Question For Other NOS Tube Junkies

[Mr Johnny Birchwood]

I agree for the most part with your observations. But I don't think I'd ever run my power tube filaments off a common, salvage, DC wall wart transformer rated at 1A. Not for a customer or a help suggestion anyway. Home brew personal amps not withstading. No holds barred there.

Depends on the amp. Nobody wants a wall wart wired into a vintage fender, but if they can afford to drop a grand or two on an amp they can buy whatever tubes they want. Homebrews and cheaper amps, no sweat. A pair of 12v6 draw .45a so a 1a wall wart is plenty. As a general help suggestion, you are probably right, not the best info. As a solution to use NOS tubes without dropping hundreds of dollars on e-bay, it's a fine suggestion. It's an easily reversible mod anyway you look at it.

[Mr Johnny Birchwood]

Depends on the amp. Nobody wants a wall wart wired into a vintage fender, but if they can afford to drop a grand or two on an amp they can buy whatever tubes they want. Homebrews and cheaper amps, no sweat. A pair of 12v6 draw .45a so a 1a wall wart is plenty. As a general help suggestion, you are probably right, not the best info. As a solution to use NOS tubes without dropping hundreds of dollars on e-bay, it's a fine suggestion. It's an easily reversible mod anyway you look at it.

speaking of homebrews, my new-salvaged .500kva machine control transformer has a 460 tap and a 19v tap. That means 640 b+(800vdc b+ from the 575 tap might be a little dangerous..) and just enough to rectify the 19v tap to run the 26v fils of my 26lx6 NOS PhillipsECG video sweep pentodes! 10bux for the pair. 40w diss per tube. Gonna run em parallel to make a single ended 20w bass amp. Took a 1951 hammond organ power transformer, knocked the laminates out with a hammer, re-oriented them, and gapped it with some construction paper(pink paper is best.) Just gotta heat it up on the stove and melt a couple (pink) crayons into it to keep the plates from rattling when I pass a TON of current through it. Gonna use either the 6.3v or 5v tap as the opt 2ry. Pink construction paper and pink crayons yield the best tone for homemade output transformers. NOS Crayolas from the 1980's are my first choice. G2 is pretty sensitive on those sweep tubes so ya need a voltage divider to drop the v's to about 150 or so. 20w should be plenty to play a small club with a PAS 15"(100db/w sensitivity). Class A bass amp? Why not? Is it crazy? YES. Is it awesome? YES.