Hey spiggs, you're actually even cooler that that: you're a tube amp builder! 😎 There was a lot of decision making and troubleshooting involved, and you stuck it out. That's even more impressive considering the "extras" you incorporated as those things usually wind up complicating matters (at least initially).
Congratulations on an excellent build!
Congratulations on an excellent build!
Thanks Mr_Zenith, I really appreciate that. I do think it is pretty cool! Here are a couple more photos of the amp all setup and playing music.
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Congratulations for the nice mechanics around the amp!
As for transformer noise : I'm rebuilding an engineer amp with a toroid as power transformer, because the original PT was too hot. This temperature problem is gone, but the PT makes noise when wife uses her hair dryer, probably the serial diode to half-heat it causing DC on the main line.
As for transformer noise : I'm rebuilding an engineer amp with a toroid as power transformer, because the original PT was too hot. This temperature problem is gone, but the PT makes noise when wife uses her hair dryer, probably the serial diode to half-heat it causing DC on the main line.
Thanks
I have a couple of DC blockers now to try and see if they make a difference. However right now with the amp plugged into the power strip with the rest of my audio gear the toroidal has been silent. Of course the weather has been more moderate around here so A/C use and other electrical demands are down.
Well trouble in paradise. Listening to some music this morning then all of a sudden volume goes way up in the right channel accompanied by a buzz, no volume in left channel. Volume pot on amp has little effect but software volume for the streamer works. Will need to investigate later. No smells or smoke so I am hoping it's just some screw up I did with the input wiring.
All good again. Ended up being an issue with the sub-out. Gave me the opportunity to take the lid off and see if anything is looking odd. Good news everything looks perfect. Back to tunes.
Built a prototype headphone adapter for my SSE. The big resistors are 8 Ohm, the small are 120 Ohm. Sounded great through my 32 Ohm Mezze Classic headphones but I did hear a very slight buzz at times. Still have way more volume than I need so I might try putting in another 120 Ohm in series and see what happens.
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Gave it a try with another 120 Ohm resistor in series. Happy with the sound. Still plenty of volume and I can't hear any background hum or buzz. So with my headphones 240 Ohm total works. Now to figure out the best way to switch outputs between speakers and headphones.
I have had an odd intermitent problem with my SSE. Every once in a while the right channel increases in volume and the left channel goes silent. If I stop the music I hear a buzz in the right channel. The volume pot has no effect on the volume when this happens. If I turn everything off then back on everything works as it should again. This happens infrequently. Any ideas what could be causing this?
Try it again after removing the volume pot altogether and see if the problem persists.
Nice build. You may want to do another build with the CSS mounted underneath so that you can put the sockets nearer the chassis and thus see all the tubes.
Nice build. You may want to do another build with the CSS mounted underneath so that you can put the sockets nearer the chassis and thus see all the tubes.