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Crack;Bottlehead OTL


ironbut

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tried 421A all day yesterday with a rca blackplate 12au7. then switched to 5998 and couldnt tell as much of a difference. just went back to 421A and theres a marked difference in bass. waaaaaaaay nicer with the 421A. right now running the 421A with a mullard 12au7 (labeled as an amperex). mighty fine midrange. very very nice.

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listening to raytheon 6as7g with the amperex 12au7. sounds anemic compared to the 5998 and the 421a. marked lack of bass volume (no boom boom bass) but i think that as a result of that the mids seem more emphasized. really nice for vocals but not so much for bass heavy music. bass note just withers away very quickly. with the 421a the impact seems to stick around for a little bit longer.

now at 8 x 6080 variants and 19 x 12au7s :facepalm: but i am finding certain tubes to be better for certain things. however i could just keep the 421a and the bugle boy 12au7 and the amperex 7316 and all it a day. perhaps i should just sell everything else and stock pile those...

nebby (or anyone else for that matter) thoughts on yours? or you are too busy listening to the lambdas :P

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I haven't really done any serious comparisons. I sat down for a couple of hours the first night that the amp was fully complete and did a gamut of testing my various tubes. I ended up liking the 5998 + Mullard the most though I also liked the RCA 5814A. Other than the initial burst of tube swapping I'm quite happy now with the 5998 + Mullard/RCA. Wouldn't mind giving the Bugle boy a try though!

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Quick question...... I bought a Sovtek 6AS7G for my Crack from Parts Connexion, and it rattles round a bit when I handle it. My Crack isn't built yet, so I have no way to test it.

Being my first experience with 'real' tubes, how high should my concern level be when I receive something like this?

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From the tube faq on HF: "A rattling sound from your tube base is bad? Wrong! The sound is usually due to some dislodged glue, and is usually harmless."

FWIW, I have a 5998 that rattles and it works just fine (no, it's not the one that had a channel disappear for a few hours...)

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I think that Nebby's right. For the most part, those rattling tubes aren't anything to worry about.

It is worth taking a good look at the bottom of the envelope just to be sure there isn't some metal part that's fallen off. But, I've got lots of rattling tubes and I've yet to find one that has anything in them that could short the electrodes.

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Pretty sure that the tube is in-tact, but I will check appropriate resistances before I try to use it.

One thing that has really started to annoy me while prepping for this build is tube sockets. The ones that came with the kit were OK but I thought I could do better without going nutty. So I bought some 'premium' ceramic models along with everything else from Partsconnexion, and they seem like very little improvement.

What do you need to do to get a decent tube socket? They seem a lot harder to find than a good OPAMP socket! Do I just bite the bullet and get Connex Teflon ones with tulip pins at $20 a pop, or am I being anal and the kit ones are fine?

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And it isn't even really the socket itself that is the problem, but the bloody awful pins. A bullet biting I do go, bye bye PayPal balance!

Nebby, one last question...... did you use the add-on PCBs to assist with wiring your sockets? It will make life a crapload easier, but I'm worried about whether it will all fit in the bloody box by the time the Speedball goes in......

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And it isn't even really the socket itself that is the problem, but the bloody awful pins. A bullet biting I do go, bye bye PayPal balance!

Nebby, one last question...... did you use the add-on PCBs to assist with wiring your sockets? It will make life a crapload easier, but I'm worried about whether it will all fit in the bloody box by the time the Speedball goes in......

What's up with the pins? I didn't even look at the stock ones, so I'll have to check when I get home to see how the pins are on them. Yes, I used the add-on PCBs to help with the wiring, since it does make the soldering much easier. You will have to dremel out a notch to make sure the post for the speedball right above the smaller tube socket fits, but it's a 2 second affair to do that.

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What's up with the pins? I didn't even look at the stock ones, so I'll have to check when I get home to see how the pins are on them. Yes, I used the add-on PCBs to help with the wiring, since it does make the soldering much easier. You will have to dremel out a notch to make sure the post for the speedball right above the smaller tube socket fits, but it's a 2 second affair to do that.

Well the stock pins on most sockets have holes in them to actually insert and solder a wire. It would be a lot harder to directly wire up to the round pins, thus the PCB.

I just wasn't sure if the Parts Connexion ones would fit. HiGHFLYiN9 used PCBs for his Teflon sockets, but he got those from Woo.

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