Hello from Singapore

Doing the obligatory hello post.

Been playing around with the idea of building my own amps for a long time and now that we can't travel for work it seems like an ideal time to scratch that itch. Understanding schematics and why certain things go where still hurts my brain a little. Hoping by building a few easier projects that it all starts to click together.

First project might be a Elekit. More of a soldering project that DIY but it seems like they're decent enough and not such a minefield like the random Chinese kits on eBay. Over time I'd like to build something with tubes and transistors similar to the Copland CSA 100 (I understand my home projects are unlikely to sound as good as a properly developed mega bucks product, but that's no fun).
 
toydestroyer,

Welcome to diyAudio! :)

Understand that you would like to build an amp - what speakers have you got at present?

And I looked up the Copland CSA 100, and found that it has a tube front end. With your journey into DIY, you might actually come to a solution where tubes are no longer part of the recipe, and you get what you aimed for using solid state... So it's also good to have some goals / ideas in terms of what you want to achieve in terms of sonic bliss overall vs what components should be / not be part of the system only.

Have lots of fun!
 
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Thanks for the welcomes.

Currently I’m running a pair of JBL 4319 speakers through a Simaudio Moon 250i and also have a Nad T778 for surround duties. It’s very lovely gear and I’m lucky to have it. As most of what I have is solid state and fairly neutral I’m interested in building with tubes to see what impact that has on my system.

The Copland sounds delicious. Compared to my Moon it has a warmer sound to it. What I’m struggling to find is decent schematics with build plans similar to what the guitar amp guys seem to have access to. I’m more of a learn by doing type of person, I’d love to design my own amp from end to end but I’m still learning why a resister goes here and why a cap it there etc.