Any vacuum tube fans?

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pishta

pishta

I know I'm right....
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Customer gave me a bunch of NOS replacement vacuum tubes from an old '52 Seeburg ( Happy Days) jukebox. Never turning down a new project, i want to build a little glowing 5-20W tube amp. Kit, do you have any advice? These look pretty simple and I have some nice low power speakers that are available now....
 
I just know I need 6ls6 and 12ax7 for my Fender Twin.
 
OzHemi on Moparts would be a great guy for you to contact, his is a tube-type collector.

I seem to recall that he signed up here also long ago, so you could search for the user name here also, but he posts a lot more over there.
 
"Real" hifi amps are not really simple--that is easy-- to design. Transformer coupling depends on the quality of the transformers along with other engineering. Building truly linear class A amplifiers is no joke. Half the crap you see on the www is "single ended" as opposed to push pull which is very much superior in terms of conventional 6l6, 6v6, etc, class amps.

Frankly I hear all this about how much better tube amps are, and building them might be fun, but the fact is that many of us on here are LONG past the age where our hearing could possibly enjoy the difference in quality.
 
That's the only type of guitar amp I will play through. I have a Pignose 60 watt full tube amp now. It's a beast.
 
I have a huge collection of vacuum tubes a lot of them are the mil spec grade. I have picked out all of the 12ax7 and 6L6 for my tube amps. There's just no comparison to tube
amp sound.
 
Not sure what design tubes you have but do you understand tube type linear amplifiers and how they work? If your just wanting to build something that glows and puts out some sound that isn't real hard but as Del said a "real" linear amp is far more complicated. I have built quite a few RF tube type amps in the past and I can tell you it took some studying before I understood them and made them work right.
 
Fender tube amps (many) and Stratocasters. ...match made in heaven.
Been replacing tubes for 30 years......
The beauty of tubes vs solid state is they're dynamic. If you dig in (pick harder) they growl and react to it. If you ease up and be gentle, they're soft, sweet and clean.
You don't really get that with solid state. ......
 
I gave up tube stuff over 40 years ago.

Seems like a class D amp, with a DSP signal processor front end, would be greatly more efficient, powerful, smaller, cooler, reliable, and more adaptive.

But, don't listen to me, I am nearly deaf.
 
MrJLR said:
Fender tube amps (many) and Stratocasters. ...match made in heaven.
Been replacing tubes for 30 years......
The beauty of tubes vs solid state is they're dynamic. If you dig in (pick harder) they growl and react to it. If you ease up and be gentle, they're soft, sweet and clean.
You don't really get that with solid state. ......
Click to expand...

I don't know man. I've played some of them all and you know what? My 1967 Sears Silvertone BobKat beats them all in my opinion. It really has a unique sound.
 
Im not building one from scratch, itll probably be a proven design, ie. from diyaudioprojects.com such as the K12-G 8W stereo amp. other than the 4 tubes and the 3 transformers, looks like pretty common stuff. Ill look to see what I got in the box and determine if its worth the time, although I know my nephew would flip when I give it to him for his dorm room. The guy is into sitars and Ravi Shankar...? Kinda strange......
 

pishta said:
Im not building one from scratch, itll probably be a proven design, ie. from diyaudioprojects.com such as the K12-G 8W stereo amp. other than the 4 tubes and the 3 transformers, looks like pretty common stuff. Ill look to see what I got in the box and determine if its worth the time, although I know my nephew would flip when I give it to him for his dorm room. The guy is into sitars and Ravi Shankar...? Kinda strange......
Click to expand...
If you need any parts let me know. I have a bunch of stuff in the basement from when I used to repair TV's & CB's, and build amps. Plan on dragging it to a hamfest this August to clean out the basement so if you need anything let me know b4 then
 
Cool, will do. First thing that caught my eye is 2 of 3 transformers needed (Hammond PT-1609's) for that kit are close to $80 a piece...yikes! Will look a little deeper...
 
Years ago, I had a Wawasee JB12 tube modulator for CB. It was perfect. It would dead key like 5 watts and swing 80. Got hit by lightening. I wish I could find another one.
 
pishta said:
Cool, will do. First thing that caught my eye is 2 of 3 transformers needed (Hammond PT-1609's) for that kit are close to $80 a piece...yikes! Will look a little deeper...
Click to expand...
I have several transformers but unfortunately I don't have any audio transformers like that one. I may have the others though
 
fishy68 said:
I have had 2 of them. Used to see them everywhere. You ever saw them in the mobile version?
Click to expand...

Yeah. I thought about that but a power supply is just one more thing "to have". Wasn't the mobile version the JB150?
 
RustyRatRod said:
I don't know man. I've played some of them all and you know what? My 1967 Sears Silvertone BobKat beats them all in my opinion. It really has a unique sound.
Click to expand...

There's always exceptions. ......I agree.
you still have that BobKat? Love to see a picture of her!
 
pishta said:
Cool, will do. First thing that caught my eye is 2 of 3 transformers needed (Hammond PT-1609's) for that kit are close to $80 a piece...yikes! Will look a little deeper...
Click to expand...

This in part is what makes really good amps difficult to design.....coming up with good transformers. On a side note, last night I was "off on a tangent" looking on the 'net for "how" Hammond organ tone generators work. THAT is a masterpiece in Rube Goldberg

https://www.google.com/search?q=ham...-8rMAhULx2MKHUGzAN4Q_AUICSgD&biw=1252&bih=564

 
Buy the way Rusty, not to rain on your parade, but the very things that "you like" about your guitar amp IS NOT "good linearity." The things which give a good guitar amp "it's sound" is the opposite of linearity, or another words, "a certain distortion."

To put this yet another way, if you were to make a recording of you playing, and then were to play that recording and to expect it to sound exactly like it was recorded, the LAST thing you would want to do is to play it back through the same amp through which you had played the guitar!! LOL
 
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