Electronic Components - Audio Components.

Building a device to produce sound requires many parts. Luckily for you, we supply many of the components you will need.

These devices are usually either considers valve/tube driven or solid state. For a device to be valve/ tube driven, it requires tubes. Tubes control current through in a sealed vacuumed container. The container is usually thin transparent glass in a roughly cylindrical shape. Tubes can convert AC to DC. In addition, the simplest tube is a diode which is essentially a light bulb wrapped electrode, and there are two elements for the electordes. Often times Hifi systems use tubes. They produce a warmer sound than solid state systems.

Solid state systems replace tubes with transistors. Transistors are semiconductors that amplify and switch electronic signals and power. Transistors also change the current, like tubes. Transistors use less power than tubes do, also, unlike tubes, transistors don’t have to warm up and they are more sturdy in comparison to tubes.

Once you have decidided whether to go tube driven or solid state, you’ll need your capacitors, resistors, fuses, potentiometers, switches, transfomers and power supplies.

Transformers produces or supplies current from high voltage to low voltage. In an audio system like an instrument’s amplifier, the transformer takes the current from the wall and makes it suitable for the amps lower voltage circuits.

Lastly the power supply. Power supplies are devices that supply electrical power to an electrical load. The most common power supplies are the electrical power converter, energy storage devices, generators and alternators. These can be similar to transformer in many way. In fact, some power supplies are transformers.

When all of these are put together it modifies the signal being inputted from something such as an instrument or an mp3 player. This is done by changing the resistance of the signal. Furthmore, with tubes, the sound can be overdriven and the result is a hi-gain sound. However, solid statte systems can alos achieve this, through harshly clipping the signal.

• Tubes:
• Transistors:
• Potentiometers:
• Capacitors:
• Resistors:
• Switches:
• Transformers:
• Power supplies: