Tone/Colour/Dirt Box

Maelgad · Apr 15, 2009

Hey guys, long time reader, first time poster.

I've been thinking about a box for a while now, and decided i want to actually try to build it.

Step 1: To be able to route audio through a transformer to add transformer sound/saturation/loading to a line level signal. Having switchable impedance for loading sound would be cool.

Step 2: Add switch for routing through different transformers, maybe even to be able to put some in series. Only difficulty i can see here is maybe volume matching.

Step 3: Add tubes switchable in and out into the box. This will come later or maybe even in it's own box.

Questions:
What do I need to look for in a transformer for this purpose?

Can this be done without a power supply? it'd be cool if it was that simple.

Can I damage my preamps / AD converters in anyway by doing this especially messing with the loading? What would that limit be?

How much gain would be lost through the transformer?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

clintrubber · Apr 15, 2009

The desire/idea/thread for such a box pops up about each year

Nothing wrong with that, but let's re-use.

Let's see what we had so far... here's one of the previous threads, which in turn mentions previous ones:

http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=5593.0

In addition you might try a search for more.

Please do keep us posted about what you end up building.

Bye,

Peter

kooma · Apr 16, 2009

I made this about year ago, but now the post is missing somewhere

Maelgad · Apr 19, 2009

the other linked posts just discuss people ideas of creating a similar box but don't seem to go anywhere.

how about we start this as absolutely a simple as possible. I have other equipment to give gain before and after said box. If my understanding is correct i could then just wire input to primaries and output to secondaries and done?

I need to choose a transformer/pair. Are there standard impedances for input and output? 600/600?

Svart · Apr 19, 2009

do this the easy way. Build yourself a bunch of preamps of both valve and SS types. Make a bunch of heavy duty pads for the outputs of the preamps and then turn up the gain. This will saturate any preamp's valves and/or output transformer plus you'll have the added benefit of having more preamps too.