Hi, i'm new here.
For a few years now i am preparing to learn to repare and build stuff. I just completed the bench with good old gear i think.
Past year i bought a huge DIY tube amp. Hard wired and build by a musician. Because of money issues i could buy a pair of decent speakers a year later. I also managed to buy wit the money left from my holiday money, a restored Lafayette 214 tube amplifier. I managed to buy a Audiolab MDac+ when i had a luck past year.
Now, this is all together a toxic good combination. I use the Audiolab dac now as pre-amp and dac, Then comes a cheap €20 Aliexpress pre amp/buffer. After that the signal goes to the Lafayette amplifier. From that, via the headphone socket, it goes to the big amp. After reading this horror, am i doing anything wrong and are there any issues with my thinking? ( if the signal does not get stronger then any pre amp signal, it can't hurt my power amp ).
My question is, how to build a decent pre amp? I have 3 of the same reel to reel players with tubes. They were quiet expensive when new. Can i take the parts of 2 of them to build a good pre-amp? Or any other ideas? I have lots and lots of tubes, new and old. Other parts are also available for building a no spending amp. I all just collected it and now it's the time to learning....
Thanks, Leon
For a few years now i am preparing to learn to repare and build stuff. I just completed the bench with good old gear i think.
Past year i bought a huge DIY tube amp. Hard wired and build by a musician. Because of money issues i could buy a pair of decent speakers a year later. I also managed to buy wit the money left from my holiday money, a restored Lafayette 214 tube amplifier. I managed to buy a Audiolab MDac+ when i had a luck past year.
Now, this is all together a toxic good combination. I use the Audiolab dac now as pre-amp and dac, Then comes a cheap €20 Aliexpress pre amp/buffer. After that the signal goes to the Lafayette amplifier. From that, via the headphone socket, it goes to the big amp. After reading this horror, am i doing anything wrong and are there any issues with my thinking? ( if the signal does not get stronger then any pre amp signal, it can't hurt my power amp ).
My question is, how to build a decent pre amp? I have 3 of the same reel to reel players with tubes. They were quiet expensive when new. Can i take the parts of 2 of them to build a good pre-amp? Or any other ideas? I have lots and lots of tubes, new and old. Other parts are also available for building a no spending amp. I all just collected it and now it's the time to learning....
Thanks, Leon
It's quite possible that you only need the DAC and one of the power amps (the one that drives your speakers the best).
There's no reason to feed the output of one power amp into another power amp. That only increases noise and distortion,
and will have way too much gain. I realize musicians do that, but this is for a high fidelity reproduction system.
You only need just enough gain in the system to drive to power amp to full output with the "weakest" source that you use.
But you can still build more stuff anyway, for example I have several systems in various rooms of the house.
There's no reason to feed the output of one power amp into another power amp. That only increases noise and distortion,
and will have way too much gain. I realize musicians do that, but this is for a high fidelity reproduction system.
You only need just enough gain in the system to drive to power amp to full output with the "weakest" source that you use.
But you can still build more stuff anyway, for example I have several systems in various rooms of the house.