I want to build an amp!!!

[dyerpunk]

Hey everyone. This is my first posting. I am looking into making a complete surround sound system for my living room and like the idea of using tube amps and stuff like that. I took 3 years of electronics in high school, and I know how to solder but that is about as far as my knowledge extends. I'm sure anything that you guys would suggest I will be able to build it and get it to work. I know already that I want to go with a set of full range ESL's and that 's about all that I know right now. I know I'm going to need a amp and possibly a preamp. If you guys could tell me what I need and where I could purchase the materials and find schematics I definetely will appreciate it. Thanks alot,
John D

[zigzagflux]

You NEED Morgan Jones' "Valve Amplifiers", 3rd edition. You can order from Amazon. As someone with background knowledge in electronics, once you understand the manner in which tubes work (as his book will teach you), you will be well on your way to building your first tube amplifier.

Second, you should stick tight to this forum. It is not extreme into crazy exotic parts as the end-all, and is full of sound advice from engineers, laymen, hobbyists, and experienced radio/music technicians.

Once you read thru Jones' book, you will also better be able to understand what type of schematic/topology you are interested in, and what to ask for. The people in this forum will ask you "what speakers, what are you looking for, what source, etc" which you will better be able to answer with some basic knowledge.

Trust me, the rewards are worth it. Toobs FTW. Welcome to your next obsession.

[eeka chu]

You NEED Morgan Jones' "Valve Amplifiers", 3rd edition. You can order from Amazon. As someone with background knowledge in electronics, once you understand the manner in which tubes work (as his book will teach you), you will be well on your way to building your first tube amplifier.

Agreed.

Morgan Jones may not be the be all and end all of audio, but he does start simple and work up to thick detail. Including a lot of information about what makes different components perform better than others - capacitor foils or metalisation, dielectric types, resistor types, how they're made, why different metalisation and cutting methods produce better results, different diode types, pros and cons of them to do with ringing, how to make regular diodes better, transformer types and on. All the stuff you'll find yourself thinking up and asking on here over time, but laid out in front of you so you can get it all in one big tasty cake. It'll save you a lot of time tweaking and arguing.

He also talks about the more mathematical side, such as filter designs, time constants, LC circuits, RC circuits, standards for LPs, the benefits and cons of different tubes and layouts - common cathodes, followers, triodes, pentodes, cascades, how the tubes are built... you probably get the picture by now. He finishes the book with some examples of what he considers good designs for certain philosophies. He explains his choices fairly and doesn't make any efforts to cover up the faults others might find with them.

He is an audiophile, but practical and tends to like push/pulls that have silicon power supplies with tube stages. I am particularly fond of him for that fact that he mixes solid state with tubes, and so doesn't seem to be blindly devoted to either if there may be a better solution elsewhere.

I'm not much of a reader, but this was a cover to cover read.

I need such a book for solid state, so if anyone knows of such, shout it out.

[Richard Ellis]

I'll third that opinion.......My M.J. is well used now & I can can make sense of things now. It has been twenty?? years having learned SS....I think the author was Grob. He wrote very nicely, similar to MJ. Some textbooks can be very dry reading....some really can draw you into the subject......depends on the writing style.
___________________________________________Rick... ........

[JPeitzman]

Agreed with getting MJ's book. Read up and learn from/listen to all the good and knowledgeable talk around here. Ask lost of questions! If you plan on building with tubes too read up as much as you can on safety. Tubes are a whole different animal, understand you will be working with voltages that can kill. There are lots of different and easy projects to first get your feet wet. There is a lot of fun in designing your own amplifier from the ground up, I am in the process of doing so right now. Trust me though, there will be sleepless nights of banging your head against the wall .

Understand right from the start that there is lots of voodoo out there in the tube world. People are fanatically committed to one type of tubes, one type of circuit, unique parts, etc... There is an intense brand loyalty / tube loyalty. It really pays to listen to the experts and read up as much as you can, arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can, it will really pay off in the end.

Another place you could look is Bottlehead. They have a website with a forum devoted to their products. In my opinion, and many others, their kits offer some of the best sound out there at a price that makes them a steal. They are geared towards experimenters and first time builders. There are lots of upgrades and modifications both available to buy and as information on their forum. Best of all if you get stuck or have a question, besides the great Bottlehead community, the owners and designers are very nice and very eager to help. Once you go low powered single ended triodes + high efficiency speakers you may never ever go back to anything else, you have been warned .

