DIY Build audiophile VALVE TUBE pre amplifiers preamp

DIY Audiophile Valve (Tube) Preamplifier

This auction is for a brand new DVD set (approx. 4 hours and 20 minutes in duration!), a video do-it-yourself workshop, produced and recorded in Australia by ValveMark founders.

We have sold our DVDs in Australia, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Luxembourg, Russia, Lithuania, Croatia, Serbia, USA, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Germany, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Portugal, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Philippines, Hong Kong, Greece, Poland, Japan, South Africa, Belgium, Turkey, South Korea, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Chile, Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore ...

Please browse through our ebay store for more DIY resources, DVD programs, collections of tube circuits and transformer winding diagrams.

Don't spend $3,000 - $10,000 on a line-level preamplifier! Good quality audiophile preamps are expensive. Period. You sometimes get what you pay for, most often you don't. Make your own preamp of the comparable sound quality for 10% of the price of Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, Cary, Audio Note, etc. Most of the money you pay for these hi-end units goes into advertising, distributors' and importers' pockets, retail margins, shopping centre rent, warranty expenses and costs, profits for all the involved parties, and so on. 

This DVD program will show you how to make and test your own world-class tube preamplifier! Not only will you save lots of money, but you will feel inner satisfaction and immense pride! Plus, if and when you decide to sell you own creation, you will not lose thousands of dollars (as with commercial equipment), you may actually sell it for more than it cost you to make!

Learn:

• Safety rules to follow before you start any work
• Design and topology rules and issues
• How to make a passive preamp, either balanced (XLR connections) or unbalanced (RCA connections)
• How to reuse an old CD player chassis to house your high quality preamp
• 6 different active amplification circuits:
• 2-stage cascade preamp
• 3-stage cascade with cathode follower output
• SRPP circuit
• triode-connected pentode (such as 6AU6 or EF86 - they make very linear triodes!)
• differential amplifier with a CCS (Constant Current Source)
• single-stage with two paralleled triodes
• How to construct a modular preamp so you can quickly and easily change audio modules (pictured on the left) and decide which design you prefer
• How to use a balanced power supply concept to minimise hum and interference
• How to save lots of money by using two cheap off-the-shelf mains transformers (buy them in any electronics store) instead of one high voltage transformer (expensive and hard to get)
• How to decide to use or not the negative feedback, and how much
• How to quickly and easily measure critical parameters of your newly constructed preamplifier
• output impedance
• maximum undistorted output voltage
• -3 dB frequency range 
• How to perform important square-wave tests that will reveal the fidelity of your preamp and point you to the possible improvements
• How to make a high voltage tube regulator for your preamp (we give you 3 proven & effective, yet very simple and cheap designs)
• + much, much more ....

You will get many tried & tested, proven circuits (schematics) with ECC83, ECC82, 5687, 6AU6 and other preamp valves (tubes) and sound-improving ideas, tips and tricks for saving your money and your sanity. Be careful! Many tube preamp and power amp circuits "floating" around the web are NOT CORRECT! Most have errors on them or are simply and plainly wrong! As a matter of interest we built and tried a random few to see how they compare with our ValveMark circuits, and most didn't work properly or didn't work at all. Of course, Dr Bob noticed most of their shortcomings form the start, just by looking at the diagram. Unless you posses the same skill and knowledge, better stick to our tried and proved circuits that will ALWAYS WORK WELL for you! 

Apart from all the action filmed on DVDs, this program comes with an A4-sized manual printed in full color! Schematics, close-up shots of important details, the photos of the flip-charts used in the program. This DVD workshop is a "must have" for all serious audiophiles, DIY constructors and tweakers!

The information revealed in this video program is not available in a visual format - finally you can see how it's done and hear the commentary while each operation is being performed. Reading about something is one thing, and seeing an expert do it in front of you (and explain how and why) is something completely different!

Thank you for your interest. We wish you every success with your DIY project and your tweaking efforts. Please let us know of your achievements and/or any difficulties your faced on your quest for good sound. If we can be of any assistance, e-mail us anytime! Dr Bob

NOTE #1: Due to the nature of this product, no returns will be accepted but faulty discs will be replaced at our expense. Both PAL and NTSC discs are available, region-free!

NOTE #2: Australian buyers can pay by PayPal, cheque, postal money order or cash on pickup. International buyers PayPal only!

NOTE #3: The preamplifiers pictured are for illustration purposes only and are NOT included in this auction.

REGARDING CHEPSKATES AND LOW-BALLERS:

I have been receiving low-ball offers on some of our DVD programs (those with a "Best offer" option), $12, $40 and so on. These are insulting. Try making such offers to a plummer, car dealer or your doctor or dentist! Some people even commented on internet forums that $100+ for 3 or 4 DVDs is too expensive. Maybe they are too cheap ...

Here is how I see it:

1. These DVD programs are the only ones of this kind in the world, unique. Therefore no price is too high, since you have no other option - you cannot buy a competing from anybody else! I think that AU$109 or AU$119 per set is actually too cheap! That is the cost of a mediocre 3-course dinner and drinks for one in an ordinary restaurant in Australia!

2. You are not getting just a DVD set but a full color-laser printed book to go with it, and with some programs, a colour laminated sign.

3. Each of our DVD programs took months to script, film and edit. Booklets took weeks to design, edit, print and bind. The investment in filming equipment only was more than $3,000, not counting computers, professional video editing software, multiple disk burners, colour laser and inkjet printers and so on. The there is a high investment in amplifiers fetured, test & measuring equipment, parts and components and the like. All those expenses have to be costed and recouped from the modest price of our DVD workshops.

4. Ultimately, you are not buying DVDs, you are buying knowledge! This knowledge comes from more than 80 years of combined professional experience in physics, tube and solid-state electronics, audio manufacturing & retailing, and teaching and training business (Dr Bob since 1950's and Igor since 1980's). 

5. This is how I make my living - selling these DVD programs is my only source of income. Igor and Bob provide their assistance and their valuable time for free! I cannot wish for a better husband or nicer father-in-law! 

6. Although ongoing technical support and advice is, stricctly speaking, NOT included in the cost of a program, Igor and Bob are happy to answer any reasonable question you may have, free of charge. They cannot spend two hours guiding you through your DIY project for free, but a question or two that take 10-15 minutes to answer via email, we are happy to oblige. That is additional value you get for the modest price of our DVD programs.

7. Most importantly, I have never had one unhappy or unsatisfied buyer, someone who wanted to return a DVD program he or she bought. That tells you something. We ship on the same day of the payment and you get your stuff within 3 days in Australia and within 8-14 days world-wide. Although airmail (untraceable) postage is at buyer's risk, in a few very rare cases where the package does not arrive, we replace it at our expense - we don't want undesrved negative feedback, we want you to be happy! In other words, I try to make your experience with us a real pleasure.

So, if you still think our DVD prorgams are not the best value-for-money around, feel free to spend hundreds of hours searching the web for this information (most of it you'll never find since it isn't there), and then a few more hundreds of hours trying to make sense out if it all, reconcilling often contradictory claims and false information from amateurs! Good luck!

Thank you for your trust and your purchases! Best wishes, Elena