| Runco990 |
Anyone like to share how YOU got dragged down the road to tubedom? :D
I slipped and fell, haven't been able to get up since. I don't know what it is, but I just don't get tired listening to my current tube amp. I also noticed my taste has shifted to jazz and such. Right now I am listening to Diana Krall. I'm in a real good mood just listening.
I accidentally got started again by making the mistake of buying an Eico ST-40 off ebay. I really liked something about it. But it needs a proper rebuild to be used every day, so upon recomendation here I bought a new Ming-Da MC34-B and stuck EL34's in it. It's my every day listener, and I like it a lot. I also don't have to worry about burning the house down. The Eico will be restored at my leisure.
Now I'm after a phono preamp..... and so it goes. I still don't really know why I like the tube sound so much, but I do.
So what is it? What got YOU started? |
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| frank754 |
My dad was an engineer at DuMont TV back in the late 50's/early 60's, and had a lot of cool stuff in his room. I got my first ham license at 16 (around 1969) , and played with tubes ever since, I did a few transistor projects too as a kid, but tubes seem like "lightning tamed" and I never outgrew my childhood fascination. I've only gotten back into it in the past year, since I found out that a lot of the parts and transformers are still available, that's the best part.
It's been non-stop ever since. |
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| Ryssen |
| It started with some old tube radios when I was a kid,then at the age of about 23 I built a tube preamp,then some amps,and so on... |
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| Runco990 |
Interestingly I was exposed to tube gear in my school years. Had all sort of tube equipment back then including frequency counters, scopes, etc. Knight audio gear as well. All other peoples trash. It was interesting, but then I replaced it all with "modern" equipment as I got older. I also did not have as good an understanding of electronics at the time. Tube biasing was an unknown to me.
Alas.... NOW I wish I still had all that stuff. I had forgotten tube sound. I think the digital c**p has driven me to re-discover what music is supposed to sound like, and for some reason I decided to go back to REAL analog. Funny thing....
NOW, however, I get real pleasure out of the old gear. |
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| aletheian |
| Neccessity is the mother of invention... 15 years ago, I had a tube amp that blew up with no money have a shop fix it. |
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| billr |
my dad ran a cinema we had 4 RCA rack cabinets with valve amps in them, they were 6L6 push pull things, with a SE local monitor.
they drove altec lansing bass bins and horns behind the screen.
i was transfixed by these things as a teenager. |
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| andrew_whitham |
I got "half" interested as a kid, before I knew anything about audio and even further removed from actual theory. Pretty things arent they...
Then I got a Musical Fidelity X-Can, not the most auspicious start, but it was better than the other stuff I had at the time.
So I got to thinking... If you can do this with a headphone amp what happens if you scale it up?
Now almost every bit of Hifi I regularly use has a tube in it somewhere. Its the power amp thats letting the side down (MF F-series so not sooo embarassing)
Seems to be a one way street though. Now I'm sure that the class-T amps are all perfectly lovely, but no, not for me.
Andy |
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| soundbrigade |
I started getting involved in electronics at the gymnasium (Sw. high school) and have been working with electronics ALWAYS (not recent 15 years).
Had a collegue who was a skilled designer of various HF-stuff and helped me get along with tubes. Started to build an Audio Innovation clone in mid 80's, but took over an old severely butchered Heathkit AA32 and made something useful out of it.
Got a bunch of Priboi amps while working in Estonia in 1993/94 and rebuilt one which started a a real tube frenzy ... |
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| kathodyne |
when i was little my dad had an old radio, i was always staring through the backpanel looking at the glowing tubes---> thinking they contained some sort of magic......
when i became 17, i saw a schematic on triodedick.nl, i didn't have the faintest clue about electricity but started building it.........and it worked.
after that i fiddled around trying to comprehend things as impedances, miller capacitance etc...
then i got the oppurtunity to follow a tube course (mennovanderveen) and now i am able to design most things myself..... |
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| tubetvr |
My father has been working as an electronic design engineer and he started so early that there was no solid state available at that time, only tubes, (he is 88 years old now). He also had some patents now expired in how to design output transformers.
When I was around 12-13, (40 years ago) I was given a 2W transistor amplifier kit from my father but soon I wanted more power so after promising to be careful I got some 807 tubes and some power and output transformers. After succesfully building an amplifier from those parts I have been more or less in the the tube hobby all the time since then even thou my activity level have been varied, (I was working as an electronic design engineer for about 12 years and during that time I did very little electronic DIY).
Regards Hans |
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| poynton |
My earliest contact with valves was with the record player given to me as a kid. Later my aunt died and I acquired 2 old radios, pre-war Ecko and Pye, I think. there was also an old KT66 amp at the youth club.
Although I studied Electronics at University, it was mainly solid state, building amps from 2N3055, OC28 etc.
However, when I started work for a division of Decca (later Racal), I used marine survey equipment stuffed with tubes (SEAFIX and HIFIX). I wish I had one of the spares kits - loads of ECC83s.
Later, I used a system called SHORAN - modified WW2 airborne radar sets - 20kW pep from some lovely tubes now prized as hifi outputs plus again loads of ECC83s.
This all had to be fixed, literally, in the field.
I once had to rewind a couple of peaking chokes from scratch and by guesswork and luck, they worked!!!! (there was a 'small' fire in the receiver) The nearest spares were in the UK - I was in the Egyptian desert well south of the now bustling town of Hurghada.
I also read the manual for the gear from front to back out of boredom when I ran out of other reading matter.
Andy |
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| ray_moth |
I got interested in building a crystal set when I was about 11, then found a circuit to build a 1-tube DH battery pentode receiver (DF91 / 1T4) using a Repanco LW and MW tuning coil with reaction winding. I used "high-impedance" headphones to listen to it.
I then played around with 2v battery tubes like HL2, PM2HL, PEN220A and some B7A based tubes from pre-war receivers I bought at jumble sales. After several years of wasting my time with this junk, I discovered 6SN7 and 6V6, and built my own TRF receiver + amplifier.
At age 16, I finally decided to do some serious audio construction, so I got hold of a Leak Stereo 20 circuit, bought a lot of parts and built one half of it as a mono amp. I built one half or a Leak Varislope preamp, as well, to go with it. Mono was still a lot more common than stereo in those days. The whole thing worked quite well, as far as I could tell because my speaker was a cheap 10" in a home-made box. It had a high grade Parmeko PP OP transformer, designed for use with Mullard 5-10, which is probably the only reason it worked at all. |
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| kstagger |
Back in the 80s there was a pretty tight knit group of tube audiophiles where I grew up - so I when I was 16 I got to hear some Magnepan speakers with Mac 60s.
I don't remember being that impressed at the time, but I wasn't 'listening' to it - if you know what I mean. Fast forward two years, same guys basement - a pair of Quad ESL-63 Electrostat speakers with a heavily (and I mean HEAVY - separate all outboard Lambda tube regulated) modified Mac240 with a VPI turntable, etc spinning some Mobile Fidelity records.
I fell in love with the looks of the Mac gear - it looked so industrial and cool - like the muscle cars I was into at the time. So I asked my friend if I could buy a tube amp like that. Sure, he said - I tried to hide my disappointment when he brought out that brown Dynaco 70! I brought that '70 to college with me - where it stayed with me until I sold it to my best friend (then I bought it back from him 10 years later!)
I mostly played with and modified vintage gear (HK, Eico, Scott, Dynaco, etc) until Sound Practices magazine came out - then I got into building gear - making my first linestage using 71A tubes with all gas-tube regulation - this was in oh - '94? The a push-pull 6B4G amp, a SE 2A3 amp, bass reflex speaker cabinets, 6SN7 linestage, etc etc - then after college when I actually started having a real income I actually lost interest in the stuff and got into doing PA for some local groups and collecting 7" records. Well a few years ago I had a chance on-line meeting with the guy who originally sold me the Dyna 70 and needless to say I got back into it again. |
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| willyCJ |
I got hooked by a college friend back at Whitman. Mike, if you are out there, you are either a very good or very bad friend. I'm just broke!
