How much watt from a DIY Tube

[swaroopdk]

Hi,

I am a newbie here, though I have got great help from reading other posts and finally dived in to buy the RF-63/RC-64/RS-62 and RT 12D sub. I system will go into my loft and will be used for watching movies and music. I plan on buying the Harman Kardon AVR 3600 for the movies and want to build my own stereo tube amp for "warm" music. I will only power the RF-63s using the tube.

I do not listen to music at loud volumes. My room (loft) is 12'X18', so not too large. I am hoping someone here can give me some suggestions as to how much watts I should be looking for in the tube amp and anyhting that will help me building my amp. I know my speakers are 99db, so very efficient. Will 8-10 watt/ch tube do the trick for me?

Thanks in advance

[Guest " "]

My take is that it depends on the kind of music you like and what you have in your room.

An empty room absorbs less sound than a fully furnished, carpeted, and curtained room.

If you listen to light jazz 8 to 10 watts will be fine. If you are a hard rocker, 8 - 10 watts will not have enough slam in it and will sound like a bird flew into your window fan at high volumes.

[tube fanatic]

Regarding the power you need, even 1-3 watts/channel will be more than sufficient if you do not listen to loud music. As far as building your own amp, do you have experience working with voltages which are potentially lethal? Tube amps operate at much higher voltages than solid state amps. Depending on the type of circuit employed, tube amps can have a very different sound from each other. A triode with a single output tube will sound quite different from a single pentode. Push-pull amps, which use 2 tubes in the output stage, have their own sound characteristics. For warm sound nothing can match a triode amplifier, but you need to accept that the bass will be somewhat "softer" and less "tight" than amps using pentodes; also, the power output of many triode designs is lower than with pentodes. There are many sites online with design information for simple triode amplifiers.

[Guest " "]

here's a nice spl calculator

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

[swaroopdk]

Is there a way I can direct the bass directly to the RT-12D sub from the audio player? Do any of the sacd players have such an option? If I can, that should solve my bass issue rt? Or I am being very stupid with my post

[kellyj994]

Regarding the power you need, even 1-3 watts/channel will be more than sufficient if you do not listen to loud music. As far as building your own amp, do you have experience working with voltages which are potentially lethal? Tube amps operate at much higher voltages than solid state amps. Depending on the type of circuit employed, tube amps can have a very different sound from each other. A triode with a single output tube will sound quite different from a single pentode. Push-pull amps, which use 2 tubes in the output stage, have their own sound characteristics. For warm sound nothing can match a triode amplifier, but you need to accept that the bass will be somewhat "softer" and less "tight" than amps using pentodes; also, the power output of many triode designs is lower than with pentodes. There are many sites online with design information for simple triode amplifiers.

Great post! It's very nice. Thank you so much for your post.