"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
...

"Iain Churches" wrote in message
i.fi...

"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
...

"max graff" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi guys,

I am planning on building my own valve amp and need a starting
point
viz. books, forums etc. Any tips would be of good help.

**Just listen to a bunch of amps in your price range. Buy or build
the one
you like. Just for yuks, see if you can organise a blind test of the
amps.
That orta sort out the dodgy ones. For valve amps, unless you build
it
PRECISELY the way you hear it (same valves, same output
transformers, etc)
you will be wasting your time.



It is *never* a waste if time, Trevor.
For many, that is the whole point of building a valve/tube amp. One
can
try different brands of the same small signal tube. They will
probably have
identical very low distortion, but slightly differing distortion
spectra.
Each will sound a little different - not necessarily better or
worse -
but different. That's what people mean by "tube voicing"

It's a fascinating hobby.

**Far and away, the biggest variable with a valve amp is the output
transformer. By the time people have purchased half a dozen different
transformers, so they can vary the 'voicing' (as you put it), they
will be much poorer. THEN you can muck about with different valves. A
much better idea is to listen to a range of amps and select the one
which suits.



The trouble with listening to a *range* of valve amps is that, after the
first 2 or 3 dozen, they all start to sound the same....