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With 300B SETs you're listening to the input tubes

It's misleading to imagine that in a 300b SET you are listening to the 300b. It has a place in the sound, but a smaller one than you imagine. The larger part of the sound will be the input stage. So one high gain tube or even worse, 2 stages of medium gain tubes. And even worse than that, tubes like 12AX7, 12AT7, 12AU7.

I went the conventional route of putting the DHT last for many years until I started using high gain output tubes like the EL12n with a gain of 18 in triode. So I can drive that with a 26 DHT stage - put the DHT first in the chain where it belongs. Just 2 stages and what you hear most is the 26, which is simply beautiful.

The 6SN7 is one of the "least worst" input tubes. So I'd factor that into a choice. However, 2 input stages of 6SN7s as used in several chi-fi amps give you much too much gain and muddy the sound. Just a single 6SN7 stage is better, especially if you have a little gain in your preamp. So if you have an amp with 2 input stages I recommend modifying it to take the first stage out.

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