Building a Pre Amp

anyone ever thought about building their own pre amp? for playing sound system ect?

drop some comments

anyone ever thought about building their own pre amp?

championdrei wrote: what is it you have to learn though? is it electrical engineering or something?? im currently going to start college in September only 16 at the moment, i've loved sound system and ting since a young age through my dad.. got his own barracuda pre and ting always wanted to build my own equipment and stuff but just need the knowledge

infrasound wrote: championdrei wrote: what is it you have to learn though? is it electrical engineering or something?? im currently going to start college in September only 16 at the moment, i've loved sound system and ting since a young age through my dad.. got his own barracuda pre and ting always wanted to build my own equipment and stuff but just need the knowledge  Yup

Not to nitpick but you want electronic engineering to design and a build a pre, electrical engineering is more about high voltage stuff. Mains etc. Wouldn't want someone to sign up to a course and not realise, could be a pain to sort out.

well I was asked by Lloydie Coxsone to do just that after he heard work I had carried out refitting one of my older installs in a well known Club in Brixton. we had a brief discourse on what he wanted and a basic idea and a deal was struck. but he is not actually first in the queue but 2nd. 1st place has been occupied by a guy from the West Country/Bristol area who some may know or at least know of a website he maintains dealing with the history of old Sound Systems he has a few rare old pieces pf kit that in their time were used by the likes of Lord Koos and others.
he brought me a "Link Audio Systems" (Birmingham) in a very sad state. but then having had a lot of experience of such devices found it just like most a mess badly designed and built. with a far from logical approach to it's layout or concept.
I usually work in Pro-Audio for the most part but always been into the Reggae Sound System thing from a very young age of 9yrs old or thereabouts. I have built stuff from time to time for a few but found it not very rewarding financially. And being a Mercenary Sod that I am did not do it often.
but I am finding it quite fun to do nowadays and I am building a few ( 4 at present )

I am sure they will turn out as well as the last bit of custom work I undertook which was the Core Processor for Ken Dibbles "Reciprocating Delay System" at Coventry Cathedral and although that was over 20yrs ago and have never had that particular "itch" that needed scratching for all this time.
so to the Bench once more to toil and see what wonder comes of it and it will make a change from just dealing in electrocoustics and waveguides for a while a change is as good as a rest after all

Building a "Bottle" pre-amp is easy enough depends on how sophisticated you want it to be. certainly easier than a power amp. EF86 are a good basis for a modern low noise circuit then use ECC82/83 for line driver  always a bit prroblematic finding Carbon Resistors(would never use MF types myself) and decent caps with a good power factor as well as working voltage as the modern ones are mostly low voltage types as well as having a poor power factor. I always empty any drawers of Carbon Resistors when ever I come across them cleaned out Cricklewood Electronics of lot of their stock some time ago. you just gotta search any surplus stores you may find