Making a guitar tube amplifier from a turntable

A maker named Davide Gironi found a junked turntable with a broken plate and cracked enclosure. Drawn by the attractive front panel and its tube-powered design, Adafruit Blog reports he converted it into a practice tube guitar amplifier. One crucial safety step when repurposing old tube equipment: verify it doesn't use an autotransformer, which poses a shock hazard to the player. This turntable has a standard transformer, so it's safe. Its rectifier tube and ECL86 handle the preamplification and amplification. E-waste becomes a vintage gain stage.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton