whats up with the cheap tube amps? Flee bay

[Tubeage]

To the OP:

Learn your basic tube theory first. Start by working on small old radios. Build your confidence so that you know your way around a basic tube amplifier circuit. Once you feel comfortable tinkering around with disposable stuff like an old "All American Five" type radio, start looking for old consoles with tube amps. Organ amps, console amps, old school PA systems are all good sources for output transformers and routine parts like tube sockets and they will also provide a workable chassis to either build on or modify. Visit hamfests often. Find stuff you can make something out of. You will get much more joy out of something you made yourself than dropping good dollar after bad into the Chinese bucket.

If you do it yourself, using the best of the old and the new technology, you can have the satisfaction of saying you did it yourself, that you have repurposed a piece of American history, and best of all, that you did it yourself and it was built in America, on your workbench, by *you*, and that it is one of a kind, not built in some slave labor factory in Communist China.

If all you want is instant gratification and to say you have "tube gear", go ahead and get a Jolida or some cheap Chinese kit. Just connect the dots and presto, you toy can be an armchair engineer, talking the talk while letting your hard earned money walk the walk.

Homebrew tube gear is simple and cheap in comparison to the brand-name recognition of factory-built modern gear from the last 20-30 years. If you want fancy lights and shiny things, get a Christmas tree.

JMO

 

[cnh2]

Many of those Chinese designs have been on the market for 15-20 years? Plenty of time to work out the kinks? And manufacturing is only getting "better" and "better" there. Look at just how many higher end "names" have their 4, 5, and 6 digit dollar items "made in China" these days!

Also, as mentioned above, many of these Chinese products are "clones" of very successful designs (some German, etc.). I've met a number of the Chinese Engineers who update and supervise some of these designs and they can "compete" with any Engineer trained in the U.S. Let's face it. Labor is "cheaper" in China. Much cheaper.

So you do get what you pay for, often. A couple of dollars an hour or 15-30 times that in the West-you have to factor that into the equation. To simply berate Chinese products because they are "cheap". Is to reproduce the bias and ethnocentric superiority that we had toward the Japanese even as they were beginning to kick our asses in SS production years ago!

Are there "better" products? Sure, if you're ready to pay an arm and a leg and your children's college tuition. lol

Or if you're some kind of electronics wizard who has so much "free time" available that he can become a polymath of tube and SS amp, and speaker repair, etc.!

One last thing: the downturn in the world economy has and is putting a lot of pressure on various Chinese brands to bring in models at lower and lower price points because they are losing market shares due to fewer and fewer buyers (even at the lower prices). Some of this is causing serious economic difficulties for many Chinese manufacturers. And is responsible for bringing down prices to very low profit margins. How much longer this can be sustained is uncertain.

cnh2

 

[SWIN]

rekmeyata: I´m using tubes to power the upper 3 drivers in my JBL 7`s!

The bass driver can really pound out the low frequency´s using SS - and a tube amp really brings out the best from the front drivers.

Levels are no problem, just adjust by ear, and music.

But sorry, no - i dont use .cn made amps - bought me some cheap US made high quality professional gear - 2 x Peavey 50/50 in mono bridged mode, gives me plenty of headroom.

8 x EL84M (6P14P-ER) ´s / channel really get things going

Just some tube rolling in the preamp, and snipping out the "resonance" circuit, does it for me.

 

[reggaenaut]

Not everyone is good with a solder iron. As a matter of fact some are down right dangerous to themselves and others when messing with anything electric. The Chinese are a blessing to a lot of audio fans on a tight budget. Just do your research and you will know what models have garnered good feed back over time.

 

[rekmeyata]

rekmeyata: I´m using tubes to power the upper 3 drivers in my JBL 7`s!

The bass driver can really pound out the low frequency´s using SS - and a tube amp really brings out the best from the front drivers.

Levels are no problem, just adjust by ear, and music.

But sorry, no - i dont use .cn made amps - bought me some cheap US made high quality professional gear - 2 x Peavey 50/50 in mono bridged mode, gives me plenty of headroom.

8 x EL84M (6P14P-ER) ´s / channel really get things going

Just some tube rolling in the preamp, and snipping out the "resonance" circuit, does it for me.

Thanks for the reply.

I see you also have L7's, I really like them, and they sounded sweeter when I finally dug out the old turntable, a mid end Rotel AR1000 I bought in 74 I think, and bought my first record after throwing away a bunch when I thought CD's was modern way and vinyl was dead!! So I'm slowly buying records again after I discovered the sound did indeed sound a sweeter more natural, and mellow. I cleaned up the turntable, and got a new belt for it and lubed it, and it works like a charm after sitting for 25 years. I'm thinking about getting a new cartridge after doing some research and will probably get a Denon DL110 from the reviews I read, if you have any impressions on that cart I would appreciate your thoughts.

Back to the tube amp thing, if the tube amp is fed into my HK PT2300 preamp/tuner preouts wouldn't the volume control from the preamp/tuner govern both amps since my preamp/tuner has two sets of preouts?

I read a lot of reviews on various amps and it seems like the Yagin MC10L got rave reviews ranking it to tube amps costing over a thousand dollars. And some of the reviewers had theirs for more then 3 years and was still going strong. I'm tightwad as you can tell my system, I bought the gear at Circuit City about 18 years ago so the stuff was good stuff for them but nowhere near the level of small high end shops that sell $40,000 speakers!! I'm not wanting to spend $2,000 or so on an amp, and since I have a electronic amp that can drive the base, I wouldn't think I need a expensive amp to drive the mids and highs. And I would think that the Yagin would improve the sound noticeable over the electronic amp for the same reason you did the same thing.

If you can find me a 52 watt per channel tube amp I can buy new for around $450 (shipping from China adds about $160) I'm all ears...or is it eyes?

Thanks for any comments.

 

[Donny]

To the OP:

Learn your basic tube theory first. Start by working on small old radios. Build your confidence so that you know your way around a basic tube amplifier circuit. Once you feel comfortable tinkering around with disposable stuff like an old "All American Five" type radio, start looking for old consoles with tube amps. Organ amps, console amps, old school PA systems are all good sources for output transformers and routine parts like tube sockets and they will also provide a workable chassis to either build on or modify. Visit hamfests often. Find stuff you can make something out of. You will get much more joy out of something you made yourself than dropping good dollar after bad into the Chinese bucket.

If you do it yourself, using the best of the old and the new technology, you can have the satisfaction of saying you did it yourself, that you have repurposed a piece of American history, and best of all, that you did it yourself and it was built in America, on your workbench, by *you*, and that it is one of a kind, not built in some slave labor factory in Communist China.

If all you want is instant gratification and to say you have "tube gear", go ahead and get a Jolida or some cheap Chinese kit. Just connect the dots and presto, you toy can be an armchair engineer, talking the talk while letting your hard earned money walk the walk.

Homebrew tube gear is simple and cheap in comparison to the brand-name recognition of factory-built modern gear from the last 20-30 years. If you want fancy lights and shiny things, get a Christmas tree.

JMO

I LOVE this post! esp the Christmas tree lol. I don't know much about the tech however I did recap an old motorola console amp about 5years ago. It's a 3channel 2 stereo with center bass. Finding speakers that work well with it has been my problem and also have a staic issue. May unearth it from the closet and fix some connections...