Recent content by JohnEss

Well not an expert or anything but you learn as you go. After 30 years of fooling around with this, something is bound to rub off onto you. Heck...even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. Seriously though, tube audio at it's best is simple for the most part...simple parts, simple...

Yes...the Kegger circuit. After watching all the videos that Blueglow did, I felt really confident that it worked well and was something I could build. I did a couple things differently...turned the output transformers so the cores wouldn't couple together...don't understand why they were so...

Absolutely! Hah...had to chuckle after looking at his site. Blast from the past seeing brand new MkIII's. Looks like he does a nice job. The Focals are nice...very accurate and detailed. Great midrange for vocals. Excellent on acoustic instruments paired with my single end amp. Couldfn't pass...

This one uses the 4493 as I wanted to keep cost reasonable. And I got the socketed version so I can upgrade later. Hah...got my start with tube gear thru Dynaco 30 years ago....MkIII's and IV's that are the big brothers to the ST-35. Kinda wish I still had the IV's, but the gear I just built is...

My new stack...just received my Geshelli Labs JNOG2. Ordered the bloodwood case and it looks very nice. Using a linear ps from eBay. Too early to comment about audio quality. I did open the ps to take a look inside...very nicely built and it looks solid. Time to play it...first music passed thru...

Watch the videos and read up on building this and get an idea of what it takes. Good planning is helpful in making things fit and to have placement of parts so that there's no hum or noise. Some of this involves setting up good grounding technique. But none of it is rocket science. I started...

My total cost for the SE KT88 amp was easily under $1k. The sound quality favors clarity, great detail, and a nice full sound once I started using the pre that I built. Acoustic instruments and vocals are where it really shines...although it can handle larger scale music without much difficulty...

Look for the Kegger/Blueglow SEKT88 thread on AK. Mark..at Blueglow Electronics..has like a 14 part video series on YT about building and testing this amp. There are a couple of small issues with directions and schematic but nothing that you can't spot if paying attention. They could be done as...

These are all DIY. The amp is single end with KT88's and the pre uses 6J5's. The amp is a build that has been popular on Audiokarma and there's a multi part video on Youtube. Amp is good for about 10 wpc...which I was surprised to find was quite adequate when I first started looking at single...

That LM3042 looks like a pretty kick butt IC. Very high specs. Data sheet has everything needed to DIY a supply.

Part of the problem with using line level input devices with a phono preamp is that there aren't any standards for the output level of the cartridges. Between MC and MM and high output and low output, there's too much variety to have a standard. It seems like finding a good combination may take...

Tough to say without tearing one apart...but I would say probably whichever one is cheaper. I was more focused on DIY a very simple totally linear approach. Maybe get around to try this later...after several other projects. Guess it's good to stay busy.

Yes...for the most part..a heat sink would be used if the current draw through the IC was great enough. And the smoothing cap requirements are minimal. This tiny 5v regulator from TI is only 6.5mm x 3.5mm...and can probably handle most cell phone needs without the use of heatsinking. Upper part...

With surface mount components, size is minimal and with the lowish current draw of the devices used with these, heat sinking for the regulator may not be needed. The biggest expense for DIY supply would be the choice of battery capacity...LiFePO batteries aren't cheap but they are pretty much...