Millett "Starving Student" hybrid amp - Page 3

Thanks, thats good news for everyone. I'm looking for some good deals on the tubes now.

Ill have to look into this as a summer Idea, I might upgrade some components especially the Pot and maybe the caps and resistors. I like that a powersupply can just be bought and used for it.

How does it sound, as compared to cmoy and other budget builds (mini3, soha etc.)

I'm curious to know how this stands up against the SOHA, and whether or not it has a DC offset issue when powering up and down like the SOHA does (necessitating a protection circuit for forgetful folk such as myself).

King Pete!

Many thanks, Pete, for continuing to feed our obsession. We owe you! And thanks to Nate as well for jumping in and building one up.
I'll be digging through the parts bin here and might sneak this one in while I wait for parts for other projects.

Very cool!

Looks like im having no luck locating one for the UK. If the supply were an easy project, would someone be able to put up a schematic? Id have no idea even where to start to design a PS.

How does it sound compered to the millet max?

If you look at the schematic, the outputs sit at ~19V. So yes, until the coupling cap charges, I would think that your headphones will see that voltage.

That said, IMHO, the spirit of the design would dictate simply being careful to wait before plugging in, not applying a sophisticated delay/offset protection circuit. The same precaution was traditional for a long time with the SOHA and a couple of iterations of the Millett Hybrid before that.

Gosh - please don't get us into a "this is better than that, etc." by asking a question like that. There's probably nothing that can compete with this as a tube amp and low cost. I'm excited about it - it looks like great fun, but I don't think it takes anything away from the Millett MAX.

Pete himself suggested about the Starving Student, "This is a fairly tubey sounding amplifier, similar in character to the original hybrid tube headphone amp design I published in audioXpress waaay back in 2002." He is referring to the famous original Millett Hybrid that used monolithic BUF634 buffers and an off-the-shelf DC power supply.

I would imagine that it's very competitive, but the MAX's power supply and diamond buffer is as sophisticated as many top-level solid-state amps (besides including an on-board delay circuit). However, AFAIK, none of us besides Pete and Nate have tried the 19J6 tubes, yet. So, build them both. That's what I'm going to do - several of each, even.

Again - thanks, Pete!!

I just wondered what the differences were, not which is best. I bet it sounds great and id love to build one. Especially if its pretty small.

I'm with Tom, there are certain compromises that go along with a sub-$50 amp and if one of those is remebering to unplug your headphones before applying or removing power that shouldn't be too much to ask, should it?

And I haven't heard a MAX for months now so you won't see me making any critical comparison between the two.

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Huh, how will i ever live with the ball ache of having to unplug my headphones before turning the power off?

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