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Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
I know people make their own tube guitar amps from like old PA systems or using tube radios. I can imagine the PA amp's are alot easier since you don't have to deal with the tuner part that would be in a radio. I'm not looking for a big massive OMFG amp like from the First Back to the Future but something small. Hell my tube Vox is only like 12 watts and that is big. My wife and I were just window shopping at the local antique stores and one place had old 40-70's tube radios that worked for like 20-30 bucks. I know I'd have to do some wiring to get like Tone, Treble or Bass adjustment out of it but just a volume knob is cool for me right now. Like just eliminating the entire radio tuner and using the amp but where would I incorporate a 1/4 jack for a guitar signal? I know alot of the old radios have the schematics right on them so that's a starting point. ANy suggestions or am I barking up the wrong tree here on HMT? I got through electronic principles in the AF but dropped out after that. lol. Plus we never touched on vacuum tubes since it was the USAF and not the AF for the taliban. :P
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
ive built tube amps before, its not to hard if you're building something simple just look up schematics for little 15 watt class A amps or 25-50 watt class ab with running 12ax7's for the preamp and el34 for the power tubes something like a matchless. little 15 watt class a amps usually sound the best for low volume playing, although 15 watts class A is a hell of a lot louder than you'd think it is. Really depends on what sound you want.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/default.php
Those are the people i work for. So i know a little about audio electronics. What your asking is, can you convert an old transistor radio into purely an amplifier. In which case, the answer is almost certainly yes. You just need to isolate the tuning circuitry from the pre-amp stage and wire your jack into the pre-amp. Cheap guitar amps aren't much money these days and unless your desperate for that 'rich in distortion' sound you only get from a valve amp, i'd not bother. |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by DrSeuss
http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/default.php
Those are the people i work for. So i know a little about audio electronics. What your asking is, can you convert an old transistor radio into purely an amplifier. In which case, the answer is almost certainly yes. You just need to isolate the tuning circuitry from the pre-amp stage and wire your jack into the pre-amp. Cheap guitar amps aren't much money these days and unless your desperate for that 'rich in distortion' sound you only get from a valve amp, i'd not bother. |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Yeah I'm not looking for something big at all. Hell even small is bigger then what I'm looking for. lol. The antique store I saw them at is like just 5 minutes away and for how much they cost if it doesn't sound that great then I'm not out that much. Just something I can use in the living room without upsetting the wife or kid too much before they tell me I suck and to stop playing. :1
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
So say I pick up some one of those radios. What do you suggest for a speaker since the speaker on those have fallen apart or on the verge to once I convert it over and the first good Pete Townsend windmill like strum. >:D
Maybe something like a 8" Jensen. It's only $34 sill I still have like only 60 bucks in the thing. http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbas...4/6/282946.jpg Genuine Jensen quality construction for great vintage vibe. The Jensen 'C' Series provides pristine vintage tone coupled with the cost and weight advantages of ceramic magnets. Originally developed in the 1960s to meet the ever increasing demands of the emerging pop music industry, the 'C' Series has remained influential ever since. 4 or 8 ohms. Jensen C8R 25W 8" Replacement Speaker Features: Ceramic magnet Vintage vibe Genuine Jensen quality construction |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
12 inch celestion vintage 30, if you build it decent. :)
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Like this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ENGLAND-MADE-CEL...QQcmdZViewItem Then use like what to build the box? I was thinking HMT style with this cause try to keep it relatively cheap. Maybe a old suitcase cause they build those pretty beefy and looked cool also. Something like this https://i16.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/8d/c8/5b0a_1.JPG |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Well I ran down to the antique store and got me a radio. Only one that sounded good but also the most expensive one also. :-\ 42 bucks out of my birthday money. It does have a rca plug in the back though. Hmmm ^-^ Pics in a few.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
celestion vintage 30 yes, also, you can't just rig the 1/4" into the rca, I'm guessing it will sound like ----.
and how bout a little google http://www.geofex.com/tubeampfaq/taffram.htm http://ampage.org/htac/ and I have about 150 tubes that I got from an abandonned house, but thats an other story |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
I picked up a 1/4-rca plug adapter just to see if it would work. I did google and I found sites but nothing I'm finding helpful. Alot of it is using like PA systems and not too many vacuum tube amplified radios. The one I got didn't come with a schematic on it either.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
http://www.torresengineering.com/maktubam.html
http://www.ax84.com/ http://www.tubedepot.com/tubeampkits.html more, if you come across any where that buys tubes while you are searching, let me know |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
man, all tube amps set up correctly sound awesome when overdriven, usually with a nice creamy tone with a slight crunch to it, but nothing like transistor amps that get nasty when you crank them up too loud. If you want a small amp with 8-10watts you could run 2x 6v6 or 6bq5 push pull output tubes (6v6 in particular), they sound good for practice amps, but if you want bigger power you could run some el34/6ca7 or 6L6s. Remember, tube rectified power supplies always sound better than solid state rectifiers. Most gain stages are 12ax7 but ive seen some where they use 12ax7s and then a 12au7 for a driver...
