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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: Another Sample Of An Audio Component That Doesn't Measure Well, But Sounds Great. posted by thetubeguy1954 on November 7, 2006 at 09:17:55:
Hi.This a true story: I just built a 2x1Watt SET stereo power amp & donated to a good audiophile friend of mine last week. (For those tube aliens, SET stands for single-ended triode).
Why a so low power amp? Well, it all started when I was cleaning the mess on the DIY workbench a while ago. I found a few long forgotten old used parts sleeping in my old part bin. a few 50C5 power tetrodes, a few 12AX7s, 2 small O/P transsformers for the 50C5s, all scraped from a 40-year-old vintage AM/FM stereo tabletop radio I picked up many years back in a flea market.
Rather than let them idling down there for another decade, I decided to consume them by making the best out of it. So I design-built a simple & basic stereo power amp using one 12AX7, one half of it driving one 50C5 in the housing of a defective 20-year-old NAD transistor integrated amp which I picked up from a chop-shop for 10 bucks.
Operating at 110V Vp & Vg2, a 50C5 beam tetrode delivers 1.9W O/P power at staggering 9% harmonic distortion. I trioded them as I never like the soncis of any non-triodes. That would bring down the O/P power down to misarably one tiny watt without any NFB.
Imagine what could a tiny 3-tube 2-watt amp do????
My audiophile friend is using some high-end solidstate stuff:
Swiss Physis 6A 2x100W class A power amp driving a pair of bi-wired
Westlake 4-speaker BBSM-6 reference monitors with low low efficiency of only 91dB.Was I trying to create a sonic miracle - a little 2-W SET David attempted to kill the 200W transistor giant Golliah ???
I won't hold my breath until I put it on with his CD player hooked up direct to the 2W tube amp driving his reference monitors. No linestage amp is there at all. All being the same.
Believe or not, it works out miracles - with flying colours. It sounds so transparent, dynamic, musical & engaged which we find missing from the 200W power amp !!!! Also, even I tested it with dynamic firecrakers, like Wagner 'The Ring' etc, it never shows any stress of overloading at all to fill up the small listening room.
My friend loves the little tube sound w/o reservation & decided to dispose the 200W class A power amp ASAP.
c-J
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Follow Ups
- Believe it or not, SET can work wonders. (long) - cheap-Jack 12:22:28 11/07/06 (0)
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