Building Your Own Tube Amp. Posted 1. 2. 1. 0. NOTE This series of articles was originally written by Ralph Power. You may contact him directly at powerralphhotmail. 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 cant seem to figure out where to start. The Tube Amp Book Pdf' title='The Tube Amp Book Pdf' />Tube sound or valve sound is the characteristic sound associated with a vacuum tube amplifier valve amplifier in British English, a vacuum tubebased audio. 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. The Tube amp Library of information Click the link above for Tube amp info, Schematics, Board building information, Projects, Mods, Transformer diagrams, Photos. A valve amplifier or tube amplifier is a type of electronic amplifier that uses vacuum tubes to increase the amplitude or power of a signal. Low to medium power valve. 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 cant buy anything like that at Circuit City Im telling you that you dont 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 aint 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. The Tube Amp Book Pdf' title='The Tube Amp Book Pdf' />But above all, what it takes is a sincere desire to create the amplifier of a lifetime. Im 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, youll 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. Graphtec Robo Master Drivers. If you dont 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. Costtube. 3. 00. B. 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. The Tube Amp Book Pdf' title='The Tube Amp Book Pdf' />You can probably guess that Im a big fan of Alfred Morgans series of books such as The Boys Second Book of Radio and Electronics which I had received as a Christmas. There is also a photoconductive sensor cell manufactured circa 1963 by GE in a Compactron envelope. Its type Z2946, and what little I know about it is here. Building Your Own Tube Amp Ambitious title, eh Well the intent of this article is to lay. Get the guaranteed best price on Tube Combo Guitar Amplifiers like the Peavey 6505 112 60W 1x12 Tube Combo Guitar Amp at Musicians Friend. Get a low price and free. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service. Power Supply Design for Vacuum Tube Amplifiers using Rectifier tubes. Fundamentals of Engineering Electronics, William Dow, 1937, 617 pages Courtesy of an anonymous donor. A very unassuming title for a 617page engineering bookB 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 lt 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 doesnt 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. Spirit 9 Fare Club Trial Membership 2011. But if youre 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. Paris Pro Font. 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. You cant see the forest for the trees Try to see the forest as groups of trees.