by perkinsman » Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:13 pm
Hi Shannon,
First post here, was referred by others at AK. I'm a student learning the disappearing art & science of tube circuits for audio equipment. Of course no one teaches tube anymore but luckily my old timer instructor was an a tube audio guy in his younger days and has encouraged me to build a small wattage tube amp for entry into the Cal State Fair this summer '15. I like the idea of showing the public that you don't need massive Wattage to have a great sounding system with hi efficiency speakers, which one of the other students is building. I've only taken a few classes but my instructor said that I will learn more than I could from most books by building a tube amp. I've looked around and saw your Budgie SE and thought it would be a perfect project but I was questioning whether it would be a better learning experience to P2P the amp rather than just assembling the parts. Does doing P2P teach me more than just solder techniques or is it best to just go with a circuit board on my first project.
I have until the end of May to complete so theres plenty of time. Is this a good idea for a new student, and if so, what would I need besides the schematic & parts list?....and are all the parts readily available? I was not going to go very high end on the transformers since I would be using this primarily to drive an ipod, are Hammonds good enough to use?