• 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.

Making my first hifi tube amp.

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Hi.

I wanna try making a hifi monoblock tube amp. I have two 807 tubes and one ecc83s tube, 5 powersupply transformers with a 220v primary and two secondary outputs, a 250v(20 mA) and a 6.3v(0.6 mA). I dont have an audio transformer, but will have it made when i know what i need.
I have been looking everywhere for a schematic, but no luck. Then i found this site and thought, these guys can help me for sure. 😀 I'm thinking class AB1, because i need the power, and as far as i've read a Class A wont give me that much power.???

Hope someone can help.!!??? 😎
 
Hi.

I wanna try making a hifi monoblock tube amp. I have two 807 tubes and one ecc83s tube, 5 powersupply transformers with a 220v primary and two secondary outputs, a 250v(20 mA) and a 6.3v(0.6 mA). I dont have an audio transformer, but will have it made when i know what i need.
I have been looking everywhere for a schematic, but no luck. Then i found this site and thought, these guys can help me for sure. 😀 I'm thinking class AB1, because i need the power, and as far as i've read a Class A wont give me that much power.???

Hope someone can help.!!??? 😎

You need to study some basic electronics formulas first. Your 20ma secondary won't power anything.

You need to understand the relationship between voltage and amperage and wattage before you spend any money on other amp parts.
 
Ok i see.. But what would do you recommend for main power then?

If you have no basic electronics knowledge then your best course is to build a kit. Don't bother trying to build something from scratch. You can't take all the "advice" you will get from many people here and build something you'll understand. Get your feet wet with a small proven design. You will learn much by just looking for a kit, long before you actually buy it and build it. Go slow for now.
 
Yup, I'm a EE/network eng by trade, and the first thing I was told to do, and that I did, was go and build a nice kit, (I built 2 or 3) and start learning tube electronics! As they are quite different from "modern" electronics.


I built a few pre-amps and 1 amp kit, try flea-bay for a good PCB based kit, then later you can move to turret boards, point-to-point wiring, and much more!
 
The very best thing to do is buy a copy of "Designing valve amplifiers" by Morgan Jones.
This will walk you through 75% of the questions you have.
Next Download PSUD2 from Duncan amps. Great sanity check for power supply designs.
Also download the Tube data finder from Duncan Amps. This will allow you to find the data sheets for the tubes you have.

Good luck.

Doug
 

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Yea, I agree with everyone here. To build your first tube, go with a small low voltage headphone amp, to get the basics down (soldering and schematic study). Thats what I'm doing. I have a degree in electronics engineering from ITT Tech and tubes intimidate me a little since I know so little about them. But I do know enough that things can get ugly with high voltage. Use great quality parts and solder well and you will be happy.
 
Ok i see.. But what would do you recommend for main power then?

You got it backwards. Transformers are by far the most expensive part of a tube amp. The tubes come it third after the chassis. So you don't ask "I have these tubes, what can I build?" No ask "I have this transformaer what can it power. A few ideas...

1) A headphone amp. While ECC83 tube is not perfect it can be made to work with feedback around each triode section

2) a 40ma transformer and one ecc83 would make a great overdrive/distortion effects box for a guitar amp. I just built one and it's the best use of those components and a good first project. A good excuse to learn to play guitar.

3) A line level buffer/preamp

Now, if you want to use those power tubes you are going to have to buy about $200 worth of transformer plus another $100 for a chassis and small components. Your tubes are worth about 1/10th that amount
 
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