Hello, world?

[Satellite Icarus]

don't really know if its important to do this here, but I thought I'd introduce myself before asking questions...

I'm a senior at a Massachusetts college concentrating on Audio electronics and acoustical engineering - it's a fun time. I've built a number of very random things, with various levels of success, but most were sound-related... What else to say? I really enjoy music, making it, making things to make music, and making things to make music to make things to.

you know... the usual.

I have a bunch of projects (mainly a big tube one) that I've been doing research for, and so far diyAudio's been a great help, but I thought I could even participate a bit more and be a member. Who knows, maybe I'll actually even be able to help someone sometime...

Ezra

[planet10]

Welcome to the forum Ezrz... what kind of tube amp?

dave

[Satellite Icarus]

Me and a friend built a pair of bass-reflex enclosures with Pioneers B20FU20's in them last semester, and I'm know designing a stereo tube amp to drive those. He's building me a guitar in exchange.

Requirements are pretty basic:

-10-15W/channel
-cost kept in the 400$ range
-be able to work with a variety of sources (from record player to ipod) and have multiple ins
-basic tone control, with maybe a bass & treble boost pots, but nothing complicated

but I've been doing research in more "unusual" tube topologies, which led me to be considering some combination of the following options:

ultralinear output stage
parallel triodes for the preamp
gated beam discriminators (à la Pete Millett, very uncertain - would it actually be useful at all?)
solid state power supply
compactrons:
*triple triodes for the preamp (6AC10; 6AK10,6MJ8...)
*double pentodes for a self contained push-pull output stage (6BN11, 6BV11)
*Or double triodes with a pentode such as the 6AS11 to contain one whole channel in one or two tubes, although apparently the interactions within the tube make this unrealistic (AX84.com - The Cooperative Tube Guitar Amp Project)
*maybe a 6Z10 if I actually end up wanting a 6BN6

I'm definitely going to make a thread for this project, but that's pretty much a short version of what I have in mind.

Experimentation is a going to be a big part of this project, but I'm going to be making refining schematics of different versions in order to get parts and start testing around 3 weeks from now.

This project might also involve building a power supply... I'll see.

I'll be making a thread this week and uploading schematics as I go... any opinion/ comment/suggestion welcome!

Ezra

[Cal Weldon]

Hello and welcome Ezra.