Hobbs, I've done a bunch of DIY building and mods and I can say without reservation that it IS lots of fun. But it is LOTS of frustration too! You can find quite a few amp kits and designs on the net. Bottlehead.com has several tube amp kits, LC Audio has a series of solid state kit designs, and there are many others. The first big hurdle is the $$$ factor. I beleive that you don't really save lots of $$$ doing DIY. You can build more (fill in the blank________) for the $ but you still spend all you have saved, and them some. These sort of projects are the very definition of "nickle and diming you to death". However, it is lots of fun and I have learned a lot. Plus, now, I'm not afraid to get inside the rest of my equipment and tweak things. I'm currently working on upgrading my CD player and building a passive preamp/cross-over.
