![]() ![]() Building Your Own Tube Amp. Posted 1. 2. 1. 0. NOTE: This series of articles was originally written by Ralph Power. I have a teenage son. It gives me pause to say it aloud. Just like I stumbled over the words “fiance” and “husband” when I first spoke them, there is. This bank has the most loyal customers. Banks have some of the worst reputations in the country, and customers often hate them. But one bank has customers. ©2016 Twitpic Inc, All Rights Reserved. Home Contact Terms Privacy. 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, IL 60022 The Chicago Botanic Garden is owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. THE GALLERY OF FLORAL STARS. You may contact him directly at power_ralph@hotmail. Ken]. Ambitious title, eh ? Well the intent of this article is to lay out a logical plan of action for those courageous individuals who are contemplating building their own tube amplifier, but just can’t seem to figure out where to start. As a recent rank beginner myself, I can assist you with information on the thought processes I went through when planning and constructing my own amp. This article will point up important things to consider before you lay out your hard earned cash. Naturally it leans toward creating single- ended and push- pull direct- heated triode amplifiers, which I believe are the best sounding, easiest to build, and give the greatest chance for success, but I think this plan will also work for other types of tube amps and preamps as well. Tube electronics is generally very simple when compared with the current commercial solid- state microelectronics of today. The real magic goes on inside the tubes themselves. You just mount them on a chassis and provide them with the electricity and audio signal they need to do their jobs. Tube amps are very forgiving and will tolerate incredible abuse and misuse for short periods of time, like during initial power up and debugging. I believe you can build your own amp that sounds as good or even better than a commercial one for half the cost. And with it comes the immeasurable joy of creating a work of true artistic beauty with your own hands and mind, an amplifier that is as pleasurable to look at as it is to listen to, and one that is so well built, it will be around long after we are all dead and gone. You can’t buy anything like that at Circuit City! I’m telling you that you don’t have to understand tube amp design or even tube operation theory to build a extremely high performance, state- of- the- art triode amplifier from scratch. Man, this ain’t rocket science! If you are at all experienced with soldering, drilling, and a little painting, you CAN do it. All it takes is a few tools, a schematic, a building plan, and some cash. But above all, what it takes is a sincere desire to create the amplifier of a lifetime. I’m here to give you a building plan that worked for me. But I warn that this article is very generic in nature and does not attempt to cover all components and situations and does make sweeping generalizations for the sake of brevity. And of course it is all my most humble opinion. Deciding what kind of amp to build.
OK folks, this is absolutely the number one, most important thing of all to consider when building your amp. And you thought it was the wiring! Nope. You must have a firm understanding of your power needs and your output tube and topology options before you can make any intelligent choices for building that dream amp of yours. If you blow this step, you’ll be setting yourself up for a big, expensive, time consuming failure, and a great listening disappointment to boot. It has been said that the amplifier – speaker interface is the most important in audio and you better believe it if you want to succeed in maximizing your audio enjoyment by building your own personal expression of vacuum tube art. If you don’t already have a pair of efficient, good sounding speakers (generally > 9. Otherwise you are relegated to more conventional push- pull pentode tube and solid- state amps with a higher power output (> 2. Below is chart of common direct- heated triode output tubes and their associated power capabilities. I am one of those audio radicals who believe that direct- heated triode push- pull amplification has just as much potential for giving ultimate musical enjoyment as single- ended amplification does. Therefore I am including push- pull ratings in my chart of common output tubes to give you more options to consider in making that all- important output tube selection based on your power requirements and parts cost. Just remember you have to use push- pull output tubes in pairs, so the tube cost doubles versus single- ended. Common direct- heated triode output tubes and their average maximum power output at average operating points and their least cost. Type. SE watts. PP watts (pair). Cost/tube. 3. 00. B. 2. A3. 2. 5 (used). I recommend that you use the efficiency of your speakers as a guide to your available options as to output tube selection and amplifier topology (single- ended or push- pull). If your speakers’ efficiency is around 9. B type tubes and their super tube variants (VV3. B, VA5. 30. 