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Insane amp?


Guest sacd lover

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Guest sacd lover

After my recent experience with the Zana Deux in Cinci I was again reminded what a difference power can make. As I have found more powerful tubes to run in the Singlepowers they just keep getting better. Mikhail, I believe, has a little bias against the bigger power tubes like the 2a3/ 300b etc.. because he doesnt feel they maintain the amps refinement .... and you have to admit at a certain point how much output power is necessary. But me ... I think if you have a refined gain tube that sets the character of the amp ..... the more power you add ..... things only get better. 8)

With this in mind I contacted Mikhail about a 6c33 amp. I had discussed this about a year ago but he discouraged me from using them in a headamp. The 6c33 tube has a specific problem eating tube sockets per Mikhail, which I also confirmed with Kevin Gilmore. This along with the heat and expense made think better of going this route. But nothing succeeds like excess so again I talked him about building me a 6c33 based amp. Well .... it turns out he has a prototype that is already done. But he wants to take what he learned from building the ES-1 and apply that knowledge to this amp before he sends me the amp. I may have the amp next week if he gets some time.

The amp is in an mpx3 chassis. The tube compliment will be .....

5687 x2 first gain stage> 6/12sn7 x2 second gain stage > 6c33 x4 output stage.

Now is that insane? :o

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I'd be interested in mikhails take on using the 6H30 in an amp. I've had very little luck so far myself, but I am almost at the point where I am going to scrap the design and start over. I really wish I would have just gone with the KG Bamaslama design as I had originally intended. I am considering going that route now and maybe trying to use the 6H30 in both positions [since I have a matched quad of them], but I'd need someones help picking out the resistor values. This tube amp design is hard work... gives me a lot of respect for those that can do it right. ;)

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Philodox, thats ashame your 6h30 based amp isn't working out. I'm sure KG's bamaslama amp will be awesome though.
Yeah, it sucks... but it has been a learning experience. And who knows, I might even get it working at some point. :D

One of the main things I've learned is trust your gut. I've never had a problem with KG designs and have the utmost respect for his work. I should have just gone with my gut reaction an built the Bamaslama. The fact that I allowed myself to be convinced into another [untried] design based on some fancy talking was a mistake. But hey, at least I'm not afraid of my soldering iron now! :P

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Guest sacd lover

I'd be interested in mikhails take on using the 6H30 in an amp. I've had very little luck so far myself, but I am almost at the point where I am going to scrap the design and start over. I really wish I would have just gone with the KG Bamaslama design as I had originally intended. I am considering going that route now and maybe trying to use the 6H30 in both positions [since I have a matched quad of them], but I'd need someones help picking out the resistor values. This tube amp design is hard work... gives me a lot of respect for those that can do it right. ;)

If I remember correctly .... the 6h30 is a tube said he cant get to sound good. Great specs but the sound just doesnt do it. The 6n1p is another tube that looks promising but when you use the tube the sound is to hard and harsh sounding. I think the Russian tubes in general have this character. I am hoping the tube rectification in the Zana wasnt covering up any flaws in the 6c33. The Zana could go a little towards the bright side with 701's.

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Well, it was sort of hush-hush there for a while as the 'designer' wanted to keep the intellectual property or whatever... anyways, after reading through my basic tube design book the main circuit is pretty basic [nothing innovative]. The only thing that was unique was the CCS... and the about all we could get that thing to do was burn silicone. :D

Here is a schematic of the amp with an 820 ohm resistor in place of the CCS. This schematic shows basically where I am now after a lot of troubleshooting... the original amp was significantly different. The power supply is fairly simple... we were planning on improving on it if the amp ever gave us reason. You can disregard the voltage readings that I've marked down on it.

I don't want to completely derail this thread and will probably start up a new one here with more info soon to see if anyone has any suggestions, but the long and short of it is that the amp has basically no bass and as such sounds very weird. Probably lacking in current and possibly lacking in voltage swing. As I said, I really wish I had just built the bamaslama.

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Lets see, output impedance of no less than 500 ohms.

No Bass. Non existant damping factor. Bottom half of a wcf without the top half. All pull and no push.

I could beat you up further, but you get the idea.

Well it was intended to drive my K340's, so maybe that explains the output impedance a bit... as for the rest. Doesn't surprise me after what I've been hearing.
Ray the Engineer must have designed this
Nope, but it was an EE. :)

Don't worry about beating me up for this... I deserve it. If it is any consolation though, it looks like I will be building the bamaslama now. :D

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Well, my amp definitely wins the "it's not a bomb!" award...

Right now I'm thinking about building an amp based on the first 2 stages of The Karna, but substituting 26's for the ECC99 so I have directly heated triodes for the entire amp. Would also need a new output transformer as well and a few other things, but that's in the far future unless I win the lottery or somehow come across an obscene amount of money.

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They're in the 2nd Hamilton meet thread somewhere, but as I'm banned from head-fi at the moment I can't exactly access them.

I found the pics.

BTW, I love the family guy quote you used on the ceo of Eastsound, Bada, and Sony. ;D I asume that is why you got banned?

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