• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
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    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Output transformer for EL84 PP

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Your higher Gm valve will make the design easier. You may wish to remove the positive feedback between first and second stages, and it will be possible to remove the capacitor coupling between them. If you're really enamored of the common cathode current supply, you may want to increase the value of the bypass capacitor - maybe 1000 or 2000 uF. Capacitors have gotten very affordable since this was designed.


This biasing scheme is also critically dependent on matched valves. Including individual small (10 Ohm or so) cathode resistors will allow you to monitor valve idling currents. Channel pairs need to be within 5 or 10% for best output transformer performance.


All good fortune,
Chris
 
Your higher Gm valve will make the design easier. You may wish to remove the positive feedback between first and second stages, and it will be possible to remove the capacitor coupling between them. If you're really enamored of the common cathode current supply, you may want to increase the value of the bypass capacitor - maybe 1000 or 2000 uF. Capacitors have gotten very affordable since this was designed.


This biasing scheme is also critically dependent on matched valves. Including individual small (10 Ohm or so) cathode resistors will allow you to monitor valve idling currents. Channel pairs need to be within 5 or 10% for best output transformer performance.


All good fortune,
Chris

Thanks Chris - I chose the E88CC partly for that reason (and its good linearity). As the amp stands now, it has a pretty conventional DC-coupled pre/splitter stage, but I am intrigued by this design. The amp is as much a test bed for different ideas as anything else, so I may give that a go.

The thread for my amp is here: EL84 PP design
 
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