• 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.

My first preamp: power supply and PCB design

Hi all!
I just wanted to run my design for my preamp past you before I commit and send of for final components and PCB's :)
make sure everything is safe and works as intended, here is the schematic of the power supply:
pwr-tube-1.png
And the preamp:
tube-pre-1.png

6n2p-1.png

6n2p-2.png

I will add another board for input/output switching and a relay delay on the output.
The low output impedance is needed for my usecase as I'm driving a MOSFET source follower to the speakers and will be experimenting with different output stages in the future.
I am a little concerned about gain-matching the L R channels, and have considered a bypass capacitor and trimmer pot in series with R10 in order to address this.
What do you guys think? any input is much appreciated.
 
See you are thinking of using the Russian equivalent of the ecc83, which is a high gain tube. When the volume control is at 9 o'clock, is the power amplifier at maximum power? Better with a srpp with ecc82, or a preamp with a 12B4A tube? I build the SRPP preamp with ecc82 found in diyaudioprojects. It was a great preamp
 
Can you link the preamp from diyaudioprojects? I know there's a fair few on there. And yeah I went with the 6N2P as I got a few much cheaper than the ecc83 (or 12AX7) 7 of them for 21USD! (y)

There seems to be a fair bit more gain with the boostrap. 38.5db vs 33db.
Even so 33db should be well enough, the output stage can do 30Vp-p being single ended class A with no voltage gain (follower). It will be clipping at an input of about 700mv.

I think I'm going to go with SRPP with switchable feedback, something like:
tube-pre-t3.png

Is there a need for input protection on a feedback design like this? to ether protect the tube or especially the device driving the input (DAC)?
Would this be better than the bootstrap?
 
When I build both preamps and power amplifiers, I often use a volume control for each channel, i.e. two knobs, and it becomes easier to get the same signal out then, if the two tubes are not completely matched. Look at "old" Croft preamps. One tube per channel, if you think SRPP. If you're new to tube amps, I'd build something simpler first, like the SRPP preamp mentioned earlier. A very simple power supply, perhaps a choke in the high voltage, and perhaps a 7812 voltage regulator for heaters.
 
Hello Mr_Zener:
When designing an amp.

A couple of rhetorical questions to consider.

Do you know the voltage swing you are trying to achieve for the next stage in your amplifier.

Do you know the input voltage from your source. You have set the Q point for this stage to -2V does that meet or slightly exceed your source voltage.

If you have these simple questions sorted out you should be good to go. Go forth and build!

If not time to read some more on amp design to understand what is going on. Lots of info out there.

Good luck
 
Yes, the input signal will not exceed 2Vp-p and I will set the gain at about 23.6dB for 30Vp-p output. Though I would like this switchable to a more normal lower line level using a simple onboard switch.
I have more faith now that Rod Elliott's page has reported very good results with the bootstrap circuit, I have a noob question though, if I use 1/2 of the dual triode for left channel and the other half for right channel, will there be any problem with cross-talk, especially given this high gain setting?
 
If you don't have much experience building tube amps, build something that others have built before. Don't reinvent the wheel. As mentioned before, the 6n2p tube has high amplification, and is actually mostly suitable for phono amplifiers and input tubes for power amplifiers
 
stenak: I don't really see that its a complex amp, and I do have solid state circuit experience, perhaps I could breadboard out a JFET equivalent.
Anyway seems like I'm going for something very close to the circuit in my #2 post, if I felt the need to simplify, I could simply leave out the bootstrap capacitor and feedback resistor from the board.
I will be running my PCB design past folks before the build for any errors and checks
 
In the 12V regulator circuit, enough voltage is needed for the 14V zener to stabilize as a reference. Without load, the voltage may increase a bit, but when connected to the load, it will be close to 12. So check it. Meanwhile, this The circuit is more suitable for the headphone drive.There are such circuits for headphones on the Internet/
pre power.png
 
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