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
You do realise it is possible to digitally synthesize the tube amp sound these days?
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
real tube>fake tube any day of the week. If you dont want to dick around with replacing output tubes that can get expensive, at least use a tube gain/preamp stage
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Here she is...
brand...I have no ------- clue since only part of the schematic on the inside and no other labels. :-\ Though it does work perfectly. AM FTW! :P http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest004.jpg ass shot http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest005.jpg rca plug and the 1/4-rca adapter thingy http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest006.jpg inserted....hah I said inserted 8) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest007.jpg back cover off http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest008.jpg top view of the amp http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest009.jpg underside http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest010.jpg now time to do some studying and hmt'ing. |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
soggy old non ceramic caps and resistors ftw! the suitcase thing is a rad idea, that would be so easy to take to shows and you could put all of your cables and ---- in it :) the other guy in my band took an old suitcase and turned it into an effects board for the same reason.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
that looks to me like it is single ended 6v6? What are the tubes? At least that power supply transformer is decent. New caps and resistors will make that thing sound 100% better...
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
bad ass
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by accordepicenter
that looks to me like it is single ended 6v6? What are the tubes? At least that power supply transformer is decent. New caps and resistors will make that thing sound 100% better...
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
what, what and what :1 English JD english...I'm injen remember. :P
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
You're a damn bright injun, tho.
Imagine the sound going from a guitar to your amp as a sine wave (AC sine wave, actually), where it gets converted to a bigger (DC) sine wave for use with a speaker. If you turn the input signal or the gain (amount of amplification aka volume knob) all the way up so that the transistor/tube operates in saturation (meaning it can't provide any more output to the speaker even if the input signal increases, since it's "givin ev'rythin' she's got, Cap'n") then the top and bottoms of the sine wave being output is cut off, flatspotted. With a tube, this sounds good, with a transistor is sounds like ass. A SIDstation is built around the SID chip that came in the Commodore 64 back 20-25 years ago. The SID chip was a pretty awesome goddamn ----------ing digital based band pass filter; the c64 was capable of emulating human speech although it took most of the system's capabilities to say a sentence, and endless hours of tweaking to get enunciation correct. I had a c64 for a short period that had a second SID chip installed in it, very cool setup at that time although I wasn't up to speed with it and able to do anything more than adolescent idiot-savant fooling around type stuff. But, I digress. A SIDstation has 1-4 SID chips in it, although the 4 chip units were hard to come by, and is probably the best in lo-fi retro geekery available to the modern musician who knows digital > analog. They are hard to come by, and getting pricey these days, you'd best hop on it now if you want to be one of the cool kids. ;) |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Ummm alot of the marking are gone on the tubes but I took out all of the tubes and snapped some pics. 6 total but like only 3 had the markings left.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest021.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest020.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest019.jpg unmarked tubes http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest013.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest014.jpg and this one had part of the marking still left on it... 6..can't tell what letter it is then another 6. I'm assuming it's a 6V6 though. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...oodVest017.jpg |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
^ wow, that's an old piece of ---- ;D
me <- electrical / electronic engineer |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by Joseph Davis
You're a damn bright injun, tho.
Imagine the sound going from a guitar to your amp as a sine wave (AC sine wave, actually), where it gets converted to a bigger (DC) sine wave for use with a speaker. If you turn the input signal or the gain (amount of amplification aka volume knob) all the way up so that the transistor/tube operates in saturation (meaning it can't provide any more output to the speaker even if the input signal increases, since it's "givin ev'rythin' she's got, Cap'n") then the top and bottoms of the sine wave being output is cut off, flatspotted. With a tube, this sounds good, with a transistor is sounds like ass. A SIDstation is built around the SID chip that came in the Commodore 64 back 20-25 years ago. The SID chip was a pretty awesome goddamn ----------ing digital based band pass filter; the c64 was capable of emulating human speech although it took most of the system's capabilities to say a sentence, and endless hours of tweaking to get enunciation correct. I had a c64 for a short period that had a second SID chip installed in it, very cool setup at that time although I wasn't up to speed with it and able to do anything more than adolescent idiot-savant fooling around type stuff. But, I digress. A SIDstation has 1-4 SID chips in it, although the 4 chip units were hard to come by, and is probably the best in lo-fi retro geekery available to the modern musician who knows digital > analog. They are hard to come by, and getting pricey these days, you'd best hop on it now if you want to be one of the cool kids. ;) muahahahaahaaa |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by miro_gt
so there are AC and DC sine waves ? ... and the last ones are for use with speakers ?
muahahahaahaaa Refresh yourself on a run of the mill common emitter amplifier if you are feeling confused today. :1 |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
duh ... that's not a sine wave anymore
oh, and who told you that you're running speakers with positive voltage only ... OMG |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
thats one sexy tube radio 8)
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Hmmm, i should really know more about whats being discussed here.
