On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 13:07:00 -0000, "Will Reeve"
wrote:

I'm too young to have witnessed valves the first time around and fancy
giving
them a go now for a Christmas project!

I love the look of the glowing valves; I do solid state
for a living and fancy something a bit different.

I like to compare the whole Hi-Fi world to my other passion...cars. I think
the valve amp is a bit like a classic car, some can be cheap and bloody good
fun (I have a TR7 V8 ragtop) other expensive and more reliable. I
certainly wouldn't want to do a long trip in a cheap one or use it as my
everyday reliable transport but as a bit of fun and something different for
the weekend, why not?

On a more practical note I have a friend who can laser cut/drill highly
polished stainless steel, however I am having difficulty it finding where I
can get wooded side panels made (I intend to use the stainless for the top
and bottom plates). So if anyone can make the wood I can get the plates and
do a swap! I was thinking a nice varnished hardwood and polished stainless
would look very nice!

My budget is 150quid max (excluding enclosure) and something easy to wire by
hand, not many valves, and warm sound to soften CD would be nice. Thanks for
the links I have found from previous replies much better than the ones I
generated with Google. I have a few evenings of surfing / reading to do! I
guess transformers from somewhere like sowter will be 100quid of that
budget?

Correct, but OTOH the output transfomers are by far the most important
part of any valve amp. BTW, just one caveat if you 'do solid state for
a living' and fancy playing with valves - digging about inside valve
amps can get you *killed* very quickly! Do have proper respect for
large DC voltages with chunky amounts of current behind them, they'll
stop your heart in a heartbeat - so to speak.................
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering