Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The good news and some 'bad' news..

Okay, the good news is, I have completed the tube preamp, hurrah!!! That was about a a week ago.
It was worth the wait (and the agony of waiting)! The preamp was connected to a discrete 40 watter (nicked name,D'Bomb) and the sound is simply marvellous albeit some issue which is irritating me right now.

One, I have humming issues, then buzzing then 'crackling' issues.. After much googling and reading more about tube amp designs.. I managed to solve the buzzing by opting to use DC heater as opposed to AC heaters. BTW, I have read and done all the do's and don'ts about tube amps building thingy, like wires crossing at 90 degrees etc.
The humming and 'crackling' although very soft and only audible when I am not playing anything, it is just 'psychological annoying'... Since I used some 'alternate' (read cheap and what is avail.) parts to what was being specified in the original design, now that I have heard how good it is and believing that there is a potential for it to become 'better'), I think it's worthwhile to invest in quality/premium parts and I have decided to buy the 'good stuffs' online.. I also found the TUNGSOL 5687 is kinda 'microphony' and it is known for that! There are other drop in replacement for this 5687 but I would not do it till further listening. Since this is my first tube project, I just want to have some experience and maybe moving on to other popular tubes. More updates later..

The casing used (like a metal pizza box) was bought cheaply from a manufacturer excess stock meant for something else.. hehe

Pic shown the preamp during the 'wet-run'. Speakers used was the Gale 3030 floorstander and I could not believe the amount of good solid bass coming out!


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