• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

DIY CAT SL1 preamp

Waybackmachine managed to capture wongkm33's webpage one time, and with that, well worth details of the main and power PCB. Enjoy
Wow.......really...really nice work.......Hey that Waybackmachine could I use it to go back when gas was

1.87....and go back more to when Dynaco 416 power amps were 249.00......I have a few other items I
would need to pick up also.
 
Glad you liked the info ... and... :LOL:

I'm gonna compare the CAT to VSE RTP3D which is diff in and bal out. If I end up building a tube pre, I want it to be balanced such that I can properly utilize PASS XA circuitry. Also only fair to compared apples to apples since I am working on an XP/XS preamplifier. I really like balanced operation, through and through.
 
So complicated. Maybe the top half of 12AX7 acting as an active load is just an excuse to bring the voltage up slowly since it's direct coupled to the cathode follower. I wonder what it would sound like with a resistor load or in the line stage not use the 12AX7 at all and reconnect the unused half of 12AU7(what a waste!) as the second stage. The least they could do is to make it able to alternate the 12AU7 halves for each channel so after up to mileage user can swap the tubes for fresh halves (Artemis Labs preamp did the same thing). I understand it was a trend in that era not to invert the phase so they had to resort to two gain stages before cathode follower. A grounded grid circuit would solve the problem of too much gain and keeping it in phase and easier use of feedback.



cat-sl1-jpg.991015
 
Hi Oneminde
Thanks a lot for tracking and uploading schematics and parts layout. I am in the process of attempting to rectify an SL1 mk2 which blew the 317 regulators and checking to see if the mosfets have survived.

By the way did you manage to compare the SL1 to the RTP3D? Would be interested in knowing your views as I think these are classics