A conventional tube amplifier has a circuit whose fundamentals were well in place around a hundred years ago, so there are few surprises to be found in building one today. Nevertheless, building one is still a challenge, as [Mike Freda shows us with a stereo amplifier in the video below the break.

The tubes in question are the 12AU7 double triode and 6L6 tetrode, in this case brand new PSVANE parts from China. The design is a very conventional single-ended class A circuit, with both side of the double triode being used for extra gain driving the tetrode. The output uses a tapped transformer with the tap going to the other grid in the tertode, something we dimly remember as being an “ultra-linear” circuit.

There’s an element of workshop entertainment in the video, but aside from that we think it’s the process of characterising the amp and getting its voltages right which is the take-away here. It’s not something many of us do these days, so despite the apparent simplicity of the circuit it’s worth a look.

These modern tubes come from a variety of different sources, we’ve attempted to track them down in the past.

Maastr is an AI-powered music mastering software that allows users to quickly and easily master their audio tracks. It features tools developed by sound engineers and also allows for collaborative feedback and revision tracking. It is suitable for both sound engineers and musicians looking to streamline their mastering process. With Maastr, users can upload their […]

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Audiobox from Meta is an AI audio generation tool that lets you create custom voices, sound effects, and audio stories with easy text prompts. Meta’s AI audio model can be used for text-to-speech, voice mimicking, sound effect generation, and can be showcased or tested via four interactive storytelling demos. The DAW-like layout of the interface […]

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Recast is an AI-powered tool that turns long articles into short, entertaining audio summaries. It has a mobile app, Chrome extension, and web interface that let you easily convert articles into audio podcasts. Recast can be a great tool for summarizing articles, lowering screen time, and clearing your reading list backlog! The app and Chrome […]

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Melobytes is a suite of AI tools for generating music and sound. There are a ton of different features which can help musicians gain inspiration, and even without prior music experience you’ll be able to generate music tracks from text or other prompts. One of the coolest tools on there is the ability to generate […]

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