Lighthearted things always seem even nicer after interspersing them with different things.
However, I don't think I may be described as a serial hoarder and I also have an anti-collecting spirit, but for many years now I've no longer been able to separate myself from anything that has to do with Audio, whether I built it myself or have bought, so I completely understand and share the OP's apparent discomfort.
However, I don't think I may be described as a serial hoarder and I also have an anti-collecting spirit, but for many years now I've no longer been able to separate myself from anything that has to do with Audio, whether I built it myself or have bought, so I completely understand and share the OP's apparent discomfort.
Many guitarists and other musicians also have GAS. What the OP is doing is great and wonderful, but this sort of "disease" thread seems too big to be limited to Tubes or Amplifiers. For me I've got some of everything, but it's just now occurring to me, do I really need a dozen turntables? I've yet to build one, nor a record cleaning machine, but both are on my bucket list.
How about calling it The Collections Thread?
How about calling it The Collections Thread?
GAS often comes with a second disease:
The inability to decide which tube amp, photo lens, speaker, etc. is the best one you have.
A third disease is when your brain tells you the tube amp, photo lens, speaker, etc. that you are considering purchasing, is obviously better than any of those you already do have.
Instead, more can be gained by listening and enjoying what you do have.
And, the worst photo you 'took" is when you never picked up your camera and actually took the shot.
The inability to decide which tube amp, photo lens, speaker, etc. is the best one you have.
A third disease is when your brain tells you the tube amp, photo lens, speaker, etc. that you are considering purchasing, is obviously better than any of those you already do have.
Instead, more can be gained by listening and enjoying what you do have.
And, the worst photo you 'took" is when you never picked up your camera and actually took the shot.
Oh man, not there yet, but...
I went from talking-down on tubes to having boxes full of components and tubes both, a notebook full of schematics and, well... notes, and several plan's to pursue with more parts on the way... In like a week.
Just took hearing literally one of the crappiest, most poorly designed tube preamps money can be wasted on and casting aside previous bias for a single second.
A funny side note. I had to replace my washer many months ago because it died in a very smokey, burnt circuit smell kind of way. It's been in the garage, and I've been able to apply what i've learned about circuit design/theory messing with tube audio elsewhere in my life with results. I sold the washer that died as a working washer Friday. And turned it into a box of tubes and vintage caps (polyester greenies and brown dots). Got an oscilloscope to learn how to use now too.
For me, it's mostly about building stuff. I've been doing it since I was a toddler. RC planes, customized bicycles, musical instruments (including an electric violin), guitar FX boxes, a CNC router, an Arduino based transformer winding machine and an endless row of amps and speakers.
Late 2023 I had some mishaps with an expensive, ambitious tube amp project so I put it aside and spent several weeks making multicell horns out of leftover masonite, using only a bandsaw and some hand tools. Already having two large horn systems in a small house I didn't need more horns but I needed something to do during the winter while saving up money for some better iron the ongoing tube amp project. Now I'll soon have three horn systems in my little house... Well, at least I have enough amps for all of them
Late 2023 I had some mishaps with an expensive, ambitious tube amp project so I put it aside and spent several weeks making multicell horns out of leftover masonite, using only a bandsaw and some hand tools. Already having two large horn systems in a small house I didn't need more horns but I needed something to do during the winter while saving up money for some better iron the ongoing tube amp project. Now I'll soon have three horn systems in my little house... Well, at least I have enough amps for all of them
A unhappy wife wants to be made happy—one way or another, and probably in a different thread.
I'd be confronted with signed divorce-papers too, were I to show my (smallish) collection of audio-gear and records I amassed in 3 years... So my workshop was declared no-go. (She also has her GAS, but that's everything textile and paper, and pens/pencils)
I'd be confronted with signed divorce-papers too, were I to show my (smallish) collection of audio-gear and records I amassed in 3 years... So my workshop was declared no-go. (She also has her GAS, but that's everything textile and paper, and pens/pencils)
Tell me more about that winding machine.
-Blev du inspirerad av Curious Scientist sin sajt, eller är det din egen design?
As far as building stuff and tinkering goes woodworking has always been my "nerd out" passion. I have a small row of guitars behind me, mostly parts built, but a couple i made by hand entirely. Electronics have always been an interest. I've tinkered a bit with little boards and circuitry, all low voltage stuff always following guides and schematics and not ever really throwing any brain power into the theory or design side of it. I've spent years playing the guitar tech, and live sound tech RPG locally. I've ALWAYS wanted to play with amplifiers on a design over use case basis, and actually had almost everything together to build a fender champ in my cabling class in high school, but my advisor decided the tube stuff was too dangerous, and convinced me the same on a personal level. And solid state amps are, well.... boring so to speak, so the interest there waned for many years.
I hadn't batted an eyebrow at tubes for anything but guitar amps since, and some time in the last 10 years i became convinced my modelers sounded better with my guitar and i dont even have any tube guitar amps at all anymore. And i've always had a shpiel about how it's not even possible for a tube to sound better in a hifi amp. I had numbers on a paper/screen telling me so right in front of me and they seemed pretty conclusive and inarguable.
But, then i heard Bascom King raving about tubes as an input section or line stage.
And then that thing i mentioned about hearing a crappy class A tube pre in my system happened.
I got about 20 years of lost time to make up for now, and im quite thankful for this community letting a dolt like me try to find their sea legs.
the most satisfying thing i've done with my preamp design so far, was change the negative feedback caps from polyester, to same value NoS polystyrene. It sounds a LOT better to my ears and a couple friends too, and it sounds like it did before when i change it back. As it should. But run into my interface and into my audio analyzer suite... It tests exactly the same. Response curve, impedance exactly the same, and distortion is roughly the same, if not ever so slightly higher.
There's definitely a lesson and useful metaphor in that, and Something about myself is very satisfied by this.
I hadn't batted an eyebrow at tubes for anything but guitar amps since, and some time in the last 10 years i became convinced my modelers sounded better with my guitar and i dont even have any tube guitar amps at all anymore. And i've always had a shpiel about how it's not even possible for a tube to sound better in a hifi amp. I had numbers on a paper/screen telling me so right in front of me and they seemed pretty conclusive and inarguable.
But, then i heard Bascom King raving about tubes as an input section or line stage.
And then that thing i mentioned about hearing a crappy class A tube pre in my system happened.
I got about 20 years of lost time to make up for now, and im quite thankful for this community letting a dolt like me try to find their sea legs.
@Freedom666
the most satisfying thing i've done with my preamp design so far, was change the negative feedback caps from polyester, to same value NoS polystyrene. It sounds a LOT better to my ears and a couple friends too, and it sounds like it did before when i change it back. As it should. But run into my interface and into my audio analyzer suite... It tests exactly the same. Response curve, impedance exactly the same, and distortion is roughly the same, if not ever so slightly higher.
There's definitely a lesson and useful metaphor in that, and Something about myself is very satisfied by this.
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I'll see if I can find some pictures, it's in storage now.
The design is my own, built mostly from parts from an old wire electrical discharge machine. Hideously ugly and still unfinished after ten years or so, but it works. The code was written by a friend of mine in one afternoon.
I've wound a small number of transformers for guitar amps . . . by hand,-no machine. -Never again!
I'd like to make a winding machine. Step motors and arduino etc. should do the trick.
Curious Scientist has a site where he makes a whole pile of stuff, amongst others a coil winding machine.
His winder is way to small but could easily be upgraded to something suited for larger transformers, and materials in small quantities plus calculators for mains and output transformer can be had at delatsch.com.