Tube amp on a budget

[Sal Brisindi]

Let me introduce myself, my name is Sal and I have an interest in electronics ever since I was a lad. I love to build anything electronics, built many 6 digit clocks (first one in 1975, still telling time in my sons room) including clocks using nixie tubes and numitron tubes. You can see photos on my website.

I am very interested in "antique" tube radios and have approximately 200 of them including 10 consoles, 9 or 10 tube communication receivers and 2 tv's from the 1947 and 1 from 1954. I am also the treasurer of the New Jersey Antique Radio Club (NJARC.org)

I had tube amps many years ago but unfortunately lent 2 of them to a friend probably over 27 years ago and never got them back because I never asked. They are long gone in the trash.

I have a pretty good stock of parts to repair tube radios including 3000 or so tubes. I also have a good amount of test equipment from signal generators, signal tracers, audio generators, tube testers, meters and oscilloscopes including a Tektronix 2465.

Why am I saying all this. Well, I wanted to get back into tube audio and gathered most of the parts to build a 6L6 based integrated stereo amp. I decided to put that aside and build a budget amp to experiment with. The results is my 35HB8 stereo tube amp using 2 35HB8 and 1 50DC4 tube, line operated so it should be used with an isolation transformer . Its real compact, pretty loud for a 1 watt per channel amp. Its lacking bass as I used a 70 volt line pa system audio transformer but it was fun to build. It is so small it fits in your hand, only 6" wide. I do have 2 audio transformers I bought from triode electronics I should swap them out with. Below is a photo of it.

I then decided to build a 6V6 tube amp before I build the 6L6 amp. The 6V6 and 6L6 will have bass and treble controls. I will post photos of them at a later date.

Regards,
Sal Brisindi