starved power tubes?

[cd]

Im not sure i9f im graspping this here...If those sound samples sound so good, why dont people design tube amps that run off lower voltages to get that sound at lower volume levels?

Cost, complexity, conservative guitar players (designs from the '50s are still considered benchmarks), etc. etc.  Mavel Peal and London Power use similar techniques for variable power.  The "secret" has been unleashed in Kevin O'Connor's latest book - my guess is in the coming years you'll see lots of boutique amps using some sort of variable power design.

[Paul Marossy]

I own a 1986 Seymour Duncan Convertible which features a very interesting variable wattage circuit which ranges from 5-100 watts, and it does not change B+ voltage. Quoting my own webpage: "Actually not variable power, just a different sort of master volume control. A triode is connected across the output of the phase splitter and varying the power control varies the DC bias on this triode turning it on more or less; thus acting as a variable shunt. At the lowest power settings, the triode is conducting the hardest and therefore provides a fairly low impedance directly across the output of the phase splitter, allowing very little signal to be developed across the grid resistors of the output tubes." (This amp also features a triode/pentode switch for the power tubes)

I personally think this is a much better approach than varying B+ voltage.

[jazzyfingers04]

Paul Marossy said: If you are referring to the Pentode Driver, that's still on Doug's site, I believe.

The html address is actually right here: http://home.cfl.rr.com/dbhammond/pdriver_sch.gif

I don't know how it sounds, but I have been intrigued for a while, and am planning on building it eventually.

[Paul Marossy]

Doug used to have a link to his old projects, and that Pentode Driver was one of them. I can't find a link to that page anymore, though...