Anyway, I got hooked on the tube sound by a Cary amp. I ended up buying that amp and running it for a couple years. Anyway, I eventually need the cash more and sold the amp. Now I'm in grad school and upon the inspiration of a couple friends who are EEs (I'm just a stupid mechanical engineer), I decided to try my hand at building a tube amp. So many hours of reading later I thought I knew what I was doing. I got some good advice to buy a kit and put it together, little cheap 4 tube $100 sort of thing. Then I built my first SE amp which I listen to roughly daily. I have one friend with really good ears (she plays a violin worth more than my car!) who said the overtones are a lacking on my amp. To be honest, I don't know if its the recording, amp or speakers, but for my first designed from scratch tube amp, I'm pretty happy.
Now I want to impedance match a SE tube amp (5kOhm) some ESL speakers (1kOhm). I figure with a lesser impedance mismatch I might get better sound.
At some point I need to rework my current amp. Its built on an inverted cake 12x6x2" cake pan! It was the cheapest project box idea I could come up with :D |
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| Brian Beck |
| My tube epiphany occurred during my college years in the seventies (OK, do the math - I’m not in my twenties anymore). To make a few extra bucks, I assembled kits for customers. I owned a Crown preamp and power amp because they were supposedly “state-of-the-art”, 0.00x% distortion and all that. I had just finished building a Dyna 400 (a solid-state amp) for a customer, and I noticed that it sounded warmer and less “icy” than my Crown, but fundamentally similar. Then another customer asked if I would build his Dyna PAS-3X and ST-70 kits for him. Yes, these were old tech even in the seventies. I might have scoffed under my breath, but I did build them for him, dead stock. When I hooked them up for a listen before delivery, I was stunned, shocked and awed. At first I seriously thought the speakers might be out of phase, since the only other time I’d heard that weird three-dimensional effect was when I’d had a speaker hooked out of phase. I had never heard images floating outside the speakers before. The Crowns played everything in a flat plane between the speakers. And I heard vividness, color and real detail. Cymbals sounded like metal instead of sandpaper. Certainly stock Dyna tube amps are (and were) far from the ultimate, but they were so far superior to my big shiny Crowns that I sold the Crowns and bought my own PAS-3X and ST-70, followed by many mods, then by Audio Research gear. Eventually I fell into serious DIY. I’ve been a tube bigot ever since. |
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| DaveInVA |
My Dad was an engineer (later General Manager) at Grommes so I grew up with tube stuff in the house. He had been an engineer at Stancor previously. He would bring home "projects" for me to build to teach me how to solder etc. I used to ride my bike around town and drag home all sorts of old tube gear from peoples garbage. I still have an Ediphone cylinder player with horn that someone just tossed out. Around town I became known as the kid that could fix everyones old radios and tube TVs. I started repairing tube car radios for people in the local Cadillac/La Salle club and later got into old Caddies also. In High School I had 3 years of Electronics and they were still teaching tube theory. The instructor usually just made us sit through WWII Navy training films on non lab days. Because I had all the previous experience at home I always aced these classes. Except for Radio/TV broadcasting classes I also took these were the ONLY classes I ever got A's in. When I was a jr in High School I worked part time at Wilder Electronics doing warranty repair on Guitar amps. So I guess I've been into tubes as long as I can remember....
Dave |
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| JoshK |
I'm not an engineer, neither was my father. I didn't grow up around tubes. I am 31 (born in '75).
I love music, always have. It is my life. And not the standard audiophile stuff. I can listen to music on whatever gear, doesn't matter, but I enjoy listening to my music on a really good setup and audiophiledom is a hobby that is related to my love of music.
I first started out in the audiophile craze when I got out of grad school, was working and got my first bonus. I bought my first hi-fi setup (Sony XA777ES > Cary SLP2002 > Cary V12i > VMPS RM40s). I basically bought based on what I read, some of my friend's suggestions, etc, etc. That started the audiophile merry-go-round. I had SS amps, digital amps too.
Then I got married and the wife wasn't having my atrocious spending habits, so I took up DIY. I studied applied math in school, so I am fairly technically minded. I did a few easy projects and then I recently started learning about tubes. I have mostly finished Morgan Jone's VA.
To me, all the best systems to date I've heard had a healthy dose of tubes in the chain. Tubes are much more fun to learn and study. And most of all the time you spend working on tube project seems worth your time given how incredibly expensive decent commercial tube gear is.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. |
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| rdf |
| My first 'exposure' was playing in the back of the family B&W as a kid. Tube audio was a coincidence of my work in radio. The engineer at my first station in the Eighties gave me the old amp buried under a loose pile of spare rack panels on the floor: an MC240. My Bryston 2B quickly became a hand-me-down to my brother. Afterwards, and ever since, those in the industry who know of my interest give me their old stock of valves as they clean up and decommission. It's a hard life. =D |
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| w5jag |
I got my ham ticket in 1973 at age 13, when vacuum tubes were still predominant. I remember many a late night of a mixture of soft CW and static crashes coming out of my headphones sitting on the table, the warm glow of the tubes in a dark room, and their hot, dusty, smell.
Later in the decade when really good solid state rigs (Like the Drake TR7) came out, I went solid state and forgot about tubes. I got back into building in the 80's because of the ease of solid state construction, particularly with the multifunction IC's and MOSFET's that were available at the time.
In the 90's, like many hams my age, I started buying up a lot of the old Collins and Drake ham gear, all tube based, that I could never have hoped to afford as a kid, but can now afford as an adult, and I discovered all over again just how good tubes work, and how much better they sound. I started picking up spares for my equipment, then buying tubes just because I liked them, and wound up with probably more than a thousand tubes on hand right now ( and I just bought some more yesterday :xeye: )
I'm not an audiophile, my interest in tube audio is an offshoot of a project to scratch build an SSB transceiver (my second). I wanted to do a hybrid design (tube front end and audio) and got interested in tube home audio from that.
I have no formal training in electronics at all - it's all hands on, mostly learning from mistakes, lots of them .....
Win W5JAG |
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| Brian Beck |
W5JAG,
You make a good point about tube ham gear. Several of my ham buddies collect and operate vacuum tube military radios. Their signals often sound especially good. When they make distant contacts, the other parties will often ask what kind of DSP they use to make such a clear signal. DSP? Try 12AX7! On the receiving end, they use receivers like the Collins R-390A and TMC rack mount tube gear. These items may not have the selectivity or other specs of modern Icoms or Yaesus, but the signal is often more intelligible. |
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| Wavebourn |
| When I was a kid tubes were everywhere. I liked to look inside of a tube radio, to see a "plant with nice glass towers", to sniff that smell of warm dust, listening to Robertino Loretti... |
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| Runco990 |
Thank you, I really enjoy reading others experiences. A lot of similar lines to my own here. I fell into SS gear because I thought it was an upgrade at the time. Well, SOME things are....
I do remember that hot, dusty, tube smell. Funny, tube gear does have it's own scent. A pity most of the old electronics surplus stores in Los Angeles are gone or going as we speak. I vividly remember walking into All Electronics and inhaling deeply. The smell was musty and old. The smell of electronics, it's unmistakable. Coupled with rows of bins and dim flourecent lighting, the atmosphere was perfect! :D
A few years before they closed, the store was cleaned and brightly lit. I complained to the owner that all the "ambience and mystery" was gone. Half the fun of shopping there. Awww.. well.
Nowadays I have to scour ebay for treasure. |
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| Seraph |
I was just transfixed by the permeating vibrant magic of a set up consisting of a Conrad Johnson preamp (might have been a PV2A) coupled with a pair of MV57A's driving a pair of Thiel's 3a. Source was a Linn Sondek. And the bloom. Ah the bloom moves one's soul. You know what I mean. You can only experience it. That was about 89 in the demo room of a Hi End dealer. Prior to that and probably less now as I must confess, I was more into the music itself. But tubes had this warmth, this seductive mesmeric musicality that was indeed an epiphany. Over the years the magic of 300B and other transmitting tubes, etc., have sustained the mystery. How can that ever be lived down? I am currently looking into Class D amps. Have just built a 41Hz kit but not done any listening yet. And with all sincere respect and commendation to solid state designers, I fail to see how the simplicity of design, execution, and component types used in typical tube circuits, can ever be surpassed by that of solid state designs. Albeit, Conrad Johnson actually employs quite a bit of SS in the power supply design of their tube equipment. One should use the best of both worlds.
Regardless, I will be pursuing the magic wherever it occurs, in solid state or within the vacuum of a glass tube.
