This pages are dedicated  to Audio, Radio  and  to Vacuum tubes
	Philips TC04/10 on Kiesewetter Excelsior Vollnetz 36A

 

DIY Projects:

A line amp project on the work bench: A409 Triode Line Amplifiers	Actually a pair of mono power amps is on the workbench:  T-40 SE Amps

       

Tube Testers:

Ralf's Tube Testers Page

 
Boatanchors:

Ralf's Boatanchor pages

 

Antique Tube Radios:

Ralf's Antique Tube Radios

Tube data:

Data about old Line Triodes used by the PTT's  from USA, UK, Germany, France PTT Line Triodes

Data about various Tube Rectifiers Tube Rectifiers

DRM tuner (with PC connection):

Tuner for Digital Radio Mondiale

A kit-based double-superhet tuner for DRM with software decoder:: DRM Tuner

 

 

Actually my system consists of:

 Tuner:
 

Freed-Eisemann tuner model 750

I bought this NOS tuner/preamp by chance. It is mono and supports AM and FM:.  Freed-Eisemann 750

 

Thomson DTH4500 DVD-Player:

 

A radical change in my audio life ;-) I've decided to leave the 'old CD-Player world' and go for a DVD Player. After scanning test results for a lot of players I voted for the Thomson DTH4500. This player can play: Audio CD CD-R and CD-RW Video DVD Video-CD Meanwhile the player has landed. And is doing a good job. I'm really satisfied with the sound I can hear from it. I had a quick look in it and found it is equipped with a switched power supply. The chips on the digital logic board are from Samsung. I placed the DTH4500 with my other audio equipment. Unfortunately my TV/Video-Recorder is located in my living room in a large distance, so I took a Hosiden cable for video and a RCA cable for audio both of 10 m to connect the Player with the TV. By using the S-Video mode, I had to find a solution to connect my TV without a S-Video input. Searching the web I found a very tricky method: just connect the Y line and the C line of the S-Video cable with a 2.200pF capacitor, that's all. Now S-Video connects to a normal FBAS-input, this works pretty well.

Thomson DTH4500 without cover.  On the left side is the high integrated digital logic board. Right of the disc drive is the switched power supply.

 

#27 Triode Line Amp A DIY build Line Amp with old #27 indirect heated triodes:  #27 Triode Line Amp Project

 

Decware Zen Amp SE84B
 

A power amp with Svetlana SV83 tubes in triode mode connection. This little amp is handbuild and point-to-point wired. The line stage consists of 1 Svetlana 6N1P (similar to 6DJ8/6922), the power stages each of 1 Svetlana SV83 in single-ended triode mode connection. The SV83 can be substituted by EL84/6BQ5, but the Svetlana tube has more power. For rectification of B+ the Zen Amp is using a 5Y3GT, the heaters are provided with AC. Actually I've changed the 5Y3GT to a 5V4GA, and the 6N1P to a Philips JAN 6922. I've substituted the 1000 µF cathode capacitor by a high quality one, and connected the AC heater lines with 2 * 100 ohm resistors against ground. The Zen Amp SE84B is supposed to have 5 watts per channel, but I guess it is more in the range of 3W. What surprised me most is the very tight bass. I'm running the Zen Amp on a fat step-down transformer for 230V to 115V, a huge 300VA and more iron. I wrote a review of this amp; you can find it on Decware's website: Decware

 

Lowther Acousta 115 
 

The loudspeakers in my audio equipment are Lowther Acousta 115 horns. I got them from  Opera Audio .  They are equiped with Lowther DX-2 Chassis. This combination has a SPL of 97 dB, which is still enough for my power amp. Before this horns I had 2 way systems with Scan-Speak chassis running, and was a bit concerned by the sound which might the Acoustas will have, because I heard a lot of things about the 'very own sound' of horn systems. But I'm really happily surprised. The Acoustas have a very clean and neutral sound.

Links

There are a lot of DIY and tube related links on the web, so I will just show those which impressed me most or have outstanding services:
 

My favorite American surplus dealer with good prices, and nice tubes	Fair Radio
The best search engine for tube data I've found so far	Duncan Munro's TDSL3
The Foren group of Ducan Munro's DuncanAmps	Forum.Duncanamps.Com
Sakuma's direct heating amps - most impressive amps I've ever seen	The wonders of direct heating
Ingo Gorges' audio and guitar amp transformers (in English !)	Audio Transformers Shinrock
A French Website about French radios: c'est fantastique !	DocTSF
Riders Online: vintage radio references, a must for American radios	Nostalgia Air
Radiomuseum of Ernst Erb (German language)	Radiomuseum.org
Transformers, also customized build, and other stuff by Gerd R.	Reinhoefer electronic

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