HILLBILLY HI-FI ! Grandpa's homemade vacuum tube amp!

The story on this amp is as follows. My wife's grandfather who is 94 was a radio man in World War 2. When he came home from the war he ran a TV-Radio repair business. He closed that in the late `60s and went to work 9-5 for some large corporation. He was always active in Ham and Amateur radio up until the past few years. An overzealous relative took the liberty to clean his house of all of his tubes and radios before I caught wind of it and everything was tossed! Long story short I found this little homemade dual
6V6 amp in a shed up at the family lake. It was attached to a homemade receiver of some sort he used for his Ham radio set up. As you can see this amp is made from a mish-mash of leftover parts. You should see the underneath of this thing you would be stunned! I saved it from the shed for the tubes but when I got it home I looked it over and though it is a FRANKENSTEIN it looked safe. So I hooked it up to the turntable on my RCA SHF-8 and the 10 inch speaker in a `40s Zenith floor radio. Needless to say I was stunned and amazed, not only did the amp work it sounds AWESOME!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• RCA
• Zenith
• Recod
• player
• phonograph
• Enoch
• Light

[dennman6]

This is fantastic! So neat to see you make use of gramp's amp in this way. Has he been told about YOUR project with his old handiwork? And what is the record? Sounds like one of those early "Ping-Pong Percussion" stereophonic demo Lps from the early '60s. I recognize the Command label, but give us details please.

[bastardbus]

@dennman6

The album is Enoch Light and the Light Brigade, Provocative Percussion vol.2 on the Command Label 1960. I have a friend in Columbus Ohio who is a big collector of vintage audio equipment, records etc. he turned me on to Enoch Light recordings, they are absolutely AMAZING sounding and the music ain't bad either. You are right these are a true demonstration of stereo at it's finest and high fidelity as well.

Gramps, well he is pretty much "outta the loop" anymore sorry to say.

I

[dennymambo]

I love it! I'm 28 so valves were all but gone by the time I had a sound system. Yet it isn't hard for me to see why people are going back to the old ways lol. More complete sound, as digital audio signals are 'edited' right to (and some say into) the frequency of human hearing range.

Plus there is the fact that he built it from scratch out of stuff that he had spare by the looks of it. As opposed to paying through the nose for something that rolled of a conveyor belt and is 100% disposable...

[tenjinnim]

if you dont mind me asking what tubes are using ?

[tenjinnim]

that is not a hill billy setup.. no hill billy is smart enough to jerry rig and creat their own tube design... props and my hats off to you for a well made setup !!

[phoenix11994466]

@vamtim Yes, and also the production process is better today than 50 yeas ago.

[vamtim]

@phoenix11994466 Thankfully the Russians and the Chinese still make valves as they never went out of production in those countries!!

[vamtim]

@phoenix11994466 With regards to vinyl making a comeback I think that some people are bored and a little scared by this formatless age that we are entering into. You can have everything at the touch of a keyboard yet this seems to of made things valueless, I remember as a teenager saving up my money to invest in a cd that I really loved and it gave that item immense sentimental value, how could anyone get like that over MP3?

[vamtim]

@davev8app Me too!!

[vamtim]

@phoenix11994466 I agree with you whole heartedly, yes audio technology may have gotten better on a spec sheet however as you say the listening experience over time has been overlooked. If it weren't for the fact that I was in a band and bought a valve amp for my guitar I wouldn't of found out when I did about valves. I always remember as a child listening to records from the 50's and 60's and thinking that they sounded beautiful only now do I know why!

[phoenix11994466]

@vamtim Advancements in audio technology has been huge since the 50's and 60's..More power, better specs, lighter weight, more watts per dollar etc..Problem is, along the way someone forgot about the listening experience...However, guitarists still use Valve Amps, even for massive outdoor conceits, they simply mice them up to a 50,000 watt system to get a big sound...In relation to HI FI, yeah youre right, valves sound more life like... I also notice Vinyl is making a big come-back too

[vamtim]

@donnyab

Vinyl will kill the MP3 industry.

At least I hope so.