Yes, once you're down that road the transformer is a big player, as is the power and bias stability as Zapper was addressing.
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Question re: tube amp grounding/safety
- Thread starter GXAlan
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Hey, The Absolute Sound liked it (no surprise)!I find 'sort of sound' a funny generalization in context. After all, you didn't say they sound exactly the same.
First Watt SIT-3 Stereo Power Amplifier - The Absolute Sound
First Watt SIT-3 Stereo Power Amplifier -
www.theabsolutesound.com
I have trouble following the word salad, though.
Let's not forget the terrible microphonics of the filament cathode.
Morgan Jones and I have long maintained that the layer of echoey fuzz and "ting" is part of the attraction for the sound. Once again, an effects box that cannot be adjusted or turned off.That may be a feature!
Those wooden bases for SETs might actually affect the sound. I shouldn't laugh, but I can't help it.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
Yes, yes, it's all very bad!
BTW: In 1985 Jean Hiraga wrote an article in two parts presenting, among other things, a design for a very simple Mosfet amplifer called the Nemesis. Subtitled
“An Homage to the WE 25 B”, the piece celebrated classic simplicity in amplifier design, specifically a Western Electric amplifier that used a single gain triode
driven by an input transformer and driving an output transformer.
Those SIT transistors that Pass uses have the very triode-like characteristic of low output impedance. That gets important when you drive a transformer.Yes, yes, it's all very bad!
BTW: In 1985 Jean Hiraga wrote an article in two parts presenting, among other things, a design for a very simple Mosfet amplifer called the Nemesis. Subtitled
“An Homage to the WE 25 B”, the piece celebrated classic simplicity in amplifier design, specifically a Western Electric amplifier that used a single gain triode
driven by an input transformer and driving an output transformer.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
As a purist, that's not my thing anyway. I prefer to build real tube amplifiers.
Incidentally, I remember owning at least two amplifiers in the early days of SS amps that still had output transformers built in. That was an amp from the 'Monacor' brand and a big amp from McIntosh.
Incidentally, I remember owning at least two amplifiers in the early days of SS amps that still had output transformers built in. That was an amp from the 'Monacor' brand and a big amp from McIntosh.
Yes, once upon a time, all you could get were NPN silicon power transistors, or PNP in the earlier germanium days. There were various work-arounds like quasi-complimentary, which used no transformer, but some designers went with what they knew and used output transformers.
cavedriver
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I bought a Willsenton R8 KT88 amp for similar reasons- I'm tempted to get all the gear to measure it, or send it to someone, because there aren't enough measurements of tube amps with enough resolution to explain what I've heard with good tube amps. Various explanations have been offered here and elsewhere, but no definitive measurement that says, "if an amp measures like this, it will sound this good", nor anyone duplicating that with a DAC, something we ought to be able to do by this point from the impression I've gathered. (as an aside, a KT88 amp isn't really the right thing but I'll sell it and buy a 300B amp at some point if I see the right opportunity)
This is a video showing the steps to make a nixie tube. I know it is not a audio tube although the basic procedure should be similar. It requires a steady hand and lotsa skills. A fascinating video.
- Thread Starter
- #34
It has been assembled by somebody with the, "Touch." I don't know about the signal integrity of the design and layout although aesthetically it looks superb.
That’s what sold me! I cannot find any good information about this unit. Just that it looks pretty and the sample photo (which may not reflect what actually shows up at my door) looks exceptionally well made.
Agree. The saving grace, is that you don’t need to simulate the distortion signature fully — just show that you can meaningfully take the original PK Metric difference and reduce the difference.
The other thought is to let DeltaWave do the correction too. If I just turn on non linear EQ options, how close it gets.
My understanding is that the modern WE is “closer” to all of the old names and more than just a Kodak style brand licensing agreement. (When it comes to tubes, not the electronics) and more like the LG purchase of Kodak OLED IP, or OnSemi purchase of Trusense/Kodak sensor tech though not fully.
That is, they licensed the documentation and IP and when they first leased the old factory from AT&T, that they were able to have the employees who were making the tubes in the 1970s back as consultants. The new tubes then have updates like their graphene, modern vacuum pumps, etc. Their future 6550 production will be all just branding exercises of course. Their electronics were developed by the original Canary Audio founder.
I agree. The cult of WE is odd. It even goes to their cables! But why a cult of WE as opposed to GE 6550’s or Nuvistors? Why not a cult around the original germanium transistor amps? I don’t see a 300B measured here yet and really focused on the performance at low power.
With modern tools and differences being trivially measurable, let’s see how it looks with tools like DF and PK Metric.
I certainly don’t get the criticism of a “fixed effects box.” It’s either trivial to replicate in software or not trivial to replicate.
1) Most of the posts here lean toward, you probably won’t be able to match it with a simple EQ or fixed transfer function. (We should try though.)
2) if the “fixed effects box” cannot be replicated in software, the next question is to validate if those effects are large enough to be audible as opposed to something like -300 dBFS.
Jury is out I think. It’s very possible that at extremely low power, it’s all noise dominated and distortion is low enough that they are pretty similar sounding.
But suppose the distortion and non linearities are audible.
