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hard to find tubes and expensive parts

post #1 of 11
11/7/09 at 10:47am
Thread Starter 
i was just woundering if there are any other plans for hybrid amps like the starving student that would offer the same good tube sound for around the same price.

im asking because i cant find any tubes for the starving student for less than 15 a pop. and thats just crazy.

does anyone have any experience building one with the 12 something tubes?

and would it be worth the ease of doing so just to buy a little dot?

thanks
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post #2 of 11
11/7/09 at 11:24am
I believe there are some very simple mods in the main thread which allow you to run a verity of other tubes.
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post #3 of 11
11/7/09 at 12:45pm
Search the main Starving Student thread for 12SR7 or 12AU7, designs have been posted and built using these as alternatives.
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post #4 of 11
11/7/09 at 1:48pm
There's the super simple 6dj8 amp which imho sounds definitely better than the Starving Student, gives you more tube options, and costs about the same.

The only difficult parts to source for it if you live outside the US are the transistors, but people tried more common varieties and report that the amp sounds equally well. I'm using one with a NOS 7dj8 tube which is also on the cheap side (bought a few very good ones for 5-7 euros each) as it uses a slightly different heater voltage from most other tubes, but works well.

Edit: if you are in the US and decide on building it, I would not mind sharing the minimum order for the original resistors as I'll build another one sooner or later.
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post #5 of 11
11/7/09 at 3:01pm
Thread Starter 
that schematic just looks complicated compared to the starving student. if anyone has built that one though let me know how hard it was
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post #6 of 11
11/7/09 at 4:42pm
If you read the thread I linked, you'll see that a few people have built it, myself included. The schematics looks more complicated but is in fact pretty similar to the SS. And since you'll probably build it using the Chinese PCB, it's a very very easy build.
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post #7 of 11
11/7/09 at 6:04pm
Thread Starter 
hmm ok thanks its something to consider
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post #8 of 11
11/7/09 at 8:21pm
I think(hope?) you will find the SS(or whatever you decide to go with) a very rewarding expererience. Both hobby-wise and sound-wise.

Well worth the effort(IMO, of course)


Post back here with your findings/questions, and maybe some help can be arranged
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post #9 of 11
11/7/09 at 9:36pm
Did you check Vacuumtubes.net? They have 19j6 tubes for 4.00 each.
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post #10 of 11
11/7/09 at 11:07pm
In another thread, TomB said that they might actually be out of the 19j6 and haven't updated the page. I tried to call and ask and played phone tag with them today; I'll post more when I know more.
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post #11 of 11
11/8/09 at 2:17am
Thread Starter 
ya they didnt have them. already called
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