On Mon, 2 Dec 2013, Tim Wescott wrote:

It's winter, and the amplifier in my PC speakers just died.

I think it'd be kinda cool to have a toob speaker amp, but I'm too lazy
(and time-challenged) to build one up from scratch.

Are there, by any chance, kits out there? I'm not looking for nickel-
cored transformers with solid silver windings, genuine paper caps rolled
on the thighs of virgins, toobs dipped in LN2, and all that crap: I'm
just looking for something that'll give the audio quality of a mid-range
amplified speaker set, in a cabinet that shows off the fact that it all
uses ancient technology to get the job done.

Suggestions welcome.

How I hate the cross-posting.

PAIA used to sell a tube preamp, or you could have built it from the
article in Radio Electronics. I don't know if PAIA still sells it, but
the idea was to "give that tube sound", and apparently just a double
triode was good enough.

You're not going to find a tube amplifier cheap, the only ones interested
are the high end people. Even used tube amplifiers from days gone by
likely carry a premium.

Build a starved circuit amplifier.

Or, Popular Electronics once had a tube amplifier that was a cathode
output, though I think they used a transformer.

Find something old, and feed the signal into it. People are adding audio
input jacks to AA5 radios. I think that TMC GPR-90 I got last year for
$20 at a garage sale has audio input connections, it certainly has an IF
jack for an SSB converter and I think even audio output jacks, so surely
it has audio input jacks.

Michael VE2BVW