The Amp Garage

Hi. my name is Ryan, and I'm an idiot. I have been struggling with a distortion problem with an amp I have been trying to finish for a while. Ugly distortion at all volume levels, volume output was low. I suspected that I had damaged the output transformer because I had ran a rather strong signal th...

JCF, welcome. I am just north of you in McKinney. The wealth of information on this forum is amazing. I am an electrical engineer, so one would think I'd have more of the answers when it comes to building these fantastic machines, yet I refer to this site all of the time when I am running into probl...

My wife helps with amp builds from time to time, but I use her more to just inspect my work. She is IPC-610 Class 3 certified, and is great at finding problem solder joints and touching them up. I just wish I could get her to quit using liquid flux... what a mess...

For the trouble's worth, I would mount all preamp tubes, if not all tubes, on a separate metal plate, which is then fixed to the chassis with aforementioned rubber gaskets and bolts. Chassis, of course, needs all neccessary holes to acces tube sockets underneath. Bit off topic, but in my opinion yo...

@teemuk To a certain extent I agree, though my ear was hearing a warmer (harmonically) clean sound. One of my design ideas is to cascade a 12AX7 into an EF86. I would like to get true pentode even harmonic overdrive entirely within the preamp. That would allow for a lot of options in power amp design.

I was thinking that a rubber gasket for the mounting screws on both sides of the chassis would work. Should I be worried about the durometer of the rubber, or would that be over-thinking?

I built an amplifier for a customer this summer, and it turned out way better than expected. It was based on a Matchless DC-30. I used the EF86 preamp channel (no 2nd 12AX7 channel), added my tube based effects loop, and changed output transformers to encourage earlier breakup of the EL84s. The resu...

I use a B&W laser printer from Brothers. Works great, you just need to get the right decal paper for the laser printer.

I have been using these guys: http://www.engravers.com/photo-sensitive-metal. So far no fading and I haven't had a scratching problem (Yet). Not cheap, but much less than the chassis' I have build. For prototypes and some custom work I have used spray paint, waterslide decals and clear-coat. Still l...

The 4x8 sheets are likely to be Chinese . certainly not as nice as BB but it's supposed to be void free .!it's what I use to build miost of my kitchen cabinets with ID look for the prowood brand.I picked up some import birch once that delaminated as i cut it. For something like a guitar cab I don't...

I just wish they would stock it in 4'x8' sheets rather than 5'x5' sheets. 5x5 sheets explained here, almost half way down. Other interesting information on Baltic Birch, too. http://www.woodworkerssource.com/blog/tips-tricks/your-ultimate-guide-to-baltic-birch-plywood-why-its-better-when-to-use-it/...

I have been getting my baltic birch ply from Wood World. I just wish they would stock it in 4'x8' sheets rather than 5'x5' sheets. They are a bit more expensive than Hardwood Lumber Co. by the 121-35E junction, but by the time I drive over there I lost most of my savings in gas.

Geeze wrote:

Garthhog wrote:Nice. When I get some free time I need to visit the exotic wood distributor here in town.

Wood World behind TI - 75/635 facility. Open every day. That's my main wood crack house.

What's in McKinney?

Russ

http://www.mckinneyhardwoods.com

Nice. When I get some free time I need to visit the exotic wood distributor here in town.