Starving Student Tube Headphone Amplifier 19J6 Kit

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Starving Student Hybrid Tube Headphone Amplifier Kit You want to use GOOD headphones on your Ipod (or equivalent) but it just can't handle much more than its own earbuds. You want to use your Grados or Sennheisers or Sonys or AKGs or whatever to get REAL audio. Now you can drive your favorite full-size phones from your personal stereo system. Now you can build the famous Millett Starving Student Headphone amplifier. If you are familiar with this amp, you know its reputation and are surely aware of the scarcity of these tubes. If you are NOT familiar with the design, you need to see /starving.htm for more information. Also, check out /forum/thread/319231/millett-starving-student-hybrid-amp for unbiased reviews. A quick search will turn up lots of other coverage on this brilliant design. I was delighted to find it and have never enjoyed music more. I even use one to drive a powered subwoofer/satellite rig at work. Great tube sound through a regular speaker system without springing for a McIntosh amp! I have built a few dozen of these over the past couple years myself. I have used all kinds of cast-off goodies for cases: wireless headphone base stations, Celestial Seasonings Tea tins, giant Altoids tins, plain-Jane project boxes, whatever looked odd or interesting at the time. Eventually I emptied the attic of collectibles and pack-rat stuff and realized that plenty of people would like to build one in their own case and design. So I began to offer complete kits for the solder junkies. It went quite well and many builders sent me pictures of their end product. But I eventually exhausted my sources for 19J6 tubes. So the kit offerings came to an end. The good news (hopefully) is that I recently discovered a small (but precious) stash of these at a surplus house. So I have rounded up some other parts and am now able to list another kit. Pretty much everything you need but a case, solder, and wire. Oh. And a power cord for the power supply. Plain old computer/monitor EIC style cord. But the power supply is a beefy 25 watts! (The original supply was 17 watts and was a bit sluggish getting the tubes hot on power-up.) You will save probably over $25 in shipping alone over shopping around for all the parts from whoever has them! Here is the list of parts in this kit: 2 - NOS (really) Raytheon 19J6 tubes 2- premium 7-pin tube sockets with mounting screws 2 - IRF610 MOSFET transistors with heat sinks and mounting hardware (in fact, I already mounted them for you) 2 - RCA chassis-mount jacks (one red, one white) 1 - SPST miniature toggle switch 1 - 100K dual volume potentiometer 1 - 1/4" set-screw knob 1 - 1/4" stereo headphone jack 4 - 180 uF, 63v electrolytic capacitors 2 - .1uF metal film capacitors 7 - 2K , 1/4 watt resistors 4 - 220K , 1/4 watt resistors 2 - 33K , 1/4 watt resistors 1 - 48vdc, .52 amp power supply (does NOT include cord) 1 - chassis-mount DC power jack 1 - copy of the schematic diagram (which is also on Mr. Millett's web site) As a side note, I have quite successfully used other tubes in this basic design. Some require minor modifications, others ran straight-up with only the sockets re-wired to account for the different tube pin-out. I will most likely offer some of these later, too. Still a GREAT sound, but a little different color. Keep your eyes open and you can try a variety of builds. I even built a set of adapters so I can plug different 9-pin tubes into the 7-pin sockets. Rather looks like a lab rat, but it is fun to roll tubes for different music. Or to alleviate boredom. Now you can at your own hand, have spectacular sound. Hear things you have been missing for years in your favorite music. The Starving Student takes you there. Get this complete kit and crank up the old iron. You can't lose. Unless you pass up this great opportunity. Especially since you apparently spent a lo... read more

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