DIY Audio Amp for Music

[fixxe]

Hey Beans, I was thinking about building an audio amp (for listening to music) since I have have 2 speaker boxes standing around. Now I never had an audio amp myself, so I don't know about preamp or poweramp and what-not. What I want is an IN for normal audio and for vinyl-player.
So my question is, does anyone know about a great sounding kit that would fit the bill.

inb4 you're gonna kill yourself   

[jkokura]

I know there's a lot of audiophile forums out there for amps for music playing. Most of them are designed for either a stereo speaker setup or a pair of good headphones. Many of them are tube driven too. I also know there are a lot, and I mean a LOT of amplifier kits out there for MP3 and CD amplification. Taking a look on eBay will produce dozens of different options.

Jacob

[fixxe]

yeah, there's a lot.
but I dont even know what parts I need...
I know I want it to be a tube amp with the aforementioned features and on the cheaper side. So maybe you guys could help me out on where to start or what I need to search?
Since I'm european, I need to search for the right kit by myself anyways     (or maybe a fellow european knows about a good kit  )

[pickdropper]

What's your budget?  There are quite a few tubed hifi amp kits out there, but their pricing is often not cheap if they use decent iron.

[davent]

Merlin did an article for Audioxpress a number of years back on modding a cheap chinese tube hifi kit amp that may provide some useful info.
http://audioxpress.com/files/2009/07/blencowe2996.pdf

More then likely anything you find will be sans phono-pre so you'll need to build a seperate circuit for that. I've built this one (IC's) and run it off batteries, dead quiet,  works well, sounds great, compares well to another much more complicated discrete phono-pre i built.

http://phonoclone.com/diy-pho5.html

dave

[oldhousescott]

None of these are cheap (no tube stuff is cheap -- it's the cost of the iron mostly), but if you're really interested:

Triode Electronics

[davent]

Another offering from AudioXpress, small, vintage, scratch built 3watt tube amp using 6aq5's for output tubes. Preamp and power amp, still need a seperate phono-pre.

http://calendar.bic.caltech.edu/~gbelford/AudioXPress-3watt-TubeAmp-stewart.pdf

[fixxe]

thanks for all the replies guys! 
but I'm still a kind of draw-by-numbers-guy. That chinese amp isn't to be had in europe as far as I've seen.
And I guess I would be able to vero that AudioXpress project if I put my entire skill-set into it , but I wouldn't know how to connect the preamp to the power section or how to get 135 volts and stuff like that. Plus, does it have enough power?
What I would like is something like this with a little more documentation, I guess 
But all your suggestions were pretty good so far!

Budget-wise I want to be around 150euros