So it’s been a while since I first grabbed the plank of Zebrawood in my shop and envisioned it wrapped around an amplifier. That was June 13th. Here it is a little over two months later and I now actually have a functioning amplifier. I have to say I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Here is the new amplifier playing it’s first music last night in my office.
Now the back is still missing and the base plate isn’t installed, but she sounds really good. The bass seems fuller to me which was my main intent with this amplifier redesign however it has sacrificed none of its speed and detail. With no signal the amp is dead silent. This is good because I was a little concerned with the main power transformer so close to the right channel output transformer. Obviously I worried needlessly. The new power supply topology worked out really well.
The next step is to take all the technical data on the amplifier and compare the results to the original 6CY7. I hope to get this testing done sometime this week. However, given the extended timeline that this amp already has, I would not be surprised that it takes me longer to get the formal testing completed.
Although, even without the testing, I can tell that this amp is a solid performer.