Mindfully yours |
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| RetroAudio |
| I got into tubes for directly driving electrostatics. Seemed like a good idea at the time.....:) |
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| voivodata |
A few years back, after being completely dissatisfied with the sound of my many guitar distortion boxes and processors I decided to build a distortion myself. I took the easy, solid state way – huge mistake. I spent thousands of hours DIY-ing and modifying almost every solid state distortion design known to mankind – using diode clipping, silicon, germanium, JFET, FET transistors, op-amps. What I waste of time!!!
…….. then suddenly I had a flashback :) to my first set-up which included a cheap Jackson guitar plugged straight into the phono input an old tube radio – it produced massive distortion (noise too) but I just remembered it as feeling gooooood and grooooovy.
So then I built my first tube preamp and was reborn, then I bought a tube amp and modified it to my taste, and so on ..
Especially when it comes to guitar applications, tubes are simply different – it’s not only about the overall sound but also how the tube amp reacts to you playing style, how sensitive it is, how every note is heard despite the amounts of distortion, etc…….
Cheers, V. |
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| Sonusthree |
I was at college on the banks of the river Wye in Hereford. A good friend had found a very cheap Leak (not sure which). There were leaky caps but from the outside it brought to mind a picture of the New York skyline.
The only available speakers were Spirit Absolute 2 small studio monitors. Hooked it all up while discussing with our teacher ('The Doc') how tubes worked. We were quite shocked that it was only 20 Watts and quite possibly only putting out ~12 Watts due to the condition of the tubes.
Pressed play and gingerly turned it up and up...... and up.... people were looking up at us from the other side of the river because it was so loud. The owner of the Absolute 2's came rushing into the room and demanded that the amp be turned down to save his speakers. 'The Doc' explained that it was only 20 Watts and that his speakers were fine. I'd never heard them go that loud before with anything.
Next was my first audition of a small Marshall valve guitar amp. That was also very pleasing ....
As far as DIY goes, I'm rather fearful of the high voltages involved in valve gear and am learning the basics with some low voltage buffer and preamp circuits. Is there anything that can explain biasing better than a 12V B+ ?
Yep.. I'm hooked,
Martin. :D |
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| SY |
| Brian, unfortunately, the yuppie-boomer staus of the R-390 and (even worse) the 75A4 have driven them out of reach. I'd love to have my old SX-28 back, not to mention my S-line. |
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| Wavebourn |
| I have R-392 (originally manufactured by Collins) and couple of BC-348-R. :D |
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| alexmoose |
I got into tubes snooping in my grandparents basement one fine day. I saw an old Admiral radio that didn't work, I opened it up, saw the tubes (I immediatly knew what they were) and was facinated, I fixed the radio(Re-capped it) , and wanted something listenable, I had been obsessed with speakers for the previous few years, and a hi-fi tuber was born. I fixed another radio, fixed a Hi-fi I got for 15$ at a thrift store.
My big Project was just around the corner. This summer I built an EL34 SET. I finished it 1 day before my 18th birthday.....
I just finished (1 hour ago) my new preamp, the phono stage is going in in a few weeks. |
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| cerrem |
When I was a kid...I would awaken early on the weekends by the sound of the Grundig short-wave radio console.... It was my Grandfather tunning in soccer games from Europe......
I got curious and peeked into the back and noticed all these cool tubes light up..... All Telefunken tubes !!!!
He would take his TV apart and take the tubes out and we would go to the hardware store to check the tubes on the tester...then he would buy a replacement if need be.... He expalined to me the sections of the TV and the associated tube that does each function and what the picture tube looks like when there are problems...
Chris |
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| phn |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sonusthree
As far as DIY goes, I'm rather fearful of the high voltages involved in valve gear and am learning the basics with some low voltage buffer and preamp circuits. Is there anything that can explain biasing better than a 12V B+ ?
Yep.. I'm hooked,
Martin. :D |
This is the best tutorial I have been able to find: http://members.aol.com/sbench102/po-dis.html
In fact, it's the only tutorial I know of that I found more useful than frustrating. I have been struggling with this on and, mostly, off for a year now. Of the other half dozen similar tutorials I have read there have always been some blanks left, like if the author takes for granted that you know whatever was left out. It wasn't that I was clueless before I found this tutorial. But I had too many question marks.
And download LTSpice. |
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| Ragnar |
it all started, when I was a 7 year kid. I have always been facinated with these "artifacts", because this thing was still present in some radios and TVs at my grandmothers and uncles house. When I was 8, I started to collect and produce things in a reversed order, i.e. disassemble electronic machines, like voltmeters, old TVs etc...
When I grew 10 ;) I started to assemble guitar effects for guitar and stuff. At the age of 12 I started to learn about drug called tubes and when I built a simple two tube amp (preamp), I only take solidstates to my hand, when it is realy neccesary since. But Is ure use ss much, but never in a signal way...and so now I`m a tube fanatic...maan |
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| Dave Cigna |
Guitar amps. Around 1980 I bought a '64 Fender Princeton Reverb from a friend. I thought it was a really old amp... Not being able to leave anything alone I decided to figure out how it worked. Found some old books that belonged to someone in my family; an RCA Receiving tube manual with the section in the beginning that explained in just a few pages how tubes work, and an ARRL Radio Amateur Handbook. Later I found a guitar amp tech that nervously loaned me his copy of the Princeton schematic so that I could take it to the library and make a photocopy. It went from there... the 'old' Princeton got gutted and rewired WAY too many times to count. I built guitar amps from scratch eventually. I learned that there's distortion, then there's distortion. Then of course, there's distortion.
In the middle of the '90's I noticed that some crazy people were using tubes for playback.... Started by thrashing a pair of "The Fischer" EL84 monoblocks every way I could think of. (Tried 6V6's instead of EL84's, of course!) Eventually tried the classic designs; Williamson and Mullard etc, because they look so good on paper. (The Mullards kill the Williamson.) Remembered that there's distortion then there's distortion... Tried some different things that don't look so good on paper. Most don't work, but some do for reasons that nobody seems to understand.
These days I don't think about guitar amps very much, though I still believe that making a GOOD guitar amp is actually harder than making a good playback amp. But, my 16 year old nephew is a better guitar player than I will ever be. He deserves a good amp. (I still have that Fender Princeton, which is now closer to the original circuit that it was during most of the 80's and 90's, but he can't have it!) I have a few ideas that I might try...
-- Dave |
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| tubelab.com |
I guess that I was one of those curious kids that was always taking things apart to see how they worked. I brought all sorts of mechanical and electronic stuff home from the local trash and took it apart. Our garage was always full of stuff. This was the early 60's so anything electronic that could be found in the trash had tubes. I figured out at a very young age that you could swap the tubes around between several dead radios and make a live radio. The seed had been planted. For my 11 th birthday I got an electric guitar but no amplifier. The seed was fertilized. I also figured out rather quickly how to hook my guitar up in place of the phono cartridge in an old record player. The seed had started to grow.
It took about a year but I figured out how to make a guitar amp out of TV parts. First they were simple SE amplifiers using vertical output transformers for OPT's. Big P-P amplifiers follower quickly using sweep tubes and small power transformers hooked up backwards for OPT's. All without spending any money. I actually sold some of these creations. HiFi tube amps followed.
The high school that I attended had a 3 year vocational electronics program. This was 1960's public education. Therefore the budget was low meaning all of our hands on experience was on vacuum tubes. Yes, I could make them glow red back then too!
I have built a lot of electronics since then. Computers, electronic music, video, digital, and of course amplifiers, both SS and tube. For the last 10 years though they have been mostly tube amps. |
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| El Zombre |
with a time machine brain, so says one of my friends at college.
Aside from that, I play guitar and I wanted to experiment with all sorts of things and don't have the money to have booteek amp builders do the work for me. |
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| Audio_idiot |
Hi,
I must confest that I'd never listen to any tube amps before I started...
Just wanted to test my learning capacity, and show off exposed tube with dim glow in the living room when I decided to build my first tube kit 2 years ago.
From the experience & research, unlike SS which will make smoke in an instant, I found tubes very easy and tolorence to play with (accidently connected B+ to grid and the amp can still sing for a while...) & it take real effort to build a bad sounding tube amplifier.... Also, its the best entry to electronics hobby.
