β22 Balanced Stereo Amplifier Build

The β22  from AMB  is one of the most highly regarded DIY headphone amplifiers you can meet around the web.It gets plenty of excellent reviews from plenty of people who have built it. Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to listen to quite a few headphone amplifiers, including DIY builds, and I ran across a β22 more than once. I’ve even had an opportunity to repair one for a friend after it got damaged due to an accidental short on the output. The β22 always sounded good to me, although I must admit that its one of these amplifier that didn’t give me that “wow” factor on our first encounter. In my book that can actually be a very good thing, as many of the amplifiers (and  any other stereo component) that give a “wow” feeling at first, prove to be too fatiguing and unrealistic sounding in the long run. The β22 is one of these amplifiers that you appreciate more as you spend more time with it.

I’ve been thinking of building a β22 for a fairly long time, with the cost being one of the factors against it. Just like with any other DIY project, and I’ve seen quite a few, the builder has significant wiggle-room regarding quality and cost, as well as functionality. However, I wanted to build one that could serve multiple functions, perform well, and look good. I wanted something I could be proud of building and owning, and to be happy with it for years to come. Eventually, I’ve decided to pull the trigger on this build. In this post I’ll share the steps and some of the technical considerations that came into play during this build.

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“Upgrading” a Pimeta v1 Headphone Amplifier

As I’ve mentioned in the M³ post, there are a few headphone amplifiers that I was always fond of. They weren’t always expensive or exotic amplifiers, but they simply sounded right to my ears. One of these is the Pimeta from Tangent. I first came across the Pimeta quite a few years ago when one of my friends had a portable unit powered from a battery. A few years later, one of the amplifiers I’ve built was a Pimeta, that ran from a 24V regulated PS. Over the years that amplifier has been modified a few times to suit the needs of the time, including a reduction of gain and PS voltage to fit more sensitive headphones and a smaller case. Recently, after a few years of not using it, I’ve had a renewed need for, and decided it was as good of a reason as any to give it a little “upgrade”. This post is meant to share those modifications, as well as give the Pimeta some more attention, as I think its a great little amp that isn’t getting enough love on the forums.

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DIY Programmable Power-Supply for Vacuum Tubes – Part 1

Preface: up until now, all posts I’ve shared were completed in a single post. This was due to the fact I’ve waited until I was done with it and only then posted. This allowed me to assemble/verify (when needed), and was much more comprehensive for readers. However, lately I’m finding it more difficult to find the time to cross items off my “diy to-do” list. Quite a few items get stuck for long periods of time in the design stage, due to lack of time to move it forward and complete the board layout/assembly/testing. Therefore, I’ve decided to gradually post a few of these on the blog as parts of a project. This post will be the first of a few such projects that will be split into several parts. Hopefully, even sharing partial information such as schematics will prove useful to some readers. </end preface>

One of the items that was on my “wish-list” for quite some time is a programmable power-supply (PS) that will be fit for work with vacuum tubes. The main reason I need it is because I’m missing a high-voltage PS that can reach as high as 400V or over. Therefore, this was the main objective of the design I will present in this post. However, seeing as most transformers that are intended for these uses include a low voltage secondary winding for the heaters, it makes sense to have another channel that can supply the heater rail too.

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