I built a headphone amplifier using John Broskie's Aikido All-in-One PCB with Tube Rectifier. The PCB is well made and easy to build, and I am satisfied with how it sounds.

One comment is that R9, R10, and R13 (see the attached schematic) affect the distortion introduced by the circuit. By changing R13, I was able to cut the distortion by as much as 90%, from 0.2% @1kHz 1Vrms output down to 0.02%. My optimum was R13=90ohm with B+ at 310V (using the recommended Hammond 270EX power transformer) and all other values as in the attached schematic.

For every hobbyist-built amplifier in existence there are probably one thousand amplifiers which are planned on being built and maybe one hundred amplifiers that have all their parts collected in a box waiting to be built and ten amplifiers that are partially built and collecting dust in a closet.

(see full post here)

Got this today on the cheap - a box of 6N1P-VI, made in 1988, all new in authentic factory packaging. It is likely to keep me entertained for quite some time

Note: the PDF attachment is a scan of the factory three page insert from the box. It is in Russian and contains the pinout and electrical and limiting parameters of the tube but NO CURVES.

I build myself a Millett's Hybrid Headphone amp, originally published in AudioXpress issue 11, 2001.

The amp uses low-voltage 12AE6A tubes for voltage amplification and BUF634 solid state buffers to drive the load. Each tube houses two diodes (unused) and a triode, here loaded with a CCS. The whole thing runs off a 24VDC power brick and consumes maybe 150mA after the tubes heat up.

The DC operating point of the triode can be adjusted with a multiturn trimpot. The original AudioXpress article talks about the influence of the operating point on the sound and suggests to trim for symmetrical clipping, then adjust for the subjectively best sound.

The aha! moment came when I connected the amp to my sound card and looked at the distortion spectrum. On small signals (~300mV output into 300 ohm) the distortion is 2nd harmonic only. The operation point can be trimmed to the point where the the 2nd harmonic goes into the noise floor! I've read about this but...

Someone pointed out that it's interesting to see all the components in a system, rather than discuss them individually. I liked the idea - I think it also shows what projects ended up actually useful - so here are my systems (I have four with diy components).

The music I listen to is an eclectic mix of classical music (such as Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky), opera (mostly arias), jazz (Armstrong) and some pop music.

The first system is the one I listen to the most:

• exposure 2010S CD player with Tentlabs low-jitter clock
• B1 clone preamp
• F5 clone
• Vintage Celestion DITTON 15XR speakers

The second system is the testbed for whatever project I may be working on:

• Audio Analogue Crescendo CD player
• B1 clone preamp
• Zen V4 with SiC power JFET in the gain stage
• Klipsch Heresy III speakers

The third is the best sounding so far, has the highest WAF and is likely to stay around for some time:

• Sony CDP-XB920 CD Player
• Elekit TU-879S integrated amp

...