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Best DIY tube amp kit for under $100?

post #1 of 27
3/1/11 at 12:57pm
Thread Starter 

I wanted to try making a tube amp, nothing too complicated or too expensive. I'd prefer being able to just use a kit for the ease of finding parts but if anyone has a list of parts for an amp and where said parts can be purchased from that would be great too. I'm really new to this so any help would be great.

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post #2 of 27
3/1/11 at 1:05pm

Search for "starving student". Tons of info to be found around here.

 

Here's the website of the designer: http://www.pmillett.com/starving.htm

And this website sells most of the needed parts: http://beezar.com/oscommerce2/catalog/index.php

 

It's hard to beat in that price category. Under 100$ and asking for a kit, you're pretty much restricted to hybrid amps... unless you're a good scavenger. Then a simple amp like the kaidan could possibly do the trick: http://www.wavebourn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=998

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post #3 of 27
3/1/11 at 1:08pm

"safe against tube rollers" 

 

I see he reads head-fi. Any octal tube, any octal socket. 

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post #4 of 27
3/1/11 at 3:20pm

Have a look at

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/6DJ8-Tube-Single-End-Headphone-Amplifier-Bare-PCB-/110492488358?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item19b9dd92a6

 

its very simple and easy to build and runs off 24 volts

 

cheers

FRED

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post #5 of 27
3/1/11 at 3:44pm

15VPP output from a 6DJ8 fed with 24V ? That's gonna be sweet distortion.

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post #6 of 27
3/1/11 at 4:15pm

Take the specs with a grain of salt, it sounds very good for the $$$$$$$$$

 

cheers

FRED

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post #7 of 27
3/1/11 at 4:31pm
Thread Starter 

I think the starving student would work great. One more question though what kind of DAC would I need? I would be hooking this up to my PC and I already have a Xonar DX and I don't think it has a line out but I'm not sure. Would it be possible to incorporate a grubDAC into the same box as the amp? And if so is the kit from beezar the cheapest way to get the parts for one or can I get better for the money?

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post #8 of 27
3/1/11 at 6:03pm

Multiple components in 1 box is a bad idea. 

 

You *could* put a DAC in the same box as the MHSS or any amp for that matter, but what happens when (not if) you want to upgrade one? What happens when you want to use your familiar DAC to run your newly built amp in another chassis? How about when the amp wears out its welcome, but you still like the DAC? or the opposite..

 

It costs slightly more, but put the DAC in its own box and the amp in its own box. When it comes time to sell one thing, sell one thing. 

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post #9 of 27
3/1/11 at 6:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 00940 View Post

15VPP output from a 6DJ8 fed with 24V ? That's gonna be sweet distortion.


Like was noted above, take the specs with a grain of salt. It also runs (quite) happily from higher voltages; a lot of people built 'em with 32V or even slightly higher PSUs. (I have, um, four of these amps, or variations thereof.)

 

There's a really, really long thread about those boards around here somewhere. :)

 

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post #10 of 27
3/1/11 at 9:03pm
Thread Starter 

My next question is can any of these drive 600 ohm AKGs? I would assume the millet can.

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post #11 of 27
3/2/11 at 1:05am

The starving student outputs up to 7Vrms. Assuming you have the K240m, you'd get up to 107db or so. The Kaidan should do about the same. The ebay amp way less.

 

Edit: I completly forgot that the tubes for the starving student are now hard to find and quite expensive. You can replace them by common 12au7, as shown here: http://www.diyforums.org/SSMH/SSMHvariants.php

I'd expect the voltage swing to be a bit lower than the original though.


Edited by 00940 - 3/2/11 at 2:00am
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post #12 of 27
3/2/11 at 7:31am
Thread Starter 

I'm almost done buying the parts but I can't find any reasonably priced tubes. Does anyone know of a place?

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post #13 of 27
3/2/11 at 7:46am

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-Vintage-Sylvania-12AU7-Tubes-Test-NOS-/250774809879?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item3a6357ed17

 

Plenty of those on ebay. Just an example from what "seems" a reliable seller (in other words, no personnal experience with him).

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post #14 of 27
3/2/11 at 7:49am
Thread Starter 

Um, I need the 19j6 tubes for the starving student from the site?

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post #15 of 27
3/2/11 at 7:53am

See post #11. The change from 19V heaters to 12.6V heaters means that you will drop more voltage over the mosfet, so you need a tad bigger heatsink.

 

You have some 19J6 on ebay but they're like 20$ each. There's also tubedepot at 15$ each  but you'll have to check for actual availability: http://www.tubedepot.com/nos-19j6.html

 

 

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