Portable Tube Guitar Amplifier for Headphones

[raits77]

Hello,

This forum is a invaluable resource.

I’ll be doing a lot of traveling in the near future but I still want to practice guitar (on the road), I was thinking on getting the small lapstick electric travel guitar. It does have an built-in amplifier for headphones, however I want to build (or purchase) a small tube amplifier for powering headphones, a light one so I could carry it around and practice where I can. The smaller, the better, however, quality of sound matters as well.

Does anyone have experience with those small tube headphone amplifiers or could recommend a DIY project I could do? Or recommend a good small tube headphone amplifier I could purchase.

Also, is a battery powered tube headphone amp viable?

Thank you,
Raido

[Andy]

This is an interesting topic and perhaps those more knowledgeable than me will be able to answer with more authority. However…

There are some out there, look here for an example:

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Solid/12AU7-IRF510-LM317-Headamp/

I, personally, dont think you can go into it thinking it will be just a lower volume version of a bigger amp. There just isn’t enough voltage to make the tube do what it’s good at. I have a number of tube pedals that try to simulate that preamp stage, but it’s just never the same.

That said… This could be really cool. Another option would be to find a tube that works best at low voltages.

Some other resources:

http://www.ecp.cc/mini_guitar_amp.html

Here is a promising one in a kit form:

http://www.olcircuits.com/olc_tubecricket.html

And another thread with tons of links to check out:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/66136/tube-guitar-headphone-amp

[raits77]

AJ,

Thanks, those links look very interesting. I know where to start now. I’ll look into it and let you know how it worked out. Thanks again.

Raido

[Author]

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