeks depending on the queue. Send me a note — tell me about your rig, your room, and the sound you're after.