• 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.

Plate to plate hum

LS.

IMG_0297.JPG


I’ve been happily building this and it sounds great, but it has a little bit of hum and I can’t get rid of it, it must be something I don’t know/understand yet.

The basic idea is a self-splitting output stage with plate to plate feedback from the driver.

At first I just directly grounded the grid of the bottom 6550, only resistor the gridstopper. Hummed. Added the 220K ground leak. Same result.
Added the feedback resistor and cap as in the schematic. Still hum.
Spent lots of time looking for ground loops, no result.

Key thing is: the amp is dead quiet with the feedback resistor disconnected.

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance.
 
Must be coupling back the supply ripple present at the 6550 plate.
Try a regulated lab supply for the B+ voltage and see if the hum is gone
with the feedback.

How much ripple is present at the OT primary CT?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Miniwatt
I don't think it does, the bottom part of the output stage is essentially a very expensive resistor as far as I can tell. Without the cathode decoupling in the output stage, it would be a (sort of) long-tailed pair.
That was the reason for my question, I can't understand how it works, and at the moment don't have good Internet access to check. I'm familiar with LTP-style output stages, or using the screen signal of one tube to feed the second one, also auto transformers as phase splitter, but can't make this circuit work as a phase sitter in my head.
 
Last edited:
Theoretically speaking for best splitting performance the cathode resistor should be as large as possible, in practice that would be met with a CCS, say a self-biased FET.
The idea is that the shared cathode current is fixed so when one tube is sucking up some amount of current, the other tube gets starved with the exact same amount, hence the signal becomes split.
Those two 10 Ohm cathode resistors are not really needed here, or could be decreased.
Make sure at least the input tube have a clean voltage supply.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Miniwatt
Time for a quick update, very busy this afternoon.
First: the ripple on the B+ is 4V p-p.
Second: the bottom tube does do something, the (practically) identical amplitude of the top tube in opposite phase of course.
The feedback on the bottom tube is baaaad for balance, it alsmost halves the amplitude on the bottom tube. Out with that.

Thanks for the input everyone, I'll try some of your suggestions next.