3) If that’s the case, who cares about it being a fixed effects box?
It’s like telling someone “why are you buying a blue t-shirt? You will always have a blue shirt whether you want it or not.
You should buy a white t-shirt and use stickers or button pins to add color it to your liking if you want something with color. Only with a plain white shirt can you change the color when you want it instead being forced to have the same color all the time”.
It’s only a fixed effects box if you only have one audio system.
WE is (justly) famous for being a pioneer in theater sound. In time they turned into Altec, and a lot of Altec stuff was an iteration of WE.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
Here's an example:
The WE555 driver is still virtually unsurpassed in terms of sound imo.
However, even this is now perfectly copied by the Chinese like so with the 300B Tubes etc.. The replica sounds the same as the original. I have been able to convince myself of this more than once.
My own photo shows the LM555 made by Line Magnetic.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
Why so sceptical? An acquaintance of mine had bought exactly this amplifier. The quality of the construction was very good. Also the technical implementation. But whether exactly this circuit is the best, I would doubt. But that is a matter of taste. It is a strong WE reference.
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I think this paragraph written by Art Dudley at Stereophile best describes the culture around SET's:
To audio designers in Japan and elsewhere, the single-ended, 300B-tubed amplifier is like a haiku: an art form defined by both its prescribed limitations and the potential such restraint offers for artistic expression. Here, the only hard-and-fast rule is a simple one: output devices are limited to one 300B directly heated triode tube per channel. From there, it's a blank slate: Do you want AC or DC on the output-tube heaters? Tube or solid-state rectification? Low or high gain? Fixed or cathode bias? New parts, vintage parts, or a mix of both? Triode or pentode tubes as drivers? Capacitors or transformers—or nothing at all—between the plates of the driver tubes and the grids of the output tubes?
I rather like some push-pull Triodes, but not as much as a really good reproduction of a minimalist unmolested version of a recording. The description above sounds like it could be interesting if one accepts a colored sound. Artfully colored sound doesn't run counter to enjoying music. The problem is the few SET's I've heard are so colored it is a circus-like caricature of the original recording. I've been told I've not heard a good combination of a quality SET and appropriate speaker. I certainly agree it was not good.
I'd say the smart way to get the sound would be a 12AX7 preamp designed like a mini power amp with transformer coupling. Feed it to a clean power amp, and you get the sound if it is your cup of tea. For that matter many of the SET's are so flea sized in power output you might as well use them as a sound conditioning preamp. Of course that kind of thinking is counter to the ideas of purity in the SET culture, and the belief it has some special qualities that would disappear once it hits an SS power amp. They are wrong about that, but it is like trying to get someone to question key tenets of their religion.
To audio designers in Japan and elsewhere, the single-ended, 300B-tubed amplifier is like a haiku: an art form defined by both its prescribed limitations and the potential such restraint offers for artistic expression. Here, the only hard-and-fast rule is a simple one: output devices are limited to one 300B directly heated triode tube per channel. From there, it's a blank slate: Do you want AC or DC on the output-tube heaters? Tube or solid-state rectification? Low or high gain? Fixed or cathode bias? New parts, vintage parts, or a mix of both? Triode or pentode tubes as drivers? Capacitors or transformers—or nothing at all—between the plates of the driver tubes and the grids of the output tubes?
I rather like some push-pull Triodes, but not as much as a really good reproduction of a minimalist unmolested version of a recording. The description above sounds like it could be interesting if one accepts a colored sound. Artfully colored sound doesn't run counter to enjoying music. The problem is the few SET's I've heard are so colored it is a circus-like caricature of the original recording. I've been told I've not heard a good combination of a quality SET and appropriate speaker. I certainly agree it was not good.
I'd say the smart way to get the sound would be a 12AX7 preamp designed like a mini power amp with transformer coupling. Feed it to a clean power amp, and you get the sound if it is your cup of tea. For that matter many of the SET's are so flea sized in power output you might as well use them as a sound conditioning preamp. Of course that kind of thinking is counter to the ideas of purity in the SET culture, and the belief it has some special qualities that would disappear once it hits an SS power amp. They are wrong about that, but it is like trying to get someone to question key tenets of their religion.
computer-audiophile
Major Contributor
Many people here claim that the sound of a 300B set is heavily distorted or coloured. Maybe they have experienced it that way. I'm not surprised, because there really are a lot of not-so-great audio systems. I like Blumlein's description of the artistic or conceptual aspects of 300B amps.
Push-pull amps I find less interesting, although I have owned many amps of this type*. I clearly prefer SET/DHT, and today, after 60 years in the hobby and as a tube amp home-brewer, I am only still interested in two types of power tubes, the 300B and the 211.
*Last year, for example, I had bought this Line Magnetic system.
BTW: I would recommend the LM LP33 Phono-Preamp, which is truly outstanding imho.
Push-pull amps I find less interesting, although I have owned many amps of this type*. I clearly prefer SET/DHT, and today, after 60 years in the hobby and as a tube amp home-brewer, I am only still interested in two types of power tubes, the 300B and the 211.
*Last year, for example, I had bought this Line Magnetic system.
BTW: I would recommend the LM LP33 Phono-Preamp, which is truly outstanding imho.
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