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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
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,052 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
11,922 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
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
It's just like Allen Ginsberg said: "First Watt, Best Watt"
james1969's avatar
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james1969
347 posts
 
I had a blast building a Sun Audio 2a3 stereo amp kit.  That was easy to build, but only 3.5 watts or so.  Got me into tubes from solid state.
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