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If you are old enough to remember electronic kits such as Knight Kit or Heath Kit and had the chance
to build these kits you will remember it being an enjoyable experience. Having built several of these kits
and still using a few pieces of Heath Kit test equipment I can say that it was wonderful to have had
the opportunity to build them. Those kits were complete including finished cabinets and silk screened
panels, they looked factory built. These kits no longer exist. Knight Kit was made by Allied Radio now
Allied Electronics and Heath Kits were made by the Heath company. Heath was bought out by Zenith. There were many of us hobbyist that also built our own electronic equipment such as audio amplifiers. Home built vacuum tube equipment is a lost art and I am developing this site as a way to pass on my experience. 
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Build a turntable |
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Tips to help the |
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The hobbyist can home build vacuum tube amplifier equipment using many available less expensive parts from various suppliers with excellent results. Information is presented here to help the hobbyist complete a successful project. Projects are intended to use standard available electronic parts. The hobbyist has the option of using more expensive "audiophile" parts if so desired. Building vacuum tube circuits requires some expertise. You need to have some metalworking and soldering experience before attempting to home build vacuum tube units. Metal work mostly involves drilling or punching holes in a chassis for components to mount. Soldering requires good solder joints and if you've never done any electronic soldering you should practice soldering. See how to solder in Building Tips. The experienced builder will know that the key to a professional looking finished unit is to take your time and work neatly. The material presented here is streamlined to avoid having to search through pages and pages of information and drawings. Most of the circuits and information focus on the use of triode amplifying stages. |
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The main focus of projects on this site relate to vacuum tube projects but a few solid state projects will also be covered. As with the vacuum tube projects, these are projects that are hand wired. The hobbyist should be able to build these projects with common electronic parts. |
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THE REAL DEAL........... You may want to avoid vacuum tube gear that operates on low voltage. You can usually tell by the small size of the unit and if it uses one of those small wall plug power supplies. Also beware of solid state equipment with a tube stage operating on low voltage. Chances are the tube was put in there as a selling gimmick. In order to realize the potential of the sound you get from a vacuum tube, it needs to have a power source in the 250V - 350V range. The reason for this is you need the high voltage so the tube can swing a lot of voltage. A vacuum tube amplifier, or even a solid state amplifier, is output limited by the power source. The higher the voltage, the more output voltage the tube can swing. This means that you get more headroom before clipping with the higher voltage. With a 300 volt power supply, a vacuum tube may have 200 volts across it depending on the voltage drop in the circuit. With that much voltage available to swing, the audio output level will be in the 40 to 50 volt range, keeping normal audio levels well below signal overload clipping. |
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FINISHED DIMENSIONS AND PICTURES TO HELP BUILD A CLASSIC BASS REFLEX CABINET FOR A CLASSIC 12" JENSEN OR SIMILAR SPEAKER.
 CLASSIC BASS REFLEX CABINET |
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vacuum tube related TONE CONTROLS MAGNETIC PHONO PRE-AMPLIFIER AUDIO CONTROL CENTER LEVELING AMPLIFIER CLASSIC BASS REFLEX SPEAKER |
solid state related TRANSISTOR AMPLIFIER STAGE TRANSISTOR AMPLIFIER 2-STAGE TRANSISTOR 10 WATT AMPLIFIER |
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vacuum tube related BASIC ELECTRONICS BUILDER TIPS THE VACUUM TUBE THE TRIODE AMPLIFIER VACUUM TUBE POWER SUPPLY USING A SOILD STATE SUPPLY SELECT A POWER TRANSFORMER FILAMENT DC SUPPLY CALCULATE FUSE SIZE TUBE DATA SELECTING WIRE SIZE |
general LETTERING A PANEL GROUND LOOPS BALANCED AUDIO LINES |
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WBBM Chicago, Illinois WEZW Milwaukee, Wisconsin WFUN Miami, Florida WROK-AM, WZOK-FM Rockford, Illinois |
EXPERIMENT THAT SAVED HI-FI RUSSELL O HAMM PAPER ANALOG~DIGITAL AUDIO EAR DAMAGE - LOUD AUDIO SOUND ON FILM REBUILDING A HOLMES 35MM PROJECTOR SAENGER THEATER, MOBILE, ALABAMA |
