Interested in Valves
- By Owen71081
- Tubes / Valves
- 11 Replies
Hi,
So I am interested in having a hi-fi valve amp, but don't know that much particularly about the subject, I do have a couple of guitar valve amps and definitely appreciate the difference in the warmth of the sound they put out.
From what I can see hi-fi valve amps are very expensive. I am not opposed to a kit if it was significantly cheaper, I have built guitar effects pedals in the past so have some electronics construction abilities. I have never touched surface mount though, only through hole components, and cannot design circuits, just copy diagrams.
I've noticed some hybrid amps available that describe the valves being used as input buffers, what does this actually mean? I assume it's not that the preamp stage is valve like with many hybrid guitar amps? Would an amp with valve input buffers and the rest solid state still have a much warmer sound than an all solid state device?
Can anyone suggest any reasonably priced but good sounding amps/kits? I've seen some Chinese made valve amps that are very competitively priced, are these good amps or to be avoided, or are there any brands, models that are particularly good?
Anyway thanks in anticipation of any help that anyone can give me.
Cheers
Owen
So I am interested in having a hi-fi valve amp, but don't know that much particularly about the subject, I do have a couple of guitar valve amps and definitely appreciate the difference in the warmth of the sound they put out.
From what I can see hi-fi valve amps are very expensive. I am not opposed to a kit if it was significantly cheaper, I have built guitar effects pedals in the past so have some electronics construction abilities. I have never touched surface mount though, only through hole components, and cannot design circuits, just copy diagrams.
I've noticed some hybrid amps available that describe the valves being used as input buffers, what does this actually mean? I assume it's not that the preamp stage is valve like with many hybrid guitar amps? Would an amp with valve input buffers and the rest solid state still have a much warmer sound than an all solid state device?
Can anyone suggest any reasonably priced but good sounding amps/kits? I've seen some Chinese made valve amps that are very competitively priced, are these good amps or to be avoided, or are there any brands, models that are particularly good?
Anyway thanks in anticipation of any help that anyone can give me.
Cheers
Owen