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Here are a couple pictures of the iTube with my iPod in the dock. I really like how it turned out — it’s a great mix of the sleek modern iTube flanked by two vacuum tubes! Unfortunately the pictures don’t really capture the whole effect with the tube glow and everything.

Some other comments now that the iTube is basically done:

• The iPod line-out level is a good match for this amp’s gain. I have the volume down at ~20% and the level is about right for listening in an otherwise-quiet room. I give Apple credit for not wimping out on the line driver.
• I discussed adding some sort of remote control a while ago. I think this will be necessary because manually changing the tracks (a) is a pain, and (b) causes a lot of stress on the dock connector. That’s probably not so good for it in the long run.
• iTube gets hot. And more importantly the iPod gets pretty warm too. So far I am OK with the temperature that the iPod wants to be at, but I’m not sure if there will be long-term consequences to this.
• Because of the above point, make sure the iTube has adequate airflow to keep the iPod temperature to something reasonable. The main heat contributors are the tube heaters and the filter capacitor shunt resistors. Not much we can do about the shunt resistor since it’s in the case (carrying 200VAC), but the tubes can and should be cooled by airflow.

If anyone has built or wants to build an iTube, I’d love to hear about it. I’m sure that someone more competent than I with wood- and metal-working could do some really neat steampunk-ish things with this design.

So after an almost-year-plus hiatus, I just epoxied in the iPod Dock Connector into the iTube’s body! I’ve pretty much decided to leave off the remote/wireless stuff for now, so this means that except for decals, the iTube is done! Two and a half years of on-and-off work is finally paying off.

Once the epoxy sets and it works, I’ll upload some more pictures and info about the build, hopefully condensing the last two years into a single blog post about the build, in case anyone wants to build their own.