Hello All,
This is Drew(1d) from Westchester. I'm relatively new to building amps and just trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible. I built a few simple amps...and rebuilt.....and...rebuilt again. I like experimenting with different circuits. I had to take like a year hiatus with my baby girl being born, but now I want to get back into it.
Cheers!
-Drew
(04-25-2023, 04:18 PM)Champ81 Wrote: [ -> ] (04-25-2023, 04:14 PM)Drew1d Wrote: [ -> ]Hello All,
This is Drew(1d) from Westchester. I'm relatively new to building amps and just trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible. I built a few simple amps...and rebuilt.....and...rebuilt again. I like experimenting with different circuits. I had to take like a year hiatus with my baby girl being born, but now I want to get back into it.
Cheers!
-Drew
Welcome Drew. Same here. I'm relatively new as well. Starting builds again as well as I took some time off. Which amps did you build so far?
My first amp was pretty much the Two-Stroke Amp from David Hunter's "Tube Amp Book" Essentially a Tweed Princeton with dual Single Ended power section, a bigger Output transformer and larger filter caps. It was...well...ok. First attempt and my grounding scheme was, anywhere that was easy. Kinda noisy for sure. I rebuilt that into a cake pan with a "star ground" and much quieter. But couldn't figure out a cabinet, so eventually took all the expensive parts and bought a 5f2a chassis and moved it there. Eventually putting a choke on it.
Most of the amps I have tried are single ended Tweed Princeton type designs. So I started playing with the preamp section. I tried a GridLeak bias preamp, similar to a Gretch 6150. Sounded ok. Tried a Totem-Pole style preamp. Which was super linear....but not nearly enough gain.
Then I got a MusicMaster Bass amp that I started to mess with. It has one of those transformers for push pull. Everything I tried sounded way to bright and kinda horrible until I realized that it needed a lot more current going to the transformer, then it sounds pretty good.
The latest amp I made was from a Hoffman Stout. (Head unit) It took me a few attempts to get a design that worked well. Basically I copied the Deluxe power and output section. It uses a Concertina phase splitter. but the preamp is 1/2 12ax7 going into a ef86. This is probably the best sounding amp I made, but it's not very loud.
Currently need to work on my combo amp process, as too many cabinet noises when cranked....kinda takes the fun away from my small 5 watt amps...
I started to restore a H-195 Harmony amp, but I'm not done, as I've had mixed results.
How about yourself?
Hi Guys
You should probably start a thread in the Personal Projects section.