Cheers

James

[ray_moth]

I agree with the foregoing posts.

In addition, at the risk of sounding boring, be extremely cautious of the high voltages used in tube equipment. You can get a nasty shock even when it's switched off, because of the charge held by capacitors.

As already advised to you, there are helpful Internet communities of serious practitioners, this forum being a good example. However, there are also people out there who just want to part you from your money. Don't fall for worthless gimmicks peddled by charlatons (exotic cables spring immediately to mind, but there are many others).

If you build anything, you will probably benefit from following the good advice contained in Morgan Jones's other book,
Building Valve Amplifiers.

[eeka chu]

Originally posted by JPeitzman

Understand right from the start that there is lots of voodoo out there in the tube world.

This was my biggest problem learning about audio design.

When you first start out, you'll be overwhelmed by the quantity of 'correct' and 'certain' answers people will give you about achieving perfection.

As much as I love this forum, I found it very hard at first to sift through it all. But it's like people who are good with google and getting to answers quickly on the net, you'll get used to finding similarly minded people by the way they write. Generally, as I've already hinted at, the people you'll want to listen to are those who can explain their reasons logically and appreciate the qualities of each option.

You'd do well to think about what you like in music. The different philosophies on design make up a substantial background to the advice you'll get. People who like classical music or jazz, generally don't like solid state, and vice versa. You need to decide to some extent if you like the warm lie of valves, or the colder precision of solid state.

Personally, even though I can't stand solid state guitar amplifiers, I'm a big fan of having clear audio. Listening to a lot of rock or electronic music with unnaturally power hungry sounds in it means I prefer the snappy and immediate impact of solid state for playback.

Morgan Jones, and the better designers on here, will often try to balance the two, to get warm without sag.

Guitar amplifiers are good examples of how amplifiers and their components can change the sound produce because they're usually played right up to their extremes of distortion or load, so the sound of the components becomes very easy to hear. A heavily clipping transistor sounds like harsh, tinny fuzz, where the heavily clipping valve sounds like double cream running down an eighteen year olds *** - if that has a sound. But similarly, a valve rectifiers high resistance in a guitar amp tends to limit the rush of power when you slam a chord making it sound muddy and fuzzy, where the solid state will pour it in quicker than it's used and give you a fast, responsive, bite and sawing growl to the distortion. Then there are more differences and preferances. For example, when the signal is clean and undistorted, solid state amp stages tend to be better for that prompt, sparkly clean sound.

So before you settle on a favourite, listen to all your music and think about what qualities of it you're after.

[m6tt]

find some old, crappy, worn out tube gear at a garage sale or elsewhere and learn how to fix it. That way you're not out tons of money if you mess something up, and you get to learn not just how tube circuits work, but how they go wrong and how to fix them

[aardvarkash10]

imho...

1 - The Book. Quoted above, no further comment needed.
2 - $40.00 tops. With this funding, you go and buy...
3 - Any dirty old console that takes your fancy. Better still, hiest one from the inorganic rubbish collection.
4 - A big rubbish bin. Put all the old bits of wood, paper and wax capacitors, tuning capacitors and other detrius in this. Keep only the tubes, transformers and if you are really excitable, the chassis.
5 - Digikey's address. Or any of the excellent specialist tube suppliers addresses. Or, if you live in a place big enough, your local surplus electronics guys address.
6 - Coffee, cigarettes and NO-DOZ tablets. Toobs are not the only addiction you need to feed.
7 - A decently lit, quiet space where the kids, cat and 'er indoors can't disturb you, or see the smoke.
8 - a soldering iron, a DMM (or two) and balls of steel. This is serious voltages we are talking here madam...
9 - Tenacity - it will not go well the first time.
10 - Lots of space (a requirement over time) - you will be filling the space with components that may be useful later, half-built amps, speakers and other distractions, machinery and tooling you absolutely need for the next project, and the one or two actual working examples tha the rest of the family will not allow in the house because they are either ugly or critically dangerous.

Enjoy!

[limono]

Forget all what was said here ,buy a kit , solder it together sit down and enjoy (more or less) It'll save you tons of time, money and space (to keep the usually useless junk you think you may need in the future). That is if you really into music and not monking around with cables -if you are into tweekery follow all above. Good luck and regards