300B Amps: an early breadboard

Browsing my schematic archive I found this early implementation from some years ago on the 300B:

The amp design is straight forward. Let’s start from the output stage. The 300B is run hot at 33W (376V/90mA) with a fixed bias of about -78V. I used a pair of LL1623/90mA OPTs which I had wired on 3K:8 mode.

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Flexible CCS board prototype

I’ve been prototyping a flexible CCS PCB. The intent is to provide a cascoded FET pair with some interesting features:

  1. The lower FET can be multiple devices depending on the choice of reverse capacitance and transconductance. These include jFETs and depletion MOSFETs like the 2SK170, J310, BF862 and of course DN2540. For this purpose several pads are provided for SMD devices as well as TO-92 ones, just like the gyrator PCB. A protection Zener diode between drain and source can be soldered when using low VDSS devices.
  2. There is either a string of trimpot plus a resistor to set the CCS current manually during test given the variance in the FET parameters.  There is also an option to put a fixed resistor.
  3. There is a mu-output connection provided.

The board is very flexible and can be used for multiple purposes:

  1. shunt regulators (including VR valves)
  2. Anode load for phono preamps, drivers, LTPs, etc.
  3. LTP tail CCSs

I’ve been running some tests with excellent results.

If there is interest, I will run a batch of PCB to offer to the DIY community. 

Cheers

Ale

UV-201a DHT Preamp Revisited


I previously implemented a preamp with the UV-201a. These are very old globe valves, somehow fragile and hard to get in good shape. Despite all this, it’s a superb valve. I have managed to acquire a decent set of them to pair the best valves to use in my preamp.

Recently I developed a prototype PCB for the source follower circuit. The source follower is ideal to place at the output of this preamp due to its low driving current. My 4P1L PSE amplifier will be pleased with more current to pump the Miller capacitance effectively. 

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