Had since build and played with darling amp, el84 SE & pp, 45 SET, 2A3C SET, now trying to make an class A2 amp. Mostly simple design of my own... Still a student in the sand box;) :D
Cheers |
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| EC8010 |
| Transistors were expensive (OC44, AC128 etc) but valve gear was being thrown out everywhere so I learned on valves. I used to walk (didn't have a bike) six miles to a TV repair workshop and go through their skip, salvaging bits. To become a professional electronics engineer I learned about transistors but still used valves at home. I've never built or bought a stereo transistor amplifier, but I've built quite a few valve amplifiers. |
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| tubelab.com |
| I used to "dumpster dive" in the trash behind the two TV repair shops that were within bike riding distance of my house. Made friends with the technicians in both shops. My first job (age 16) was in one of those shops. |
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| Ragnar |
yup, all the same stories...tried tubes - never left them since :rolleyes:
such a romantic story :D |
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| SY |
| And a sad story, too. So many of us got started working at TV repair shops. They hardly exist anymore. |
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| andrew_whitham |
| quote: | Originally posted by pinkmouse
I blame SY. ;) |
Yeah he does that. I blame my current stock of tube friendly transistors on him and Morgan Jones.
And To think I might have lead such a simple life... :smash:
Andy |
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| Runco990 |
| quote: | Originally posted by SY
And a sad story, too. So many of us got started working at TV repair shops. They hardly exist anymore. |
You are NOT kidding. I have been friends with a local TV guy since I was 13. He is still eeking out a living, but barely. The only difference is that "I" am now the one helping HIM out on tough jobs. I never charge him for my time, though. If I need something, it's done.
"Dumpster Diving"..... yes.... many memories there. I still do so sometimes, but ebay has made even garbage hard to get locally. |
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| DaLarry |
I was born (1943) into and grew up in the "golden era" of tube hi-fi in Chicago. When I was a junior in high school (circa 1956), to satisfy a writing assignment, I decided to research and write a paper on how vacuum tubes worked. I was amazed and I was hooked. While in high school, I got a job at a hotel out by Midway Airport after school and on weekends. I was supposed to just sweep up the lobby and run room service. However, the manager found out I had a gift for troubleshooting electronics and I ended up keeping all those old tube based B/W tv's working.
The first hi fi I owned was a Dynaco PAS 3x/ST-70/FM 3 that I built from kits, driving a pair of AR 2ax's. Sometime in the 70's my home was burglarized and I lost my pride and joy. I moved on to SS but was never satisfied. I never forgot that tube sound.
>>
It had always been my intention to get back into it but that didn't happen until this summer. I found a pristine pair of AR 2ax's at a Salvation Army. While standing in line to buy them, the guy behind me offered to sell me some audio equipment he had in storage for $500. I went to take a look and it turned out to include:
>>Dynaco ST-70 w/GSI Mod, hand built by Andy Fuchs (pristine condition)
>>Sony TA-E86B Pre Amp (straight wire with gain)
>>Pioneer TX 8500II Tuner (great!)
>>Mission 734 Speakers (wonderful!)
I was back in the game. A few months later I bought a drop dead gorgeous Grundig Console. The cabinet is in great shape but I need to update the receiver. That's the primary reason I decided to join this forum. I am still pretty much a tube and electronics newb. |
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| planet10 |
Welcome back :)
dave |
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| EC8010 |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaLarry
While standing in line to buy them, the guy behind me offered to sell me some audio equipment he had in storage for $500... |
What a nice story! So good to hear of someone doing well, rather than a story about a room full of precious valves (tubes) being thrown in a skip (dumpster). |
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| Martin Hayes |
| quote: | Originally posted by EC8010
I used to walk (didn't have a bike) six miles to a TV repair workshop and go through their skip, salvaging bits. |
I used to walk uphill both ways on my knees to Mr Lamberti's TV repair shop to rummage through the pile of discarded components at the back of the shop. My best find ever was one of those Danish-made FM front ends containing a jungle gym of components including an AF114 and an AF115. In the shop was a Leak amplifier that filled me with unrequited longing. "That's a very good amp, that is, said Mr. Lamberti, just to rub it in.
I learned to love valves (tubes) because I came across them abandoned in fields and alley ways. Later I would learn to love similarly abandoned glass-bodied OC71s and OC45s. AF117s are still a firm favourite, even if they always let you down. The old Pye radiogram was playing "Lilly the Pink" when I first noticed the soft warm glow of thermionic valves. |
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| SHiFTY |
Bought an old stereo amp off a mate for guitar purposes. Played too loud and let the magic smoke out. Stashed the unit under the house.
Fast forward 10 years, happened to read this story on Slashdot about a computer motherboard with an ECC88 on it. Wondered what happened to the old valve amp, dusted off the cobwebs and rebuilt it as a stereo hi-fi amp!
It's all downhill from there... :D |
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| Fuling |
I remember that I wanted to build a tube amp years before I got the chance to do it. Output transformers were more or less unobtainable, at least unaffordable for a teenager.
Later on I met a guy at work who´s brother was building tube amp, I went to visit him and traded some junk against a pair of vertical output transformers and a bunch of used PCL82 tubes.
I was completely hooked from the very second those tiny tubes produced their first sounds... |
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| Ryssen |
About 20 years ago I read an article about a Swedish preamp called "Remus"it had a Riaa stage and a linestage (Ecc 82)I only built the linestage.Just wanted some "tubesound" in my stereo..
When I was about 10,I tried to build a FM transmitter with powersupply direct from the wall (220v)Scary..
Never worked...:D
Edit:Ohh already posted,well.... |
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| mandolin |
Cool thread idea. It's neat to see how everyone got into this stuff.
I grew up around tube audio stuff... some of my earliest memories revolve around listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" on the Fisher tube tuner or Charlier Parker records in my folks' living room through a Bogen stereo PA Amp into a pair of Altec 19s. Watching my dad build preamps, power amps, and all manner of vacuum-tube based audio bits and pieces was a big inspiration. So, growing up in an environment like that eventually resulted in two things, I became a musician (mandolinist and guitarist) and became an EE major (Cal Poly, finishing the BS in two months or so). |
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| EC8010 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Martin Hayes
The old Pye radiogram was playing "Lily the Pink" when I first noticed the soft warm glow of thermionic valves. |
I still have my single of "Lily the pink" somewhere... |
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| 69CamaroSS396 |
| I recall as a youngster of 12 or 14 years going with the parents to visit some friends of theirs. The man of the house had the place literally crammed with LPs. He had a room dedicated to listening. And he had these beautifully glowing monoblock amps. Of course I didn't know what they were at the time. The only "name" I remember was a Thorens turntable, and him saying he ordered it from Chicago. Seemed so far away from the hills of rural Kentucky. Long story short, I never forgot that feeling of how cool all that was. Now through my own experiences I realize it's more than just cool. |
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| Richard Ellis |
Perhaps my first exposure to tube gear was around 1962 when as a youngster I came down with the measles/mumps/(insert here , and staying in bed required me to have a radio in my room, as it happened it was an old (1940s') art deco style plain tube radio with its braided? power cord....she hummed & yes smelled wonderful.
Later around 1966 we got a Sony reel to reel (TC-200) ....the sound she would make on power-up was unforgetable... and the required warm-up of course.
Next up was an old RCA console.........three-way drivers with an open back for all the curious pre-teens to peruse thru........little did we all know of the high voltages....that would come later.
Fast forward to the mid-eighties, while getting my EE degree I picked up a fascination with microwaves, propagation, antennas.........kinda old school now.
While in school my dads TV went out, so happens it was the last of the tube sets...found a 12AX7? color amp was out ,so I swapped it for the synch tube...lost synch but picked up color.........that was the last I saw of tubes.
Fast forward from there & was feeling antsy with the loss of quality of gear these days....especially with the mass produced **** they pass off as Hi fidelity today. Perhaps one needs to return to tube gear to achieve HiFi nirvana....It really has come full circle...this is where HiFi came from, and now...this is where it has returned to.
_____________________________________Rick......... |
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| Jeb-D. |
How I got into electronics?- Like Tubelab, dumpster diving when I was a kid.
