Mini Amp ideas - suggestions welcome

[bamslam69]

Hey all,
I've had this sitting on my shelf for a while and thinking I might upgrade on the tube cricket circuit inside. It's okay, but to be honest it's just sits there looking cool. My noisy cricket gets way more use as a test amp.
I put this together about 4 years ago - a mate built the box out of Tasmanian Myrtle Burl.
I'd like to keep it to a 3 knob face design, but maybe some internal dials would be considered.
Any suggestions are welcome, even ridiculous ones.
So far my first idea is a Tiny Giant with a bass treble tone stack - still new to this idea, so tell me if that's dumb.
Cheers,
Bamslam

[LightSoundGeometry]

that thing looks cool.

if you are not scared of getting electrocuted, like I am ,why not just buy a pre fab chassis and build a  bassman, jtm45 or similar ?

[bamslam69]

that thing looks cool.

if you are not scared of getting electrocuted, like I am ,why not just buy a pre fab chassis and build a  bassman, jtm45 or similar ?

Nah, I prefer to keep this as simple low voltage dc stuff. I've entertained the idea of making an amp in the past, but it's not high on my to-do list.
Maybe a bluetooth amp head is an option. As I said, open to ideas.

[LightSoundGeometry]

that thing looks cool.

if you are not scared of getting electrocuted, like I am ,why not just buy a pre fab chassis and build a  bassman, jtm45 or similar ?

Nah, I prefer to keep this as simple low voltage dc stuff. I've entertained the idea of making an amp in the past, but it's not high on my to-do list.
Maybe a bluetooth amp head is an option. As I said, open to ideas.

thats cool my friend.

obied, is from my area, he worked at crate back in the day when they were in saint louis - where you at billy strassercaster ? lol

maybe one his videos can spark an idea for you - i like the inspiration from his gto !

18 watts good enough for live band

[Marcos - Munky]

What about this?

- class D power amp, you can get a 30W-ish board that can be powered by a notebook power supply.
- tube preamp based on the Alembic F2B, but with gain/single knob tone/volume as the pots, or fixed gain/bass and treble tone stack with fixed mids/volume. You already have the tube.
- you'll need a high dc voltage to power the preamp. Go for that 555 smps, which can take a input of 9-12VDC and gives a output of about 200VDC. Simple enough to build (there are some verified layouts), safe enough to not get electrocuted.
- to power the smps, use a dc-dc step down converter to get 12V from the notebook power supply. You can also use the same 12V to power the heaters.

This way, you'll end up with a compact and useful hybrid amp, which runs with a switching power supply. I did something similar to this idea (https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=83697.msg1168318#msg1168318) but using a different preamp and lowered the voltage to 6V (because this tube heaters runs on 6V only) instead of 12V..

[bamslam69]

Thanks Marcos. Gonna look into this.

[amptramp]

There are a bunch of low-voltage tube amps here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160316202627/http://www.sophtamps.ca/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=37

and the 12 volt supply should be readily available as either a wall wart or a design-it-yourself transformer/rectifier/filter cap supply the can be substituted for 12 volt battery supply.  That new-fangled solid state stuff just doesn't cut it for audio.

[bamslam69]

Part of the issue with going "all tube" is fitting it inside this box, but it's all about taking in ideas and options, so thanks.
If there's room to drill more holes for pots, definitely on the cards.