Anyone heard from Jim Nicholls (JWM amplifiers) recently?

Roublard Cache

Active Member
A few months ago, I sent him a Dynaco ST70 to rebuild. Communication was great, was told two weeks ago that he would ship it back, ever since then, he has not returned e-mail or phone calls. I know he does this as a hobby, but I am getting concerned since with the price of the amp and tubes and rebuild I have about a grand into this amp.
Feel free to PM me if you want more info or have been in contact recently.
 
C'mon, share with us. Just be gentle...:D
Trust me I do not have it in me to be gentle. I say it like it is from my perspective and always have. I will say my thoughts have nothing to do with JWM and are more from a general opinion on doing business with hobbyist. Beyond that I'm biting my tongue.
 
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I agree, the hobbyist thing can get dicey. I had a friend who loves to do woodworking and was all excited to build me cases for my Scott tuner and integrated. I bought him a bunch of solid mahogany and waited through a broken arm, a move, another move, and a year later I got one case which is beautiful, but I doubt I'll see the other. Friend moved again into a fixer upper and is the age where kids will be coming into the picture. My best bet is to take the one case I have to a pro and have it matched.

Life gets in the way of the casual hobbyist.
 
As a hobbyist, I agree with NOSValves.

I prefer to buy an unrestored unit, restore it at my own pace, try things out at my own risk, and vet things in my own time, and then sell it when I'm satisfied that its ready. That keeps it fun for me.
Sometimes I buy one that's been restored, just to see what others do. The way I see it, I'd pay for a graduate course, so why not pay to learn in this hobby?
 
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have to also agree with nosvalves. i have a pair of vintage monoblocks at a hobbyist for over 1.5 years. ive pretty much wrote them off....
 
Extract from the JWN website: "What folks need to keep in mind is that I am a one man band here, work full time and have a family therefore it is quite easy to get backed up on orders and no doubt will take some serious time to build a serious unit for sure. Always do my best, and do not want to burn myself out so if you are interested in a unit please do not be in a big rush and expect it to take a few months or so."

A rebuild of a ST70 is not a big job and should not take months, even with all the chrome plating and changing the circuits to cathode bias. I hope you get your amp. When you do, you might still want to get a VTA board and change the amp back to fixed bias for each tube.
 
I hope you get your amp. When you do, you might still want to get a VTA board and change the amp back to fixed bias for each tube.

Jim will probably rebuild the ST70 using his own auto bias (cathode bias) circuit, with individual cathode resistors for each tube. If you're just going to replace all of that when getting the amp back, then why send it to him for a rebuild?
 
It just seems odd to make all your builds cathode bias on principle, especially with a design using fixed bias. But, hey, if the OP gets his amp back fully rebuilt and is happy with the work all is well.
 
You have no idea how badly I want to share my person experiences with Mr. Nicholls in this thread but all I will say is this:

1) Don't expect him to complete it any time soon and when / if he replies to you, expect the only excuse he gives which is that this is just a "hobby" for him on the side and he has a life and family outside of building amps

2) When he does finally ship it, pray to whoever you pray to, for it to be packed halfway decently and that he has hopefully learned his lesson (at MY cost) that he couldn't pack a golf ball well enough to prevent damage during shipping let alone electronics

In other words, I hope your experience turns out to be much better than mine.
 
Ugh, this sounds like the hassle I had to go through to get fiberglass body work done on my VFR motorcycle. Took almost two years but the work was very good. Not worth the hassle.
 
Since he sent me pictures of the competed amp, I would think it is good to go, as he said it also passed bench testing.
That was about 24 days ago.
I would be willing to make it worth someone's while, but if someone lives in NJ by the Philly area, I wouldn't mind if you could run to his house and see if he is ok, or if you can get my amp. Would pay for time, milage, and shipping the amp back to me.
The step after that would be I would file a police report.
I would rather not post all the e-mail exchanges we had online, but if someone wants the whole list, I can forward them to you.

Thanks,
Ben
 
Hope he is ok. But, 2-3 weeks turn around on a rebuild is more reasonable IMO unless a custom part provided by others or a rare part needs to be located.
 
I shipped the amp to him in early june. On August 30th he stated "This thing sounds so darn nice man.
Tuned just right, i absolutely love dyna st70s with my circuit.
Forgot to mention how much capactance we have under the hood.
First we have a mild 23uf or so on the tube rect. Very common and just right. No need for more. After the choke we have 3 massive 390uf caps plus a 590uf on the b+ for the signal tubes.. just a tad more then the original dyna had, hua??.. thats where the deep solid bass and punch come from, also why its so super quiet.
Another cool thing is i installed a high voltage pilot lamp that lights when the b+ comes up, very neat. Most lamps run off the 6.3v
jim, "
I asked him on the 6th if I could have a tracking number for the amp and he replied with this"
"Hi Ben,
I think shes good to go bud.
Lets shoot for next week shipping.
Send your address over.
Jim
Sent from my HTC smartphone on the Now Network from Sprint"

Since that last reply, he has now answered my e-mail or phone calls.
That is why I was wondering if someone could check to see if he is ok, because I haven't seen any posts online from others about not getting stuff from him, an obit in the local paper, or any update on his website.
 
That's the problem with email, or actually the phone too, they can just ignore you. Hope you find some way to resolve this.
 
Hi there,

I am in the same situation as Roublard. Actually, I landed on this thread trying to see if somebody knew about Jim.

In my case, I asked him to build a Colorado Special amplifier like the one he built for Lynn Olsen with 6bg6ga. I made the first payment around end of February. That was like 600 USD, then he kept asking me for more money since he said he was in a difficult economic situation so I sent him 800 USD more, that was in June. The total price for the unit was 1800 USD. Later, he even asked for more but I told him I was not gonna give him any more money until he finished the amp. So, now its already one month he does not answer my mails.

Unfortunately, I do not have his phone number just his mail, would somebody in this thread be kind to send me his phone number here or in a private message?

Im already not only worried about not getting the amp or my money back but also about him, as its pretty strange.

Alan
 
Uhg.

I feel for you.

I am going through this with another restorer / hobbyist who has had two AM/FM table radios of mine for almost a year. To his credit he DID send one back to be - twice - both times it did not work, hummed like MFer, and the second time he followed NONE of his OWN detailed packing instructions on his OWN website...

Reputation, reputation......

Hope the OP gets a positive outcome - If I was closer to Philly I'd go check.
 
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