Speakers are driven by an AC current. The digital bandpass filter you talk about, may be retro, but the modern DSP chips out there would no doubt outperform the SIDS (also the acronym for cot death) system. But probably without the retro chic of distortion left right and centre. Also possibly harder to implement. fwiw, that jack into the radio is probably for the external aerial. The big rotating bit is a capacitor (can't remember the name at the moment) but forms part of an RC filter which selects the station. You probably want to ditch that. Replacing the resistors in that radio would be a good move, get some nice 1% tolerance resistors in appropriate wattage ratings. They are VERY cheap (maybe $10 bucks to replace everything in that amp, minus the valves). |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Really? That cheap? Just write down the ratings and run down to radio shizzzack? I don't want to get new ---- only to ditch it when it's converted to a guitar amp. Before I start hacking into it and gotta read up on discharging this ---- cause tube amps ain't something to ---- around with. zzzzzzzzz :X
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
I guess what I'm going for is should I get the schematics for a nice amp and use my stuff to build it off of those with the parts I have? I mean the 6v6, and 5y3 I've got already and just need like 2 12AX7's cause from the looks of the nicer classic fender amps people strive to copy the sound of these. Or just use what I have and base it off of what I have now? I'm thinking of using as a bass guitar amp since I'm picking up a new bass guitar soon and sold my old Danelectro bass amp I had.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by stillnoturbo
I guess what I'm going for is should I get the schematics for a nice amp and use my stuff to build it off of those with the parts I have? I mean the 6v6, and 5y3 I've got already and just need like 2 12AX7's cause from the looks of the nicer classic fender amps people strive to copy the sound of these. Or just use what I have and base it off of what I have now? I'm thinking of using as a bass guitar amp since I'm picking up a new bass guitar soon and sold my old Danelectro bass amp I had.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
just because you are a member of hmt, do you try to save on everything by doing it homemade?
If yes, quit being a cheap ------- ass clown If no, Have fun |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by jaykew99
just because you are a member of hmt, do you try to save on everything by doing it homemade?
If yes, quit being a cheap ------- ass clown If no, Have fun |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by rawr
its not to be cheep, its to be competent in all pursuits, master as much of the outside world as possible, if you use it, know how and why it works.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by DrSeuss
Speakers are driven by an AC current.
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Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by jaykew99
just because you are a member of hmt, do you try to save on everything by doing it homemade?
If yes, quit being a cheap ------- ass clown If no, Have fun |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by Joseph Davis
Fluctuating current, yes. Alternating? No. All the DIY audio circuits I'm finding are powered by a DC source. AC rides DC, big fish.
A speaker is a linear motor, by using alternating current, you change the polarisation of the speaker coil and cause it to either attract or repel the permanent magnet. This is an AC sine wave. In the amplifiers we build in work (i've only been there a week so bear with me) we separate the two transistors completely, so in essence you have two dc circuits, operating with opposing polarisations. Although this could arguably be considered DC, it is in fact AC. The voltage is constant, the current is the variable. So, speakers are AC linear motors. My knowledge is still pretty shaky and i'm quite pissed, but i'm fairly sure i'm right and you're wrong. |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Originally Posted by stillnoturbo
It has nothing to do with being a cheapass. Like I said I've already got a tube amp. Look at the very first picture. It's a tube Vox amp. Well you can't really tell it's a tube from that...well you can but if you can read the tiny lettering on the faceplate to know what model it is. I just wanted to make my own. Whats wrong with trying to save on doing it yourself? There's premade turbo kits so why do you post here? Ummm save money and get a better kit from what you could of bought one for. That's what this whole ------- site is for. DIY'ers. It's not called Prefabbedturbokit.com is it? ::)
dee dee dee sorry, i guess if you are just trying to make one for your own personal knowledge, more power too you. Your wrong, this site is for DIY'ers of turbo kits, not necessarily anything else. people that are just cheap as ---- and try to make everything on there own and it just looks like ---- bug me. I AM NOT SAYING that this thread is about that, but good luck on your project. |
Re: Any folks here know electronics or guitar amps tube type
Well I finally tried out that rca jack that was on the back and it actually works. No crunchy tube sound with it turned all the way up but it also has the radio signal going into it and since the ant. wiring is pretty haggered I don't pick barely anything up but that jack actually works. Sweet! I found a guy who actually want to try to mess with it. He knows his ---- also. I'm just gonna this amp as a head and build a sealed box since it's gonna be used for my new bass I just bought. Things are looking 8)
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