Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M
One of the RCA tube manuals does give a 6AS7 OTL schematic/parts list...
I went with a reverse Futterman circuit with some negative feedback in the driver stage. With proper adjustment, I was able to achieve almost no DC voltage across the speaker terminals (someday I may rework the bais adjustment circuit to require less finesse). After a year of heavy service, I rechecked the bias balance and tube emission and there did not seem to be a change. My amp is a 2/4 channel with the rear outputs AC drive path and feedback switched over to parallel with the front when in stereo mode. I was very conservative with DC quiescent current in the outputs...I expect output tube life to be close to heater life. My output rails are only +/-60V so there is not much more risk to the speakers in the event of a rail short than some transistor amps.
I built that amp during a summer break in college when buying the outputs at $5 a pop, the chassis sheet metal, wood, and pots (most everything else was from my junk box) was a great stretch of my budget. The power supply evolved with the amp...Eventually utilizing SS regulators for nearly all B+ and B- rails. I could not afford the right power trans so I engineered around the junk box transformers I had....That box has every valid internal mounting point utilized to it's utmost....Probably weighs as much as an RCA 630.
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You've inspired me to try my hand at a Futterman style OTL. It would be nice to stop forking over so much money to Brian Sowter at Sowter Transformer...
With +60/-60 rail voltages I would feel a hell of a lot better about such a topology. The one 6AS7G amp. I'm familiar with uses +140/-140 volt rails. That makes me nervous and for good reason. It also calls for a potentially lethal hot chassis design. No power transformer, no output transformer, hell, no inductors at all! A bit scary to have something like that plugged right into the wall...