Hello, my name is Chris. I live in Kerrville, Texas. I'm a complete newb amateur, determined to learn the art and science of designing and building a tube hybrid headphone amplifier by doing it. I am using AI to teach me what I need to know: how to read and understand and create schematics using kicad, how to read and understand datasheets, how to make sure the parts we are wanting to use will work together, how to use kicad to create a schematic, assign footprints, and design a pcb. I'll save technical questions for the specific thread I intend to create to document my progress with this project.
I am coming here mostly for community, to talk about my design with people who are interested in such things.
Let me try to address some concerns up front:
Thanks for reading! I look forward to engaging with this community, and working on my project, and learning-- really learning-- everything I need to know to end up with the amp I want.
I am coming here mostly for community, to talk about my design with people who are interested in such things.
Let me try to address some concerns up front:
Yes, probably. However, I have looked all over the internet for a tube hybrid amplifier that will supply at least 1W per channel into 32 Ohm headphones, and also at least 300mW into 300 Ohm headphones. An OTL design just won't work for me. Also, I prefer to use only tubes and mosfets, no opamps. I'm going for a very old-school sound. I don't see any point in wasting my time and money building an amp that I won't want to use. I just want this one, specific amp. If I tried to buy something like this already made, it would cost thousands of dollars. I hope to build this amp for less than $500, not including tools and test equipment.
No, I won't. I'm going to build it such that the PS connects to the pcb through screw terminals. I will not connect the PS. I'll build and test it as best I can without ever plugging it into the wall. Then, I will take it to my local electrician / electronics repair shop, show them the schematics, and let them test it if they feel safe doing so.
I will listen to people encouraging me to do things differently, if their suggestions are clearly going to get me where I want to go better than what I had planned. I just don't want blanket discouragement, which is what I had encountered on another website, which just removed my posts. I don't mean to disrespect or devalue anyone's expertise or advice. I just want to be sure that your advice will get me closer to my goal of owning a tube-mosfet stereo amplifier that can give a lot of power to both high and low impedance headphones.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to engaging with this community, and working on my project, and learning-- really learning-- everything I need to know to end up with the amp I want.
It's getting smarter every day. I just hope to have this project completed before AI is at the stage where all I'd need to do is tell it what kind of amp I want, and it sends all the instructions to the robots, and I have it delivered to my door in a week or two. But AI does hallucinate (far less than it used to, but I have grown acutely aware of its limitations, just trying to get it to understand datasheets), so I made an account here to try to enlist the help of human experts.