Tube Amplifier

[Amateur_Audiophile]

Anyone ever tried a project on tube amplifier, the good ones in the market are costing a bomb.
just trying to figure out, if its possible to source the components and assemble one ?
anyone ever tried it?

 

[sunilj]

Hi AA, if you search the forums there are plenty good examples of local DIY effort - point-2-point and PCB based builds. Regarding parts, the mains trafo is possible to get here, but the OPTs (output transformers) will have to be imported (friends, family bakra's etc etc..). Other parts are available lo cally(resistors, capacitors, tube bases) but the inevitable odd 5W /10W resistor might have to be imported. Mouser is your friend.

You can budget to your hearts content. In terms of VFM, I've found the builds and sound to be fantastic. In your other thread you said the speakers are Klipsch Heresy 3. A nice 5w S.E.T will drive them well - Tubelab TSE-II (45 /300b /2A3). If you want more power Tubelab SSE can be run in 7W S.E.T /15W Ultra-Linear.

I completed four Tubelab builds (2 TSE, 2 SSE) and they all sound great.

Tubelab SE | Tubelab

Tubelab SSE | Tubelab

Pete Millett's DIY Audio pages

regards,
sunil

 

[sunilj]

In my experience, get going on a well documented project. Once you get a grip of the basics, sky is the limit.

I'm assuming you are starting out with no prior experience.

 

[Kana711104]

Once ( about 8 years ago ) I use to build valve amp and pre amp. But due to non availability of quality tube and specialy trafo I retired. But I suggest if you really want to keep your hands dirty with tube use Class A amp with neutral signatures + tube pre. These combination will give you wide range of driver compatibity and yeah tuby sound.
I am using my developed pure class A amp 17w PC and previous design EL82 based tube pre gain module and Rpi based streamer DAC . Combination is great.