Thanks!
There are few things I've heard, as a guitar person, that are as thrilling as a really good tube limiter driving some good tube hifi amps and full range speakers.
If the noise is properly controlled .. and I mean *really* controlled, the limiter 'swell' can be to die for. It's that 'wind at your back' that really can inspire a player to rip some really tricky moves and make some personal history 
This is my 6th big (surviving) tube limiter build ... with another couple fully decommissioned and now are just .. inventory.
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I've tuned my diy rebuild speakers to have a little less high-freq (> 10K) response ..... once one has the 'hum' tamed in an all tube setup, the 'hiss' is the next thing to look at.
A lot of 'pure' tube compression can accentuate the high-freq 'pressure' on the ears .. making things a little hard to take .. like too much suspense in one's 'Hammer' horror film ...
-> my old ears prefer less 'air' or maybe it's the everpresent solfeggio vibrations in my ear/skull/brain/mind complex
-> might be mosquitoes and/or wifi/hiFreq comms ... but there aren't mosquitoes down here, so prolly tinnitus!
-> I was very much into the (then) local music in Aust. in the 80s .. lotsa gigs all round .. with those damnable evil twin reverbs
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And sadly, I have to lose the 6SL7 'middle' tube in this build, for a noval ... space is tight ...
I'll prolly use 6DJ8 if I can ... possiblke even 2 of. The signal is knocked down pretty hard by the gain cell output transformer ... but the gain cell can have a surprising amount of gain .. sometimes .. hopefully running the middle tube reasonably hard will do it ...
I'll know when I get there ;D
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Looks like amperex holland features strongly in this build .... it must the will of the 'audio elementals'
I spent many years in the areas nearby that great Netherlands city of Amsterdam, and that home of tube innovation Eindhoven ... I'm a big fan of the lowlands ...
It feels good to bring elements of Holland and Australia together in this build ... with real sixties US power and octals and righteous movement metering
Also of note is some nice sino pcbs for power and a super nice deutsche toroid. Talk about the UN of 'Sound' 8) (thanx Richard!)
So tube lineup is
4x6eh7 -> 1x 6dj8 -> 2x 7591a (octal 19W plate) per channel signal amp balanced or 'pushpull' topology
6al5 sidechain dual rectifier per channel with regulated dc offset voltage, variable 'dc threshold', 'ac threshold'
and traffo line up is
Trimax 10K/25K input, Trimax 100K/10K interstage, Trimax 25W 8K/8ohms per channel signal amp
Time constant network is an 'attack time' pot + single rotary switch for 'release time' with some cap-resistor combos.
Front panel with Level (vu) buffered meter and a (low voltage current sense) Gain Reduction (gr) meter per channel
And the mandatory .. relay bypass for the limiter section, per channel .. for sanity checks .. which can generally be a good thing.
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The Trimax traffos add that glam factor, with the punched brass label plate ... the gain cell types are big, heavy cast jobbies ... and the outputs are nice big pressed-can case types (you call that a pressed can?) ..
The holland globo-s with the orange letters and perf plate add the respect factor .. and the big psu rack with edcors just says 'whoa' .. like respect to a big horse, close by.
Don't even wan't to talk about the ge and rca 7591a .. took a couple of years to get a bunch together ... not cheAp! I very much admire the Fischers and such
Fortunately, much of this build is recycled, odds and sods and improvised things over lots of years.
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I already have steel 24ru wheeled rack, with a fold-back top section, that will suit these thing(s) well, in the *lounge* .
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Looks like the limiter-amp signal unit will run to (aud) :
-> 500 for traffos, 380 quality nos tubes+sockets, 310 rack/quality vu/cabling and 200 caps/resistors/other -> 1390
The psu would be something like (aud) :
-> 500 (traffos/choke), 70(caps), 60(regulator modules x2), 180 (case/iec filter/wiring/connectors/panel prints) -> 810
And the 1RU eq (poorman RC eq) -> 200
The speakers have around 600 aud in them for a pair ... timber with vintage timber front lattice , 12" driver for use as subs to be biamped with my old Tannoy 8" concentrics and a few amps that I have lying about ...
So thats around 3Kaud all up, equivalent to around 1900usd .. with all the fees
.... but alot of that is our low Aust dollar on the OS parts, plus delivery to this distant locale.
Its about the same as the individual pieces I've previously done .. seperately
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Thankfully, the Trimax iron was affordable ... similar US made would add quite a bit in today's high cost envi-rironment here in Oz. Think Kenyon and better .. I've still to test these units, but I have high hopes.
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On the plus side, the tubes and traffos are top quality and lovely to behold - what else matters
The PSU is no compromise and remote (yay!)
Speakers are beautiful solid wood with classic large paper coned alnico drivers.
A worthy last big build set ... while I continue to rationalise more and more kit to downsizing....
