• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

bypass switch for preamp

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Once my Aikido comes together, it'll sit between inputs from TV, radio, DVD, video, and CD-player and my SS power amp.

Now, it could be that tube life is likely to be so long that it isn't an issue to run all of the above through the Aikido. However, if tube life is relatively finite, then I would like to be able to simply switch some inputs (such as radio, TV, and video) to bypass the preamp.

So, how could I wire a bypass switch for ALL inputs? Now the other difficulty is that the Aikido will use a 100K pot, while my AKSA power-amp prefers 47K input impedance. So the bypass switch would also need to switch inputs to my Alps pot.

Also, would I need to switch the signal GNDS also? Or would this not matter? At present, I have a single GND bus and do not get any cross-talk. Maybe a push-on-push-off button would work well for a bypass.

Any ideas????

Charlie
 
If you run small-signal tubes conservatively, they'll last a very, very, very long time. Take the money that you'd invest in the bypass switch (it will not be cheap if you want a high quality one) and grab some spare tubes. Keep them in your refrigerator for the day, many years from now, that you will need them.
 
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