Tube Amp Archive

For "apartment loudness levels" I much more prefer using preamps and headphones than anything that must be cranked in the "final stage" to achieve a certain sound. Unfortunately this is a hard truth. Maybe the best we can hope for, in noise constrained environments, is headphone monitoring. I much ...

Using London Power's SB or SV kits, a good master and voltage clamping on the pre and PI. It is the preamp that is held constant through all range of power scaling that you spoke of above coupled with a good MV that minimizes tone change. Yes, I eventually plan to employ Power Scaling an amp that r...

I did it on a couple of amps and didn't really like it. I find a master volume works best coupled with a lower wattage amp. Even my firefly at less than a watt is loud as heck. Yes, I built the 1W Firefly and she's extremely loud with 100.5dB sensitive speakers..... way too loud for playing around ...

Yes, it does seem to change the distortion characteristic of the tubes distorting. But it is subtle and rather linear throughout the scope of being dialed down. Thanks for sharing your real world experience in regard to VVR - very insightful. I find that when I turn down the voltage with VVR, the h...

Power scaling is a tool like other voltage modifiers, it works well, but like other methods including attenuation when you stop pushing air with the speakers they all sound like a buzzy am radio. Yes, playing live in front of a guitar cabinet presents a very important feedback loop for the guitaris...

Hello, I'm new to the forum and thought I would re-post a thread I started over at diyaudio; it appears there are more guitar amp related tube enthusiasts on this site: I took up guitar about a year ago, and like any self-respecting engineer and DIY audio person, I've put a lot of thought into the g...