I bought its larger brother, the Rogers HG88 MK III integrated valve amplifier, in 1969 and it is still in use in my man cave today.
I recently refreshed its electrolytic capacitors and solid state rectifiers and, although still running on its original Brimar ECC807 and Mullard ECL86 valves, it sounds better than new.
Like you, my inspiration to start dabbling in audio stretches back as far as a crystal set that my father helped me to build - a genuine 'cat's whisker' job with galena crystal.
@Galu They have real style, don't they? I think I may have problems with the preamp valves being no longer made - hopefully I kept them somewhere safe!! (but not so safe they can't be found).
I too remember the cats whisker tuning - that never worked so was replaced with something more modern. If I remember rightly the Ladybird book suggested that you use brass screws and cups into a piece of wood (a little like tag board) - so you could do a layout almost identical to the circuit diagram. As an aid to understanding circuits it was brilliant. A friend of my Dads was a recording engineer for Decca and he did his best to brain-dump as much as possible into me for two or three years - if I remember rightly he moved me off the Ladybird construction method and into tag boards and soldering pretty quickly - loved valves, hated transistors and regarded 'Integrated Circuits' as the Devil's spawn!
I too remember the cats whisker tuning - that never worked so was replaced with something more modern. If I remember rightly the Ladybird book suggested that you use brass screws and cups into a piece of wood (a little like tag board) - so you could do a layout almost identical to the circuit diagram. As an aid to understanding circuits it was brilliant. A friend of my Dads was a recording engineer for Decca and he did his best to brain-dump as much as possible into me for two or three years - if I remember rightly he moved me off the Ladybird construction method and into tag boards and soldering pretty quickly - loved valves, hated transistors and regarded 'Integrated Circuits' as the Devil's spawn!
I saw the Rogers HG 88 MK III in the Design Centre London, proudly wearing the Design Centre label, and just had to buy one on my return to Scotland.
The stying was very modernistic for a late 1960s valve amplifier, and it still stands up to scrutiny today.
The ECC807 preamp valves represented the pinnacle of preamp valve design at the time, but soon after their introduction everybody turned to transistors.
Hence, the ECC807s were not in production for long and are consequently as rare as hen's teeth. However, the fact that my four have lasted 54 years is testament to how reliable they are.
This'll tickle your fancy:
The DIY supplements in Hifi World magazine. First was splitting the crossover to bi-wire and upgrade the components in a pair of Mission 760 speakers and then modding a QED Digit Dac to take to two Positron supplies to feed both the analogue and digital sides.
Reading about the Sonic Impact Tripath based TA2024 amp and managing to get hold of one and doing the suggested mods then reading Decibel Dungeon and making Gainclones point to point and then discovering all the different iterations Class D boards for very little money.
Oh.....and many hours messing about with anything audio related.
Reading about the Sonic Impact Tripath based TA2024 amp and managing to get hold of one and doing the suggested mods then reading Decibel Dungeon and making Gainclones point to point and then discovering all the different iterations Class D boards for very little money.
Oh.....and many hours messing about with anything audio related.
School project in practical electronics subject in 1992 (31 yrs. ago diy bug bit me). I made 50 watts car stereo booster (don't remember whether it's LM3886 or something). It was published in Alexan's Electronics Enthusiast magazine (local). Sold it to my uncle where he put it in his jeepney. kicks butt.
A lot of fun stories in this thread!
I was about 40 when I started to develop a casual interest in hobby electronics. I was inspired by a lot of the stuff that used to be on Headwize. The first project was a portable 9V-powered headphone amp built mostly from Radio Shack parts: TL082 driving a simple discrete class-AB buffer. It was to use with our laptop that we wanted to bring on travel for watching DVDs; the phone jack was severely current-limited.
Since then I have been a very casual hobbyist (1 simple small project every couple of years) until recently. As a new empty-nester I am amazed at how much more time I have for things like hobbies! Most of my listening is with headphones so all of my audio projects have been in that domain.
Now I wish I had learned more electronics in school. I earned degrees in EE, but as a young man I had no real interest in electronics so took as few courses in it as possible. I did EE because I was interested in pure and applied electrodynamics - antennas, propagation, plasmas, microwaves, optics, etc.
Cheers!
jason
I was about 40 when I started to develop a casual interest in hobby electronics. I was inspired by a lot of the stuff that used to be on Headwize. The first project was a portable 9V-powered headphone amp built mostly from Radio Shack parts: TL082 driving a simple discrete class-AB buffer. It was to use with our laptop that we wanted to bring on travel for watching DVDs; the phone jack was severely current-limited.
Since then I have been a very casual hobbyist (1 simple small project every couple of years) until recently. As a new empty-nester I am amazed at how much more time I have for things like hobbies! Most of my listening is with headphones so all of my audio projects have been in that domain.
Now I wish I had learned more electronics in school. I earned degrees in EE, but as a young man I had no real interest in electronics so took as few courses in it as possible. I did EE because I was interested in pure and applied electrodynamics - antennas, propagation, plasmas, microwaves, optics, etc.
Cheers!
jason
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And the rest is history! Thanks for all your efforts for the DIY community, highly appreciated!