How I got in to tubes?- It was in my solid-state semester at school. I had to to build some solid state amplifiers. One of my uncles heard about it and told me to build some tube gear. Also, a past instructor of mine was an old Brit who claimed valves sounded superior. Out of curiosity I learned the basics of tubes, designed and built my first tube amp. The sound was the best that I had heard up to that time. It was like a crackhead getting his first hit :D |
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| coresta |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jeb-D.
How I got into electronics?- Like Tubelab, dumpster diving when I was a kid. :D |
and EC8010 too ... the same for me :D I don't remember the day of the week it was but every week , people were throwing away their oldies .. I was waiting for this morning to ride earlier with a bigger map to contain the toobz :D :D I think i collected my first 1000' toob as i was 15' The oldest i found is a 1918 Siemens&Halske triode :clown: My parents sometimes kicked them to get place :confused: |
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| diamondsouled |
I got started back in the late sixties when I put my first stereo together from two old council mono units. Then I built a pair of speaker cabinet with 8" coax's. It sounded fairly good considering what it was.
Then I went to SS like many people and only got back into tubes about ten years ago when I picked up a HK A50K Award Series amp. I took it home hooked up some speakers and turn table plugged it in and it not only worked it sounded great. Wasn't long before I noticed that there was less listening fatigue than with SS and I haven't looked back.
Lar |
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| Brett |
I was into electronics from maybe 8 or so. When I got into music and then hifi in my teens, I biult some SS stuff, then got a Marantz 7C. I asked a question to a friend of my Mother's and he gave me my first RDH, and it turns out he was trained at AWV and STC, but sadly passed away before I could ask educated enough questions and mine his knowledge. Built some more tube gear over the years, often clones of ARC designs when I could get hold of schems.
Lost interest in audio for a long time, then picked up a copy of Glass Audio at Jaycar on a whim, and read Lynn's article including the Amity. That was it. I've built a hundred or so amps in the last few years, and have a couple more fermenting. Because I took up bass again, I hang with musos so I get to repair a lot of gear (unfortunately) and am leaning heavily towards MI stuff as it's far more interesting in lots of ways. |
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| Steen Bentzen |
I have my interest for electronics from my father, who build his own tv's and radio's in the 1950's, so he had a lot of god stuff to play with, from his time with tube electronics. At the age of 10 I was hooked with electronics and was disassembling and trying to assemble lots of old tube radios that I got from family members. After that I build some mono tube amps with EL84 and ELL80 in PP. My first tube amp with EL84 was then later rebuild to a stereo with EL84 single ended. Then I got educated at B&K as an electronic engineer in 1973. At that time B&K still had some equipment with tubes. Then came the period with girls and other stuff and then a family so the time for amps nierly stopped, but a few solid state amp was build.
For to years ago I found my first, and rebuild tubeamp, at the loft and tryed to put it to life again with succes. Connected to my new Dali Evidence speakers it sounded lovely and even my wife agreed. Then I was hooked again.
Now, I'm building a monoblock with 6922 in the input and phase splitter, 12BH7 in the driver and four KT88 in PP switchable between triode and ultralin using a wide bandwidth toroidal output transformer from Plitron with a servo to maintain dc balance. The input and phase splitter are also equiped with a servo to maintain dc balance. The amplifier is controlled by a microprocessor, so running time and voltages are logged and on/off and triode/ultralin switching is performed correctly. The new and old technology combined. The prototype have now been at play for nearly a year without any problem and I like the sound from it. Now I have to finish the project with to amps to my self and to for a freind. The next project will be a tube preamp. :) |
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| duderduderini |
Once i was at University I managed to save enough money to buy my first "Hi Fi" system a JVC AS3 integrated amp a marantz tt2000 turntable with home made speakers. What haunted me however is how ordinary and dull almost all systems sounded to me. I never did go wow. Beam forward to the late 90's and I had B and w speakers a NAD C370 amp and a 521 cdp.. again all respected components but I was never transfixed to the music..
I mentioned to a patient of mine who is, and I say this flatteringly, a complete geek that the more i read Hi Fi Mags, the more i thought tube amps might be worth listening to. He happenned to have one of his creations that I could borrow... a seperate preamp and a 6550 push pull affair with a meagre 60 watts or so ( I thought) I shaould mention that my NAD had 100 watts rms but once i hooked up the tube stuff I had to collect my jaw off the ground (good thing I am a dentist). It was the revelation I had expected but had eluded me till that first song.
I never gave the amps back to him. I sold my Hi Fi System within a week and its been the trip of a lifetime ever since.
I built my first preamp 9 months ago then another with a phono stage and a regulated psu 3 months after that. Currently have all the bits for 300b monoblocs...
Life was simple in solid state heaven but valves just do it for me. My lady who isnt even the slightest bit Hi Fi has come to love the sound and only commented a few months ago that one of the hardest things she might have to deal with if we ever broke up was having to go back to s%%ty sound systems
Now the trek toward truly understanding curves etc awaits.. I have only been at it for 18 months.. my place looks like Radio Shack these days!!!
Wouldnt have it anyother way though
Nick |
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| Bolc |
My story has nothing so special. I started appreciating better quality music when I could buy a decent separated elements HiFi system, Cambridge Audio based in fact on Wharfedale speakers. From that moment my life changed! Then I bought a second MOSFET-like system, a Marantz PM6000, to compare, on ELipson speakers this time. After a while, I saw some posts circulating on a forum I had suscribed to, about tubes amp. I remembered my step father having told me that he designed one EL84-based amp when he was 20 or so. So I ordered my first tube amp, a 6P1-based amp (EL90 equivalent if I am correct). Later, I sold it and moved for a 6P14-based amp (EL84). This one I recently gave it to my mother in order to keep it "within the walls", actually I will probably get it back one day for a stand alone PC sound system when she will be completely deaf...
And so I acquired a KT88-based amp, with which I have great satisfaction, a Music Angel actually. Certainly not the best but one I really like, much better sound than the EL84. Now I am playing this one with different sets of preamp and power tubes, mainly Shuguang, JJ, EH and Svetlana C, not running anymore the MOSFET at the moment. Trying to make the difference between this combination, that one and so on...
My future objective is to make one valves amp, a EL90 or EL84 based, as I have a few remaining tubes. Later a more elaborated one if the virus gets me! Funny thing, I ordered today the book Morgan's Jones Building Valve Amplifiers, and another one in my language, in case of...
Loïc |
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| EL34 |
I heard my first hi-fi system back in the late '60s - a Trio tube receiver, a Garrard 301 front end and pair of Wharfedale speakers as I recall. Being seriously into music, I wanted a system like that but my limited teenage finances only stretched to the parts for a single Mullard 3-3 amplifier along with a cheap turntable kit which I equipped with a unipivot pickup arm made in my school's metalwork shop. A Decca Deram ceramic pickup and a home made speaker completed the system. It was only mono but it sounded ok.
As time went by and finances improved I was seduced by solid state amplification, which was becoming cheaper every year, and upgraded to stereo.
I had forgotten about tubes until I visited Harrogate (in the north of England) in 1989 and came across a small hi-fi shop with an Audio Innovations amp on demo. I asked to hear it and the owner played a couple of tracks from a Ted Hawkins album recorded live at a club somewhere. I was so impressed with the sound that my thoughts turned to building another tube amp.
On arriving back in London, I passed a man with a guitar case waiting on the platform at Kings Cross station. On the guitar case in large letters was written "Ted Hawkins". I took this as a sign from the gods and built a pair of Mullard 5-20s a couple of years later which have been powering my system ever since.
Of course the gods may having been telling me to stick with solid state and just buy a Ted Hawkins album :rolleyes:
Would have been a lot cheaper!
Mick |
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| kuroguy |
| I was hacking computer hardware - adding stuff and modifying boards and realized that as I've gotten older, my eyes arean't as good as they used to be and my hands aren't as steady as they used to be. At the same time computer components have gotten smaller and smaller making them harder and harder to see and solder (ever solder a 0204 SMT resistor by hand?). Decided it was time to build something with big parts like 1Watt resistors, large transformers, and tubes. Had a great time building my first one. |
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| rman |
I was just getting back into using my stereo for some real listening, And had bought some new speakers when I decided I needed a new amp as well. Having always had an interest in electronics I thought maybe I can build my own. I was going to
do a solid state amp, maybe with one of Rod Elliot's boards from
The Elliot sound products site. But the more I read about tube amps, the more I wanted one. It seemed the purest form was
the single ended triode, so I built a direct coupled 6em7 amp from
Gary Kaufman's website. I couldn't belive how simple it was and how great it sounds. After that I just had to see if I could come up with my own circuit. I just posted it, see the thead, Yet another 6em7 amp.
