In 1967 I built a tone control amplifier from a schematic that was in the back of a vacuum tube info book. This book was "The" book to have that told you everything you needed about tubes, pins, substitutions, etc. My knowledge of electronics is basically limited to my high school electronics class. This tone control project turned out to be amazing. What I would like to do is build a tube amp using this old school technology. The old tube amps are prized for their tone. Analog amplifiers are all the buzz these days from pro musicians. Does anybody have an old tube amp schematic, or know where I can find one? Hopefully they still make these old tubes and parts. I'm hoping for a 100 watt RMS (?) output or more. My understanding is that a 100 watt tube amp is much louder than a typical solid state amp of the same wattage. Your help would be appreciated.

 

yes, stuff is around: You might not find 100 W.

e.g. http://www.dynakitparts.com

I had the Fisher variety of one of these when I was a kid: http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/1210/deHavilland_audio_ke_50a.htm

The Fisher 50A sounded good back then.

A friend built some tube amps. Particularly Williamson. e.g. http://audio.ring.lt/pp/williamson.pdf Do a search on that one. e.g. "Williamson Amplifer"

 

If I were to build a tube amp (which I hope to do someday) I would start sourcing components. There are lots of circuits available on the internet. Google tube amplifier schematics. A tube amp is relatively straight forward with a consistent design. Take a look at as many circuits as possible and see what are the most popular tubes. Then start collecting components based on availability and pricing.

I will assume that you need a push-pull output as opposed to single-ended output.

Here are the things you will need:

Metal chassis
Power transformer
Output transformer with center-tap primary
Preamp (e.g. 12AX7)
Driver (e.g. 12AX7)
Output pair (e.g. 6L6 or 6V6)
Rectifier (e.g. 5U4 or solid state?)
Tube sockets
Volume control
Tone control (Low & High)

Here is a one-stop source for components:
https://www.tubesandmore.com/

This will give you an idea of your total costs for the major components.

If you would like to read up more on amplifier designs, you can study some articles from Rod Elliott (ESP):

http://sound.whsites.net/project152-1.htm

 

Hello,

You might find some schematics on this page:
http://www.ampage.org/schems/

The page comes from this site with a lot of link pages:
http://www.ampage.org/

Bertus

 

You guys are fantastic! Very good sources. Hopefully I'll share my build soon. I'm sure I'll have some more question coming. Thanks mucho.

 

My understanding is that a 100 watt tube amp is much louder than a typical solid state amp of the same wattage.

Only because the sound of the distortion of a tube amp when it is overdriven is more tolerable than that of a solid-state amp (tube amps have a softer clip of the overdriven peaks compared to a SS amp).
They are both the same if not overdriven.

 

If you specifically want to model specific tube amps just google the schematics, most tube amp schematics are available, the Fender Bassman, 100W is actually much prized by both bass and lead guitarists.

 

Hello,

Here I found an old booklet about tube amp circuits.

Bertus

 

Hello,

Here I found an old booklet about tube amp circuits.

Bertus

THESE ARE PERFECT !! Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much for taking the time to get these for me. Now I need to check on parts availability or substitutions .

 

Here I found an old booklet about tube amp circuits.

Bertus

Notice the price.

 

I checked tube prices...not so bad really. Next.......transformers.

 

I checked tube prices...not so bad really. Next.......transformers.

That's good.
But I was referring to the price of booklet.

 

I checked tube prices...not so bad really. Next.......transformers.

The price for transformers is a real, "bite the bullet" experience, but they are at the heart of good quality. Bite the bullet.
Here are a couple of ideas:
https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/transformers_chokes

https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/transformer-marshall-replacement-output-100-w

 

Hello,

There are more tube related books on the internet archive:
https://archive.org/details/vacuumtubemanuals?&sort=-downloads

Also the following pages might interest you:
http://www.duncanamps.com/
http://www.pmillett.com/
http://www.tubebooks.org/
http://www.tubebooks.org/technical_books_online.htm

Bertus

 

In 1967 I built a tone control amplifier from a schematic that was in the back of a vacuum tube info book. This book was "The" book to have that told you everything you needed about tubes, pins, substitutions, etc. My knowledge of electronics is basically limited to my high school electronics class. This tone control project turned out to be amazing. What I would like to do is build a tube amp using this old school technology. The old tube amps are prized for their tone. Analog amplifiers are all the buzz these days from pro musicians. Does anybody have an old tube amp schematic, or know where I can find one? Hopefully they still make these old tubes and parts. I'm hoping for a 100 watt RMS (?) output or more. My understanding is that a 100 watt tube amp is much louder than a typical solid state amp of the same wattage. Your help would be appreciated.

Here is another great source of info and a place to ask experts. http://dynacotubeaudio.forumotion.com

 

In 1967 I built a tone control amplifier from a schematic that was in the back of a vacuum tube info book. This book was "The" book to have that told you everything you needed about tubes, pins, substitutions, etc. My knowledge of electronics is basically limited to my high school electronics class. This tone control project turned out to be amazing. What I would like to do is build a tube amp using this old school technology. The old tube amps are prized for their tone. Analog amplifiers are all the buzz these days from pro musicians. Does anybody have an old tube amp schematic, or know where I can find one? Hopefully they still make these old tubes and parts. I'm hoping for a 100 watt RMS (?) output or more. My understanding is that a 100 watt tube amp is much louder than a typical solid state amp of the same wattage. Your help would be appreciated.

Two of my favorite websites will give you more tube amplifier circuits than you can imagine. The best part is that most of the schematics are in a PDF format, and most of them are very sharp lines, not fuzzy and hard to read. You will find both circuits based on power output and circuits of specific brand and model. The sites are "FreeInformationSociety" and "SchematisforFree", and neither one demands a registration process unless you are contributing items. The only downside is that most of the circuits don't give the specifications of the transformers. But output transformer specifications can usually be deduced from the tube manual information.