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DIY tube amps

I'm wondering about other members experience with some of the "build it yourself" tube amp kits out on the market. I'm using SS mono blocs at the moment, and am quite interested in going the tube route, but am also liking the idea of trying my hand at building them myself. As a bike builder, I am quite handy, so to speak, but I am not an electronics guy. Recommendations? Oh, and bye the way, I have some fairly hungry speakers (Wilson Audio), so low powered amps won't do.
128x128crazyeddy
analogluvr
859 posts
 
 That's how I started, with kits. It is easier if you have high efficiency speakers as you can build the SET kits and they're fairly simple.  Although there are other kits with higher power that you can build as well. I've built a Bottlehead preamp and it is one of the  Best I've ever heard after a few mods.  It is the 300 b based with the attenuator upgrade.  You could do that one and run it with your solid-state amps to start.  Or you may want to get a cheaper pair of higher efficiency speakers and build amps for those as a second system.  I would recommend going with a pair of altec 604's. They are efficient enough that you can even use three watt  2A3 Amps with them.  I found a pair of 604e's for 1200 bucks.  Then you need a good solid pair of boxes. Add a pair of subs and you may prefer this to your current system. 
 I myself wouldn't go with audio note as I find them to be not the best bang for your buck. 
 But ultimately just go ahead and do it, don't let the naysayers dissuade you. It's quite easy and very very rewarding!   Then as a bonus you learn more about how this stuff works and you start to realize how silly a lot of these audio file tweaks are. 
analogluvr
859 posts
 
 Added bonus is with Bottlehead the support is second to none. Also the instructions are very very thorough and step-by-step. And if you still can't get it working you can send it to them and they will find the problem for you and send it back very cheaply. 
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
7,709 posts
 

crazyeddy,

I'm glad that you were able to speak to Brian. He's a good guy, and I have nothing but good things to say about their products. I use one of their 300b amps and their 2.1 DAC.

I think the kit division began when Peter Qvortrup began offering a DIY version of a 300b amplifier through a Brit audio magazine, and it became a hit. That is the amp that I have, several generations later with many upgrades. I believe that Brian offered to come on board full time and help with offering other products and upgraded instruction manuals, and now it is really quite a catalog of great products. The Mentor preamp makes me drool. It's great that you can purchase at different levels according to your budget.

Keep me posted!

John   

tubed1
161 posts
 
Look no further:
http://www.tubes4hifi.com/bob.htm


atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,615 posts
 
High power amps aren't the simplest creatures, especially tube designs. A 60 watt class A solid state amp is going to have something like 32V rails. A 60 watt tube amp is going to have rails more like 20 times that voltage.
Our 60 watt tube amp kit has B+ rails of 150 volts.

It works well with Wilson Watt/Puppys, not sure about some of the newer Wilsons; most of them are fairly efficient, but lower impedance. So you can make the M-60 (kit) drive the Sashas quite nicely for example if you also use a set of ZEROs (www.zeroimpedance .com).

The amp is not hard to build but does take some time because each power tube only makes a few watts. You can see a video of one being built on our home page or on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yodVDiEIpqI
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