Happy tubing. |
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| Martin Hayes |
| quote: | Originally posted by EL34
I wanted a system like that but my limited teenage finances only stretched to the parts for a single Mullard 3-3 amplifier |
And I'm betting you built it using Mullard's Circuits for Audio Amplifiers as your guide. My first amp, given to me by a friend of my Gran's, was a Mullard 5-10. It had Partridge transformers. I built a 5-20 out of the handbook in high school. I'm not boasting I had a bigger budget than you; somehow I managed to cadge most of the parts. I even bought a Garrard 301 when in high school (this was 1977). Lord only knows where I found the money.
The part in your post I don't understand is the apology about mono. I had only a mono system for years and I don't regret it at all. I find stereo unconvincing, when I don't find it distracting if not downright annoying. |
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| pmillett |
Well, let's see...
I got my ham license in 1968 at age 8. The license tests were all tube circuits at that point.
At that time ham gear was just starting to use a few transistors, but the old used stuff my dad would buy for me (like a Johnson CW transmitter and Allied reciever) were all tubes. As I moved up the license class ladder I got better stuff - finally a Galaxy GT550 SSB rig. An example of sweep tubes driven WAAAY past where they should have been used.
I built some tube equipment; I remember some Heathkits (VTVM and some radios), and a power supply made from scavenged TV parts (5U4). But most of my tinkering went with the technology of the day. Anybody else remember that "bullhorn" circuit using a carbon mic and a 2N301? The collector was connected directly to the speaker, and DC passed through the voice coil? My friends thought that was so cool...
About age 14 I got a commercial radiotelephone license, and worked part time as a techie at a local AM radio station. I worked on a beautiful tube RCA transmitter from the late 1940's... giant MV rectifiers, a whole row of 813's in the modulator cabinet. Then off to college, where I also worked part-time in broadcasting. I am pained to remember tossing out old Ampex tube tape electronics in favor of new, reliable solid state retrofits. I'd love to have the UTC transformers now.
After college, working as an EE I lost interest in doing electronics as a hobby until the late 90's. Again got the bug to build headphone amps, and started "Wheatfield Audio". Discovered I'm a really bad business man and sold it. But I've been designing and building since then as a hobby - I've just never figured out how to make a living doing it.
Pete |
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| duderduderini |
It seems most of you have spent years doing this, no wonder you all sound knowledgeable!!! This is quite a fascinating thread.
I like rman am gobsmacked that an amp with so few parts can sound so wonderful.. I mean whats all the extra stuff for anyway? (all that signal degrading circuitry in sstate stuff).
A quick Hello to P Millett. I was on your site today and am very thankful for all those impossible to get text books you have laboured to provide for all. One of the singularly most useful acts of generousity I have seen.
Regards
Nick |
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| Mikael Abdellah |
When I was about 15 I bought my first audio equipment. It was a Denon DRA-565RD and DCD-315. (The 565RD is still used as a preamp in my living room setup). I have always been interested in electronics, and wanted to build my own amp for many years. I didn't quite understand transistors and wanted something more hi-fi than my solid state setup so I began to look at tubes. Partly for their sound but also for their great looks.
I decided to buy a kit and was almost ready to buy the Zen SE84-something. Don't really remember the exact model. I think the year now is 2002 or 2003. After a lot of reading I realize that the 2W that little amp is putting out won't be sufficient to drive my in-the-future-planned speakers so I start looking for an equally easy-to-build amp with a bit more power. When I failed to find one I instead started looking for tubes that could do what I wanted and had a good reputation. I found the KT88 tube, and the rest is history. I started to read all I could find (that was easily understandable at least) and got a LOT of help here on diyaudio. |
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| kevinkr |
I figured I would weigh in here eventually.. :D My story is pretty typical of many of the people here and goes waaaaay back.. ;)
My first exposure to tubes was in the early 1960's when I accompanied my Dad to the Radio Shack store in Kenmore Sq. (Boston) I couldn't have been more than 4 at the time, but I still remember him selecting the equipment and auditioning it in the store. He ended up with a Garrard changer, Realistic Stereolyne 40 and a pair of Solo II speakers. I actually have a partially restored Stereolyne 40 - not my Dad's, eats modern 6BQ5 for breakfast.. :hot: I used that stereo until my mid teens when I got my own, I was however constantly tinkering with the amplifier because by that point it was getting pretty cranky. I too did some dumpster diving, but got lucky and was able to raid the surplus electronics storage area of my dad's employer for tubes, chassis, and parts.
I got a Lesa stereo set for my 16th birthday and once they went bankrupt I was unable to get new styli for it - an excuse in my mind to cannibalize it for parts for an improved stereo system. I quickly destroyed the monolithic power amplifiers in this thing in a quest for better sound and a more solid bottom end. I ended up building an SE amplifier based on 12AX7A, and pair of 6BQ5 on a Magnavox chassis, it was surprisingly good, and quite loud with the efficient Lesa OB speaker systems.
I made the transition back to all solid state store bought electronics during my senior year of high school and stayed in that camp for some years while dabbling fitfully with tube gear from time to time like a nice little HK Award Series A700 (Model # IIRC??) integrated amplifier through my college years.
In my mid 20's I was offered a pair of McIntosh MC-30 amplifiers in need of some minor repairs in exchange for my Adcom GFA- II, initially I balked at this deal, but upon repairing them and listening for a little while I was very, very quick to make the trade.
Relative poverty in the ensuing years got me into DIY, initially I just wanted to build a copy of what I thought was the ne plus ultra of tube pre-amplifiers, the ARC SP3A.. I was very disappointed with its performance and quickly designed a replacement to be built on the same chassis. Multiple iterations later I had something that creamed the inspiration for all of this. Shortly thereafter I started to design mods for Dynaco products and to sell them commercially with some level of success. Fully custom stuff came a few years later - around 1990.
I later had the temerity to think I could do this for a living because I designed things that sounded good to some part of the exotic audiophile underground. I still design from scratch, but have long since given up on trying to make a living doing it. The stock market crash of 2000 played no small role in the demise of my business. (I've written extensively in the past about my business experiences here and elsewhere.) Now it's just for fun. |
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| unclejed613 |
| when i was young, my grandfather would let me go into the attic or the basement and look around at stuff. i found a lot of radios, tape recorders, etc... i began taking some of them apart. one day when i was 8 years old, i was taking apart a Wollensak tape recorder that didn't work. i had it almost completely disassembled, when he said to me "now, can you put it back together?". it took me a couple of days, but i got it back together AND working. he started letting me experiment with some radios that he had built this was back in 1966..... i started bringing home 1950's TV's and fixing them. later, when i was a teenager, my grandfather gave me an E.H. Scott Phantom Deluxe console receiver that was in his basement. it took me about 20 hours of research and work, but i got it working after replacing all of the tubes, replacing all of the paper caps with mylars, and replacing the electrolytics. i spent a couple of hours aligning it, and it sounded great! it has a P-P 6L6 output stage and a massive OP trannie, as well as a 3 way xover using toroid inductors (amazing for a 1938 radio). everything is chrome plated. i still have the radio, but the speakers need a recone after many moves from MA to GA to CO to TN and back to CO. one of the best sounding radio/hi-fi i've ever heard. it also has a 78rpm turntable with steel dart-like needles. i can't say that 78's are "hi-fi", but for that era, this radio was top-of-the-line. |
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| richwalters |
Anyone dabbing with HAM and sim during the 1950-60's (like myself) certainly would have taken notice of the massive classified ads found in the Wireless World mag (UK). It was full of so much tube surplus that anyone starting out had all the choice one wanted. What more does one want ?
The other thing is that there was hardly any safety. One took it a it came in a minimal sort of way.
richj |
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| Brett |
| quote: | Originally posted by kevinkr
I later had the temerity to think I could do this for a living because I designed things that sounded good to some part of the exotic audiophile underground. I still design from scratch, but have long since given up on trying to make a living doing it. The stock market crash of 2000 played no small role in the demise of my business. (I've written extensively in the past about my business experiences here and elsewhere.) Now it's just for fun. |
I've tried this a couple of times too, both with hifi and MI gear, but it's hard to compete with China, and the boutique customers from both sections can be real PITA's to deal with. The weak US dollar killed off the hopes I had for some potential export. Besides, I found doing what you love to do for yourself as a business, removes much of the pleasurable side from it. Nelson is one of the few that seem to have both and I'm very jealous in that regard.
