My labour of love - a serious bass amplifier.

[milky]

Having grown up in the valve (tube) era, I always had a love of the warmth they can impart to music. These pictures are V2 of a 200 watt bass amp I built for my talented bassist son. We are about to embark on V3, which will include some effects and interesting things.

[milky]

Another pretty shot.

[clover-leaf-productions]

Dang Milky that is a beautiful thing!  Are those the high performance tubes that come out of Europe, that have a blue glow when they are energized?  I understand the blue glowing tubes are quite expensive, but worth the financial investment for the true audiophile.

[milky]

Yes, CLP, these are Russian tubes from Electro-Harmonix. They glow with a bluish tinge which darkens as the volume increases.

[Jigger]

Ah Milky memories of valve amps takes me back.

[LASER558]

Just beautiful, love valve amps and that's a fantastic example 

[clover-leaf-productions]

The Russians really worked very hard to perfect tube technology, even into the 80's, and 90's, because they believed it far superior for military purposes, and felt it had a better chance of surviving an EM pulse from a nuclear blast.

[DJ Nikki]

That's beautiful James.

[markebenson]

Looks like north Korea is still using tube technology for their military.

[milky]

Not too sure what to read into that comment. If it was politically motivated, I will not make a response. I just posted because I am proud of what I have built, and was trying to encourage others to respond with whatever they may have built or thought about designing.

[clover-leaf-productions]

Nothing interesting to read, or see here Dr. Milky.  I was just endeavoring to give folks an understanding of why these cool looking blue tubes came into existence.  It is unfortunate to say, but many of the great technologies that we enjoy today had their developmental roots on some military build up drawing board.

[Dj Buik]

AWESOME!

What circuit diagram you used?
I saw you even built your diode bridge with standard components.


I built back in de 70s/80s AM transmitters with the famous 807 tube:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/807_(vacuum_tube)

Also i built a Amplifiers with the EL34 tubes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EL34

Great times !

[milky]

EH)What circuit diagram you used?
I saw you even built your diode bridge with standard components.

I have a book "Principles of Power" by Kevin O'Connor. It has many, hand-drawn circuits, mainly early Fender guitar and Hammond organ designs. I tried to keep it as authentic as possible, but I did use a printed circuit kit for the EQ section. I intend to replace that with a five stage EQ circuit based around a single 12AX7 (6922 EH).