There's no reason to abandon the original design. It just needs to be modified for use with a low impedance load. Speaking of which.... We discussed the that the 12AU7 amp was intended to drive a high Z input guitar amp. This discussion was quite extensive early in the thread. You never interjected to tell us you intended otherwise.
This can't be repeated too many times. ... I really do think that you should be spending much of your time in our "Tutorials" section.... At the beginning.
Chris
Different design, different purpose. Hence the solid state section for secondary amplification.
I'm not abandoning the original design, it has just caused me a month and a half's worth of headache. The issue with the current build the way it is is that the entire enclosure will have to be stripped down and rewired, new supplies drafted and soldered, new circuits soldered with extra emphasis on cutting down lead length to cut down on the ability for demodulation by the circuit. The entire enclosure was fabricated wrong, combine three different pieces off by 2-3mm in places and undercut by 1mm in others and you get something that doesn't fit together right even in best case scenario. There are so many small things that I feel I messed up on on this project that simply redoing all them would probably incur just as much time and expense as it took to get here in the first place. 100% total revamp.
Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to simply bury my mistakes in a new build and never look at the old build again. I just want to start a new build for a different purpose, and the new design elements will keep me from being driven over the edge when a current issue cannot be completed by design flaws I made a month ago. I may not know much about the specifics of electronics, but I know to learn from my mistakes, and I know many things aren't done for a reason. Learning what those reasons are...that will take time.
I have two weeks and one weekend before I go off to college. If I were to tackle this new project it only leaves me time to order the PCB blanks, etch and drill them anyways. I would rather spend this last bit of time on a 'clean slate' then try to rebuild the one that I failed.
Tutorial section...I've lived there for the past two weeks. At least two tabs have been open on my computer every day, and it hasn't been rebooted all summer. I have tried to sap every little bit of knowledge off of every circuit I've looked at in the past few weeks. Every one of my friends is already off at college so every day I've had nothing else to do but post here, look up circuits, lurk other forums, and scribble nonsensical circuits on a whiteboard and then trying to figure out if they would or wouldn't work. Combined with the occasional trip to 7/11 for a change of scenery, or Radioshack to pick up components.
Just let me know what I need to change or show me a revision on that circuit to allow itself for low-impedance use and to make it work right, and I will go on my merry way, let this thread die and try and figure out my own problems if they arise.