veryoldcat wrote on 01/07/08 at 03:36:00:If you look at the classifieds, "roblikestubes" has some "Cryo'd 6P15P-EVs" which are in my mind THE RITZ for output tubes. These are the military sv83's. I've listened to them in a couple of Selects (stock and heavily modded) and also in the Taboo, and I also love and use them in my Select.
It continues to amaze and bother me a bit that the cryo process should make any diff, but it sure does with these.
The uncryoed version sounds quite good and is now the stock output tube included with Decware gear (better than the more lightly built Svetlana branded sv83's), but the cryoed version is faster and more transparent in the upper mids to highs. They also have a more solid sound than the Svetlana's, overall, whether cryoed or not.
I second Eli's impression of the Bendix 6106. Sounds great and really rugged. My absolute fav 5y3's are the Mullards, but they've been a little more fragile, besides ghastly pricey.
For the driver tube you can use 6n1p's, 6dj8's, 6922's, or 6n2p's. The 6n2p is over-the-top sounding in my Select, but as I understand sounds particularly good in the Decware EL34 based amps.
Good to see you post, Dirt. Sorry about all those years of suffering with sand kicked in your, uhh, ears.
Whatya gonna use for speakers??
Karl
Thanks for all the info, guys.
Speakers?
I have a number of vintage JBL, AR, Yamaha things still around. The flattest sounding to my ears are the eight inch, two way, near field JBL Monitors, but by far the sweetest are my own creations. I use an open back configuration with a Visaton B200 over dual modified JBL fifteens (they are 2235s) which matches my tiny room with aplomb. I use a big coil on the fifteens, which are parallel four ohm drivers, with the parallel Visaton taking over in the mid hundred cycles.
I am mostly sold on open back systems. Mine seems to measure out around 1.9 ohms (even with the big hand wound coils) and the sound with Decware amps in mono is awesome.
I have brought home to demo a set of Klipsch (dual eights and a horn, can't remember the model number), but they were quite harsh, although quite efficient, also.
I work at a Best Buy store now and I have also tried the two Martin Logans and a Definitive they carry. I like them all in some ways, but none has a neutral ear appeal like the open back Visatons, over the dual fifteens wall of cones sound. Mine are more efficient than the Martin Logans, not as flat, but much more musical and personally involving.
I also brought home "The Source" Hybrid Electrostatic speakers and I opened the brand new boxes myself, but one had a defective power supply. I was extremely disappointed, because I don't get many chances to try out stuff that has just arrived. I could tell by listening in mono that they are fairly respectable speakers. Not efficient at all, though. I was running out of juice with the Zen C in mono. These will not really work for us, although the one speaker really came into its own with a couple hundred McIntosh sand watts across it.
I guess my point is that I am still playing with speakers, but I have found my amps. If the speakers don't sound good with my Zens, then they don't deserve to stay.