0, etc.). This is not a liability at all as the 3. B is one of the best sounding tubes ever produced. Even if you have highest efficiency speakers, the golden tone of the 3. B tube and extra headroom it provides, are still the safest bet for DHT amplifier success with the most kinds of speakers, especially if they are not horn types. Push- pull 3. 00. B amplification offers the highest output power level of any of the above configurations (up to 4. In the middle of the speaker efficiency range, around 9. A3 amplification, which is probably the cheapest route to DHT audio enjoyment. With Chinese 2. A3 tubes selling for $1. DHT amp party. For those of you who want to go for that low wattage (< 5 watts) exotic sound, the more esoteric SE 2. A3 and 4. 5 tube amplification may just be your ticket to audio nirvana, but you better have a pair of really efficient speakers (> 9. For my initial foray into the world of DIY tube amps, I decided to hedge my bets and go with the 3. B single- ended tube topology for higher power and great fidelity. Building an amp from a kit or from scratch. If you are the type of person that doesn’t like to be hassled with the process of making decisions, locating and purchasing individual parts, drilling, cutting and painting metal chassis, then maybe you should build one of the many excellent complete kits out there which will get you up and running in short order. In the middle ground, there are “parts” kits out there that give you most or all of the parts, but you still have to layout, cut, drill, and finish the chassis yourself. If so, just skip to the appropriate section that you need. But if you’re the type of adventurous soul who wants something beyond what is available in kit form, something that is totally unique in all the world, something that gives the pleasure that only building and owning your own creation can bring, just keep on reading. Finding a schematic. By now you should know that you want to “do- it- yourself” and also what type of power tube and topology you want to use to build your amp. Getting your hands on a good schematic is the probably the second most important step in the amp building process. Unless you are an experienced experimenter and design your own amps, the safest route is to select a proven schematic from many that are offered for free at sites on the Internet. For instance sites like . Sound Practices. A great way to start to learn tube audio is to get hold of as many schematics as you can find and study them closely. If you study them long enough, you will begin to see similarities in circuits and their sections from one schematic to another. Try to view an amp as a combination of different stages (driver stage, output stage, power supply, etc.) and not just a collection of individual parts (resistors, capacitors, tubes, etc.). You can’t see the forest for the trees? Try to see the forest as groups of trees…. Another good way to learn is to get hold of a vintage tube amp and its schematic and spend some time studying the wiring underneath while trying to visualize the circuit flow from input to output. It looks impossible at first, but you’ll be surprised how much you’ll pick up in no time. I’ve found that this is left brain information and sleeping on it will enable you to absorb more than you thought you ever would. Usually commercial push pull designs are much more complicated than what we would normally build, so if you can figure one of them out, our typical DIY amps will be a breeze to understand and build by comparison. Your amp’s ultimate performance and parts requirements will be dictated by the schematic that you select to build. If you’re not sure which one to pick, try to find one that someone else has built, who can vouch for its performance. Maybe you can even talk them into answering any questions you might encounter as you go along. That’s how I got started. And remember that folks on the Joenet will be glad to help you with any questions also. Signal section schematic). Power supply schematic). I’ve always subscribed to the “less is more” and the “keep it simple stupid (KISS)” school of audio design. Luckily both of these prerequisites came together beautifully in a schematic that was given to me by a serious audio experimenter, Gary Dahl. This circuit is exceedingly simple and pure, with no capacitors or resistors in the signal path. And it requires only a hand full of parts to build. I knew the first time I laid my eyes on this schematic that I HAD to build this amplifier. I feel that interstage transformer coupling between the driver and output stages maximizes audio performance while minimizing construction difficulty due to the lower parts count. Please let me know if you need a copy of this interstage coupled 3. B schematic or the 2. A3, 6. B4. G, or 4. I will email it to you. I also have schematics for an interstage- coupled push- pull 2. A3 or 6. B4. G amplifier using the same 5. I have built and am currently using the 6. B4. G version and it is also a wonderful sounding amp. This would be a good choice for those with less efficient speakers or those with PP iron to build with. In any case, I will also distribute these schematics upon request. These are the same ones that I have offered previously on the Joenet. There are also many other good schematics that use 2. A3s, 6. B4. Gs, 4.
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Март 2019
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