Tube DIY Asylum

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Here is the thing: Avoid gilding a dandelion.

Posted by Chip647 on March 12, 2017 at 13:13:26:
I totally disagree, i do not think the decision was made due to cost. A 50 cent transistor is far cheaper than a tube stage in production. Fancy parts are fun, but be careful, you can't improve a marginal circuit with fancy parts to sound better than a good circuit with normal parts.

Balanced circuits were all the rage 20 years ago because of perceived "professional quality". You don't see them much today because they don't sound as good as a quality single ended circuit. Pro's use them in large studio and hall environments as the long cable runs pick up noise, despite the problems they create with inherent distortion of spitting the signal and amplifying the positive and negative separately, then combining them with errors.

What problems do you want to solve with the preamp?

1. How much gain do you need?
2. What circuit are you trying to drive?
3. How long is the cable you are driving?
4. Do you really need balanced patch cords?
4. How many signals do you need to switch?

If all you need is a buffered attenuator for your CD player with two sources to switch and an amp 1 foot away? An AVC, or a 01a, 26, 10, 801a DHT will be worlds better than running your signal through 6 tube sections (12 for stereo) for just some attenuation.