My Amp Obsession
My obsession with tube amplifiers started a few months ago. I was talking with a friend at work, and he said he wanted to build a tube amp... boy did my gears start turning! I was thinking, a mind blowing, window shattering, Earth shaking 1000 watter... boy was I ill informed! See, I was under the assumption that the "cab" was the amp! How wrong was I! As I read more, I found out that a tube amp doesn't have to have a whole lot of watts to push the speakers it's connected to. So, my original plan dropped from a 1000 watt jobber to a 50 watter, then to an even smaller wattage amp than this.
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Enlightenment Cometh
So, I was perusing the net, looking up everything I could about tube amplifiers. Diodes here, rectifiers there, triodes, single-ended push-pulls... in fact, I understood Greek better than these terms, as I had never worked with electronics before. I am STILL a complete newbie to the electronics world. So, to Google I went. At first, all I was finding was a few schematics... I didn't really know what I was looking for. Maybe, in retrospect, I should have been looking for some simple electronics sites to see what I was really getting myself into! Well, as luck would have it, I happened across Fred Nachbaur's site (www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/tubestuf/miniblk1.htm) and learned my first valuable lesson...
"...a 100 watt amplifier won't sound 100 times as loud as a one watt amp. Rather, every doubling (or other multiple) of power will increase the perceived loudness by the same fixed amount. So, 10 watts will merely sound "somewhat louder" than one watt."
WHAT!?!?! So, there went my idea of a 1000 watt Earth pounder... I can still dream though!
Fred's site was a great stepping-stone. Granted, it was dealing with home audio, as opposed to guitar audio, but I did gain quite a bit of information from his site, and would recommend the read if you have some time to kill.
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The Hunt is On
With my dream 1000 watt amp blown out of the water, I needed to decide what I was going to build instead. So, to the net I went, looking for schematics and different amp building sites. I knew I wanted something that would last a while, but work good as both a practice and a small performance amplifier. I was searching and found Schematic Heaven (www.schematicheaven.com/). Ding, ding, ding! Welcome to the mother load of commercial amplifier schematics. I was sure I would find what I was looking for here.
I started looking, and happened across the Carvin 100X. This is a 6 tube, 100 watt monster, with almost all of the bells and whistles. I downloaded the schematic, and went to the net to find parts. That's when I hit a brick wall. Carvin, nor anyone other than a custom shop, made transformers for the amplifier. I did call several custom transformer builders, but the prices were a little over the top for me just to build the amplifier... I pity people who own this amp and need to get repairs. According to Carvin,
"We threw all that stuff out months ago. We don't have any parts to fix that amp anymore."
Oh boy! Back to the web!
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Back to the Message Board
Late one night, I was searching for more information on amps, and kept seeing AX84 (www.ax84.com) pop up in the search.
Okay, I'll check it out. Well, it looks like I have found a home! The AX84 site is an invaluable resource for all people wanting to undertake the task of learning how to build amps, plus it has hundreds of knowledgeable folks who can help if you need to make a repair. There is so much information on this site that I have to say...
"If you can't find the answers to your questions here, there must not be an answer!"
So, after looking around on the site and message boards, I had resigned to build the Renegade. A 2-channel foot switchable amp powered by 2 EL34's and 4 12AX7's. After talking to some of the pros on the site, I decided that it would be too much of an undertaking for my first project.
I then looked at the possibility of building a Hi Octane. This is 5-7 watt AX84 amp powered by 1 EL84, and 2 12AX7's. In fact, I found a nice site with great information on the building of a Hi Octane called Silvatone Amps. (www.silvatone.bravepages.com/) Very well put together site too, but then the amp I decided to pursue found me!
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Your Schwartz is Bigger than My Schwartz
I was working the midnight shift one night, and came across the Nano Head by Zachary Vex (www.zvex.com). WOW! What a great head! Compact, sounds great, looks outstanding, but man that price! If you don't know, the Z. Vex Nano Head is a tube amplifier rated a 1/2 watt. The sound samples are simply astounding! I highly recommend giving it a listen. I knew that I wanted a little amp like this, but couldn't afford the bill... maybe one day!
So, to Google I went, looking for tiny tube amps, or should I say Sub-miniature tube amps. There it was! Taking a link off of Adam Alpern's site (amps.zugster.net/main.html), which has a great deal of info and projects on it, I found my way to Harmonic Appliances (www.harmonicappliances.com), ran by Mark Lavelle. The Powerman! Nice little amp, powered by 2 6021W sub-miniature tubes, with one knob control and an internal speaker. The kicker, it is built inside of a computer power supply. My gears started churning, and haven't stopped since!
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