I think I'm just going to do my stuff for me, and publish some of it, and if someone likes it and builds it, wonderful. |
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| gofar99 |
| I really enjoyed reading some of the stories. Mine is similar to several. I started out in the 60s building ham gear. We made what we thought were wonderful transmitters out of surplus TV horizontal output tubes. About the only thing they really did well was wipe out every TV for blocks with interference. From there it was several tube amps. I recall a kit 4 tuber from Lafayette Radio that was line powered. I still remember the spark it made when hooked up to something else that was opposite polarity. I delved into computers for many years and around three years ago realized there was no fun there anymore (sorry if I offend anyone on that, but now I view them as tools and not a passion). Since then I have built several amps (mostly tube) two preamps, a number of speaker systems and rebuilt a room just for listening to music. I have numerous vintage items, Marantz, Dual, Harmon Kardon, to go with the built stuff. I love audio and mod nearly everything. Usually it comes out better. |
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| zacster |
Growing up we had an old Dumont TV from the very early 50s that my father had bought new. It had over 30 tubes in it. As a kid I remember looking into it while it was on, never had a clue that touching anything in it could kill you. Back in those days almost everything had tubes, except the transistor radios. We kept that TV into the late 60s as I recall.
In college during the 70s, my roommate had an ST-70/PAS3 combo that ran his EPI speakers, but I don't remember much else about it, except that it seemed archaic. It started having some problems and rather than fix it, he bought a Pioneer or Kenwood or some other crappy amp.
A few years ago, I was looking to upgrade what little I had and got on the 'net and in my searches came across Bottlehead and became intrigued again with the idea of tubes. In the 30 years since college I had come to the conclusion that tubes were an expensive high-end product that I could never afford, but the Bottlehead Foreplay costs $149 if I could build it myself. I had already built speakers so I figured it couldn't be hard. Within a month or 2 of completing the Foreplay I bought an ST-70 and started modding that. There's nothing left in it anymore that is original except the transformers and chassis. Unfortunately I'm out of room to do to many more mods to it, like oil PS caps or IT coupling. The biggest thing holding me back from building more is my lack of metalworking tools and ability, although there's always Front Panel Express.
A few years ago I started looking for that Dumont TV on the net and found out what I could about it. There was even one in LA that was for sale on eBay, but I live in NY and it would have cost a small fortune to ship it. One day, the father of one of my kids classmates is over at my house and sees the tube gear and says he has an old TV that his recently deceased grandmother used well into the 80s, maybe even later, and that he was trying to get rid of it. I go to his grandmother's apartment a few blocks away and it was the SAME EXACT TV, with all of the tubes still working. I replaced all the caps (lots of caps), and turned it on without connecting the picture tube but got nothing. I broke both wrists 2 days later in a cycling accident and never went back to it, but I still have it. It's a scary thing to work on.
Everything I know about tubes and electronics I learned on the internet! |
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| DaLarry |
| quote: | Originally posted by zacster
Growing up we had an old Dumont TV from the very early 50s that my father had bought new. It had over 30 tubes in it. As a kid I remember looking into it while it was on, never had a clue that touching anything in it could kill you. Back in those days almost everything had tubes, except the transistor radios. We kept that TV into the late 60s as I recall.
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That brings back a memory or two. When my great grandfather died in the mid '50's I went to stay with my great grandmother. She had an old 9" to 11" Crosley TV-FM Radio table top set. When it would conk out, it was my job to fix it. That was probably my first experience with high quality sound. I remember the sound of the FM mono receiver coming out of that little box as being amazing. Among many other things, I remember first hearing Miles Davis play "Kind of Blue" on that set and thinking it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. There were several occasions when the fixes exceeded my teenage skills. On those occasions, there was a local guy who would come out to fix it. What I remember most about those encounters was that everytime he worked on it, the tech tried to buy it from my Nannie. I've thought about that often over the years. I could probably recognize it if I saw it, but I wouldn't know where to look. |
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| richwalters |
It's worth a mention that this thread is exposing an antique non-existent high voltage safety culture compared to todays engineering approach to potential hazards.
This thread is inquisitive reading and if anyone uncovers some old equipment lurking in the loft or garage and is not sure about it, then get proper tech help. It may save your day as it may be a live AC/DC chassis which was common during the 1940- 50's.
A mains isolating transformer and variac are obligatory without question.
richj |
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| DaLarry |
| quote: | Originally posted by richwalters
It's worth a mention that this thread is exposing an antique non-existent high voltage safety culture compared to todays engineering approach to potential hazards.
This thread is inquisitive reading and if anyone uncovers some old equipment lurking in the loft or garage and is not sure about it, then get proper tech help. It may save your day as it may be a live AC/DC chassis which was common during the 1940- 50's.
A mains isolating transformer and variac are obligatory without question.
richj |
Amen! I'm not sure how I survived it but..... |
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| gofar99 |
| Hi and I agree completely. I was nailed by an old Firestone console radio. I tried to fiddle with the speaker (twas a field coil type) when it was going. Wam! I survived, but never did it again. |
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| kevinkr |
| quote: | Originally posted by Brett
<snip>
Besides, I found doing what you love to do for yourself as a business, removes much of the pleasurable side from it. Nelson is one of the few that seem to have both and I'm very jealous in that regard.
I think I'm just going to do my stuff for me, and publish some of it, and if someone likes it and builds it, wonderful. |
Hi Brett,
Interesting... Your comment exactly mirrors my experience.. It was years before I really started to enjoy tinkering with tube hifi again - a very poignant truth about why in most cases avocations and things you feel passionate about shouldn't necessarily mix. Add the politics that is usually involved and you have recipe for frustration and disappointment when you run into the occasional individual who either doesn't get it, or does, but vociferously and publicly disagrees with everything you say or do.. :D
As an aside I've had more than a few inadvertent encounters with both high voltage AC and DC. I'm very much more cautious now, with age and experience has come the sure knowledge that I have been quite lucky in the past, and that I'm not invincible. :whazzat: :D |
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| rdf |
| You mean there were kids growing up in the Fifties and Sixites who didn't develop a tactile sense for high voltage behind the family B&W set? Who knew? |
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| EC8010 |
Cars had drum brakes operated via elastic bands, but that was OK because the tyres were the same width as those on a pram and made of a special non-grippy rubber that couldn't cope with much braking.
Motorcycles had the same trustworthy braking system (and tyres), but linked it to frames that wriggled under braking or when the throttle was opened.
Bicycles had steel wheel rims and leather brake blocks resulting in a lower coefficient of friction in the wet than steel on ice.
Bicycle lights were either efficient but explosive (acetylene) or intrinsically safe but useless (remember those dreadful rotting batteries and glow worm bulbs?)
Bathroom light switches had brass toggles and could be operated at the same time as turning a tap on. Cables were made of pre-rotted rubber/cotton inside poorly earthed steel conduit.
Power tools were the coming thing, but expensive. I clearly remember my father improvising a circular saw by putting a bolt through a 5" saw blade, tightening it up in the chuck of the power drill, then using it to cut up the wood to make me a sledge. No guards, no nothing. And the sledge didn't have any safety features or warnings either.
In the light of all that, AC/DC radios/TVs were a perfectly sensible idea for the times. Oh, and don't forget that the Cold War was daily threatening to turn into an all-out nuclear holocaust. Yup, anybody surviving all that (and who might well have had first-hand experience of a real shooting war) would have considered our modern safety concerns laughable. You did things carefully and if it killed you you jolly well didn't blub about it afterwards. |
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| Wavebourn |
| quote: | Originally posted by rdf
You mean there were kids growing up in the Fifties and Sixites who didn't develop a tactile sense for high voltage behind the family B&W set? Who knew? |
Do you call 120V "High Voltage"? :D
When I was a kid I made a Christmas's Tree lights' breaker from gramophone, connecting one wire to a spring motor, another wire putting under a bent plate wheel. Once trying to adjust a contact I got a bump through a string of bulbs... It was 220V though... :xeye: |
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| richwalters |
| quote: | Originally posted by rdf
You mean there were kids growing up in the Fifties and Sixites who didn't develop a tactile sense for high voltage behind the family B&W set? Who knew? |
Yup...in 1955 by then I was a routhless, fearless farmers son with a low resistance hide. That's me right to this day. From day one around that period I've always treated my electronics stuff as a bull in a china shop. My first experience with a B/W set wasn't good. The picture hold kept loosing so after several thumps the sparks came out so I gave up and threw it all into the pond.
