A tube-preamp with DSP-DAC-Touchscreen-and Music Streaming...

[rha1211]

I'm part of a group of people who like to build crazy and cool things. We were talking about a new project the other day and had a tuff time coming up with something. I've been looking at tube amps for a while now, so I suggested we do something with this. Everybody liked the idea but, there was one problem.....It had to be a little different and crazy.

So why not bring it more up to date with touchscreen, active DSP, and music streaming?

That brings us to where we are now.......If anybody would like to give input that would be awesome. My strengths are in other areas......

We are thinking about incorporating an Ipad 2. We already have a high end DSP we can use. We may change it so everybody has access to it.....Something like the MiniDSP. We will most likely use a Sonos music streamer for streaming music. We are also currently looking for a high-end DAC design. Everything is open to change depending on the input we get......

Anyways let me know what you think......I'll be putting up some renders of Ideas we have shortly to get everybody's creative juices floating.......

Cheers,
Ian

[rha1211]

This is the first idea we had. It has a olive player look to it. Anyways let me know......

Cheers,
Ian

[rha1211]

This is the second idea we had....a little more traditional......

[RevMen]

Instead of an amplifier, it would probably make more sense if you integrated a tube pre-amp. Power tubes get hot, and for most designs tube amps require at least 3 sizeable transformers, so integrating one with a touchscreen and digital front end would require a lot of real estate.

edit: oops, just noticed you said pre-amp, not amp. Carry on.

[rha1211]

Thanks for the reply revmen.....We thought the same thing so we decided to do a pre-amp with some monoblocks. I'll do a flow chart breaking everything up so it is easier to visualize.

Here is another idea....with a olive twist again.......you could hang this one on the wall.......

Cheers,
Ian