Comments on: ipod tube dock

By: P

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:31:13 +0000

Hi! Wonderful work! I’m gonna build one of these too, as soon as I find a cheap kit on the web! Thanks for sharing!

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:42:02 +0000

tubes are so much better than transistors if a bit more expensive. The warm sound and bass you can get out of a good set of EL34s or KT-88s is unrivaled.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 06:47:57 +0000

Transistors > tubes.

By: Kurtis Berry

Kurtis Berry — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:07:52 +0000

the only part that gets warm is the wood directly behind the tubes. it isn’t as hot as my coffe cup.

By: La Rotta

La Rotta — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 02:04:26 +0000

Is Beautiful!!!! IGorgeous!! I dont have any words. I love the sound, but I love more the old-school style, and MUCH MORE the mix between old and new school!!!!

By: agent420

agent420 — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 13:20:41 +0000

"So, I'm also wondering about the safety of surrounding the tubes with wood... is this generally a risk for fire?"

No more than a hot cup of coffee on your end table. (but you probably use a coaster)

Funny to see these reactions, goes to show 1] how ignorant people are about tubes these days, and 2] how nervous people are... your toaster is much bigger threat than this!

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 23:39:18 +0000

So, I’m also wondering about the safety of surrounding the tubes with wood… is this generally a risk for fire?

By: Chris Grier

Chris Grier — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:41:52 +0000

I too built the stereo kit from tubesandmore.com, about five years ago, and it's an amazing amp.

I made four small improvements, though:

1. I subbed out the stock capacitors with slightly better ones, for a total cost of about $4.

2. I put the whole kit and kaboodle under a Marantz-style cage, which I bought from Hammond (prob from angela.com).

3. I re-mounted the RCA inputs to a more user-friendly location on the chassis.

4. The PCB-mount tube sockets that came with the thing are some sort of plastic, and started to deform and turn brown within a month, so I subbed ceramic ones at a cost of about $8.

The bass on this thing is pretty good. Eight watts is plenty loud for home listening.

I also have what the audiophile geeks call a "single-ended triode" amp, which is supposedly the bees nuts as far as accuracy, euphonious distortion, killer sound, blah blah blah, are concerned, but this thing is every bit as good, the bass is a little stronger in the sub 50Hz range, and the eight watts pushes my not-very-expensive speakers better. I like it.

There's also a fair amount of web pages devoted to modding the thing; google K-502, which is the number given to the kit when I bought it yrs ago.

By: agent420

agent420 — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:18:08 +0000

"Hope that beautiful wood enclosure never catches fire."

Bet you drive a Volvo.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 10:37:32 +0000

“…” if you read about the construction of the dayton 3 loudspeaker you will see that it is actually a 2 mid-woofer 1 tweeter setup with a crossover circuit built into it, rather than a stereo setup. the guy that designed the d3 is incredibly knowledgable about speaker construction.

By: n3rrd

n3rrd — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 03:26:20 +0000

The source of the sound isn’t necessarily all that important… the tubes will color (warm) any signal passed through them, from a DAC or a record player. It’s no more stupid than running a CD player through a tube amp.

By: jim

jim — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:14:17 +0000

it’s brilliant – i don’t mind mono in such a small design because i’d be wanting to use this as a portable or second stereo, and setting up stereo speakers for proper separation isn’t as easy as just placing them a foot apart – well it is nearly that easy, but considering that most stereos aren’t really that stereo, and it doubles the work and price, i’d build mono.

as for valves? i don’t have any, but even with mp3 they’ll sound so much more alive and natural. i imagine the bass is beautiful.

best hack yet – pity there aren’t more details.

By: ...

... — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 01:42:27 +0000

am I the only one that doesn’t see the point of hooking the pos daq in an ipod into a $100 worth of tube amp? I seriously doubt that he is using lossless compression on a nano…

on the other hand I do agree with the mono, as the speakers are so close to each-other that you wouldn’t get any stereo separation anyway. I just hope that he correctly combined the 2 stereo channels into the single mono one.

By: jay

jay — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 22:35:27 +0000

The company sells a stereo tube amp: http://www.s5electronics.com/tube12.html

I have built it and it sounds nice. I've been using it quite a bit. It does get very hot so I have to make sure the cats stay away from it.

I bought mine here:

http://www.tubesandmore.com/

they have the same kit for less money.

By: Scruge

Scruge — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 22:15:30 +0000

Speakers look good.

But I don't understand the need for tube amp on an ipod?