First design for a tube noob

[lacrossebowe8]

I have built a few headphone amps and dac's (all solid state) and I would like to build a tube speaker amp, preferably with a headphone out, for grado and senn headphones. I have looked at the boozhound labs 6v6 amp on the tube how to page and this looks good so I was wondering what other options there are.

Budget: 300 or so

Power output does not have to be high

Build can be complex as I am pretty comfortable with schematics etc.

I would not be opposed to a kit, but would prefer to build it myself.

Also, I would eventually like to design my own tube amp and am wondering if anyone knows some good sources for knowledge on this.

[Yvesm]

http://www.dissident-audio.com/PP_ECL86/DA36.pdf

€215
$???

Yves.

[Eli Duttman]

Originally posted by lacrossebowe8
I have built a few headphone amps and dac's (all solid state) and I would like to build a tube speaker amp, preferably with a headphone out, for grado and senn headphones. I have looked at the boozhound labs 6v6 amp on the tube how to page and this looks good so I was wondering what other options there are.

Budget: 300 or so

Power output does not have to be high

Build can be complex as I am pretty comfortable with schematics etc.

I would not be opposed to a kit, but would prefer to build it myself.

Also, I would eventually like to design my own tube amp and am wondering if anyone knows some good sources for knowledge on this.

The writings of Morgan Jones will get your reference library started well. Google NEETS, which is US Navy training materials. Plenty of fundamental tube theory there.

An "El Cheapo" built with Edcor O/P trafos will definitely come in under $300. A build with DynaClone Z565s might be a small bit over budget. The lengthy saga of "El Cheapo" is here.

The headphone O/P is slightly tricky. Grado "cans" have a 32 Ohm impedance. You could wire a switching 3 conductor phone jack to present the Grado 'phones in parallel with 11 Ohm resistors to the 8 Ohm speaker taps. Mills MRA-12s look suitable for the job.

[rdf]

Grados are so insanely efficient a 6+2 or 7+1 ohm resistive divider would work as well for all but the 'turn it to 11 crue'. As a side benefit the cans see a constant ~1 ohm source impedance from DC past FM and amp gets a nice resistive load. The builder also has the option of tuning total resistance and tap for the best combination of low amp distortion and sufficient headphone drive.