dsavitsk

Indeed, we have made a half dozen or so changes that make the amp much quieter.

Happy Birthdays!

Indeed, sometimes a rat's nest amp will work better. Too neat often induces cross-talk from wires running in parallel while proper star grounding can look like a mess. PTP is great for one-offs and simple designs, but there are definitely places where a well designed PCB is superior.

I had one of those once -- Actually, I had an initial root canal where the resin did not fill the cavity completely and I got an infection in the end of it a year later. So they had to do another root canal through the first one. Required 3 3-hour sessions spread over 6 weeks to allow for swelling to recede. To make it worse, the initial root canal was through a crown, which had been put in place when a deep filling cracked. In the initial root canal, the dentist had to do that. At one point the numbness had completely worn off, and he accidentally touched something with the tip of the needle -- I think I jumped 3 feet out of the chair -- hands down the worst thing I have ever felt.

I'm curious how the networking works on yours. For us, with wireless it would not really connect at all (with 3 different APs, one of which is "enterprise class"), and wired, while it said it was connected to the local network, it would claim the connection to the internet failed repeatedly. Samsung claimed that this was evidence that the network was at fault, and not the TV. That seemed plausible, but the Roku worked fine, our computers worked fine, and AT&T spent hours looking for errors and could not find anything suspicious. I don't know that it baffles me, but I do kind of miss it. Useful for keeping a game on in the corner that I only sort of want to see.

Sounds like a job for VMWare ...

To update my stupid story, we bought a Samsung (6300 or something), and the only reason we chose it was that it had all the smart stuff we wanted built in (the usual stuff + HBOGo), which meant less clutter. But the networking never worked, either wireless or wired. After some delightful conversions with Samsung customer service, I sent it back. Truth is, it is a fine TV, and there was no real premium for the smart stuff, but I was just frustrated by it. So we went to BestBuy and the nicest looking LED in our price range that was not a Samsung was a Sharp. And, they had a Sharp dumb TV that was cheaper than the smart one we saw and that we thought was otherwise identical. We took it home, and really didn't like it. It turns out that it is not as nice as the smart one we saw in the store. So we took it back, too, and bought the Panny ST60. It is very nice -- way nicer than we need, so we are pretty happy with it.

I used an L-2 on the high Z setting with a 600R resistor in parallel to the output. Similar arrangements on a number of other amps did not fair as well.

Only bizarre in that the audiophile world won't buy anything that isn't a 6SN7. It's a nice tube for the rest of us.

The T1's actually sounded great with just the right amplification, but "just the right amplification" required a lot of tweaking. With any other amp, they were pretty blah.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/arts/music/lou-reed-dies-at-71.html

Or the input jacks.

\x160\xc5\x86\xfb\x1b\x1f\xc8\xfa\x9d\xcf2s\x01\x8eH

There are tube shields, but I can't say that I've ever seen them for octals. However, you can make a shield out of aluminum foil -- just wrap the tube, ground the foil, and make sure that the foil does not touch the pins. Does it change in different rooms?

Happy continuing birthday!

I am rescinding this recommendation due to the network falling apart, and Samsung being very unhelpful. Amazon has agreed to take it back, and we are deciding whether to keep it (the TV part works fine, and it is still price competitive) or get something else instead. The 50" ST60 is looking pretty good -- depends on whether to go better, or go cheaper as it isn't like AT&T or Netflix deliver content worthy of anything that good. Nate, what did you decide?

We just got a 46" Samsung (UN46F6300) which we like. It has Netflix, HBOGo, Plex, and Amazon Prime built in (among other stuff) so we were able to do away with a separate Roku. Wifi seems a bit spotty, but running an ethernet cord works fine (and we had to run one to the AT&T box anyway). It was well under your budget, too.

It can drive it, and it will probably work fine. But since when is fine good enough? I'd actually be inclined to use it in pentode mode ...

FTFY

300B is hard to drive well. How about putting a follower between the driver and the 300B. Jack has done such things. I think you can do a better circuit than the opamp as driver, but it is a quick and easy solution. The biggest hurdle is the step up transformer as it will need a sizable core (or a ton of windings) to deal with the voltage swing. Something like a Lundahl LL1689 would work. The 119DA might. If Hammond's rating is to be believed it should swing 80V or so. The voltage gain is low, so maybe pair it with a 1:4 step up before the driver circuit.

+1

I have no idea what's going on here, but I miss Chicago

For people who like OTL amps: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/440/WIMA_DC_Link_MKP_5-1184.pdf

Happy Birthday!