Now someone the other day told me to be more humane in my H.V electronics. What's he talking about ..?
richj |
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| Hanginon |
A surprising number of people in this thread got the tube bug by starting in amateur radio at a time when people actually built things (especially transmitters) - as opposed to the way that hobby is today, basically appliance operators. You could do homebrew, or the great kits by Heath, Knight, Eico, Johnson, etc.. A great period.
Once I had obtained my General class license, I started running a 150W cw transmitter with mercury vapor rectifier tubes. I was 15 years old, in my parents basement, with the lights off. Man, what a purple glow those tubes gave off key down! You have never seen a transistor do that!! |
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| EC8010 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Hanginon
You have never seen a transistor do that!! |
Actually, I have. Cree 600V Schottkys produced a short-lived purple volcano as they expired... |
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| gofar99 |
| Hi, The amateur bug bit many of us. 6DQ5s and 6BG6s glow nicely at about 600V. My modulator used 7027As and the glow used to dance when I spoke. |
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| Sheldon |
My dad had done some heathkits and later I did a few kits (old Dynaco SS). A few years ago, after a long hiatus (career, kids, etc..) I got a nice system with tube amps. They sounded the best of the things I listened to, and have that nice glow. I then got the bug to to make some more efficient speakers, so I could crank things up occasionally. Started checking out this site to learn about crossovers, and ordered some stuff from Nick McKinney of the former Lambda. He was shutting down his operation, so it took a long time to get my drivers and horns out.
While I was waiting, I noticed the flurry of activity on chip amps, so decided to try one while I was waiting around. Built a couple for a second system, then some little folded backhorns, then a small pair of bookshelf full rangers for my daughter, to go with one of the chipamps. Still waiting, so I tried a little pp tube amp. Of course, you know where that slippery slope leads. Built two more amps - 801 SE, a variant on Susan Parker's clever mosfet/transformer coupled amp (btw, as far as I can tell, she's the only female poster here - not sure what that means), 2 mono and 2 stereo versionss of Mike Bittner's Symasym (prompted by Carlos's, AKA - destroyer X's exuberant posts), a tube phono amp, converted one of the 801 amps to A2, built a kit TT, oh, and finally built the main speakers.
My wife occasionally asks; When are you going to be done?
I blame you guys.
Sheldon |
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| Miniwatt |
I never knew much about tubes, (born in 1973) and was happy with my SS set.
Then I started noticing tube amps being used in a few local bars and cinemas. They all came from Rik Stoet, a local hifi shop who also produce their own line of tube products. Apparently they offered these places tube amps as a form of advertising.
:D It worked for me!!!
Soon after I ordered my first tube amp kit, had never done much soldering so it was a bit of a risk, but the amp was only € 200, so I gave it a shot:smash:
There was a mistake in the instructions, so I only got sound from one channel, but I was clever enough to find out what was wrong, and boy! I fell in love. This was so much better! You know, liveliness, air, realism etc..
That was the only kit I ever built, after that I made a phone preamp, a normal preamp, a guitar amp, and now I'm working on a PP power amp. And I'm loving it.
My knowledge of tube amps was nihil to begin with, but I learnt almost everything from forums like this. Thanks everyone! |
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| kevinkr |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sheldon
<snip>
My wife occasionally asks; When are you going to be done?
I blame you guys.
Sheldon |
Funny, my wife sometimes asks me the same question, the difference is she knew that I was a tube hifi freak long before we got married.. She even gave me some space of my own for my "hobby" when we first started seeing each other. I'm a very lucky guy...
And so far I have not been able to give her an answer... :D |
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| Martin Hayes |
| quote: | Originally posted by kevinkr
I'm a very lucky guy... |
As I said to my wife only this morning: "You even feign interest in my hobbies. What more could a man want?" |
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| aerius |
| Transistor circuits confuse my feeble mind, so I went with tubes since I can understand what's going on most of the time. I guess you could I ended up with tubes by default. |
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| TubeHead Johnny |
I remember my father's Scott 299a integrated and 310e stereo tuner tube system back in the early 60's. I was completely fascinated by everything tube from that point on. I used to run around with my little friends and take apart TVs that were sitting on the curb, dissecting them for all the parts to try to build radios and other electronics, even though we didn't know what the hell we were doing. My father also had a very old guitar amp in the basement. That was the time I received my first shocking experiance. (It's amazing I'm still alive). When I was around 11 or so, I learned all about basic electronics, through Radio Shack believe it or not! At the time they sold all sorts of elecronic kits, from tube radios, to burglar alarms and police/aircraft band converters. In 1973 I started playing guitar, so I natually had to have an amp. My mother bought me a blond Bandmaster head for $100!! It wasn't until I got into collage for a much more advanced level (some 25 years later) got me interested in building stuff again.
~~John |
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| DaLarry |
| quote: | Originally posted by TubeHead Johnny
I remember my father's Scott 299a integrated and 310e stereo tuner tube system back in the early 60's.... |
Even though my first tube system was all Dynaco, it was Herman Hosmer Scott's gear that I coveted the most. My home and school in Chicago were right up the street from Allied Electronics high end audio show room. I stopped in every chance I got to listen; especially to the Scott and Fisher gear. Oddly enough, I never owned any of their tube gear. I did have a small Scott SS system later on. I guess, there's still time. :) |
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| unclejed613 |
actually that's 2 different hazards..... hot chassis designs require either an isolation transformer to work on, or what i did when i was a teenager, either marking the plug, or rewiring with a polarized cord.
the other hazard that is "indigenous" to antique radios is the hot speaker basket. many antique radios used an electromagnet for the speaker field, rather than a permanent magnet. these field coils doubled as the power supply choke. usually one side of the field coil was also connected to the speaker basket, which means the speaker basket is at B+ potential. touching the chassis while touching the speaker basket is an easy mistake to make, and it's no fun..... i've been bit a couple of times by that myself..... usually the best clues that the speaker has a hot basket are 1> a multipin plug for the speaker (usually 4 or more wires) or 2> a layer of insulating crinkle paint on the speaker basket. |
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| DaLarry |
| quote: | Originally posted by unclejed613
actually that's 2 different hazards..... hot chassis designs require either an isolation transformer to work on, or what i did when i was a teenager, either marking the plug, or rewiring with a polarized cord.
the other hazard that is "indigenous" to antique radios is the hot speaker basket. many antique radios used an electromagnet for the speaker field, rather than a permanent magnet. these field coils doubled as the power supply choke. usually one side of the field coil was also connected to the speaker basket, which means the speaker basket is at B+ potential. touching the chassis while touching the speaker basket is an easy mistake to make, and it's no fun..... i've been bit a couple of times by that myself..... usually the best clues that the speaker has a hot basket are 1> a multipin plug for the speaker (usually 4 or more wires) or 2> a layer of insulating crinkle paint on the speaker basket. |
Hmmmm! That sent me back to the photos I took of my Grundig. I was quite relieved to see that it had what appeared to be permanent ceramic magnets. |
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| tubelab.com |
No wonder my old Zenith radio shocked the #%$@ out of me. I just thought the speaker had shorted out. I did not realize that it was intentional.
I remember some shocking experiences when I was young with old Hammond leslie cabinets. |
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| drgonzo2 |
When I was about 12, a local junk shop had a couple of valve radio's come through - and all of a sudden I was in love. Not with the radio's, but with the valves. So, being a snotty kid, I promptly undid the backs of said radios & nicked the valves. (Mullard el84's & ecc83's)
Slightly later in life, a friend of my father who was an engineer for the BBC world service donated a selection of driver valves from one of the old Daventry transmitters - KT66, act6, etc... Pretty much the whole driver barring the final op tube.
Then it all went quiet for several years, until I started playing guitar again. Reading about the valve jr, and the massive r | | | |
