Once upon a time I stumbled across this website and thought it would be nice to try building this circuit.

 

For some reason I was also interested in seeing just how inexpensively I could build it and so I tried using old small power transformers that were about the right ratios as both the input and output transformers. Using an unshielded power transformer as an input transformer didn't work, it was just an antenna, so I switched it with something actually shielded in a can. I never did end up changing the output transformer though, cause it was working well enough for my purposes. I'm sure it could sound better if I swapped it out and I'm guessing it might improve the headroom a bit? Hopefully? For under a hundred dollars in parts I'm quite happy with it.

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Oh, I also made the power supply (in a separate box) out of two value village power transformers in series, one stepping down for heater voltage and then another stepping up for the b+. It was fun to figure out how to do this with little common cheapo transformers and gets me excited for future scrappy low pressure experiments.