Kevin
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Hi Erik,
Thanks for the tip on the 6f6! I’ll have to pick out a pair and give them a try too. I’m still using the 12at7, but will sub in a 12au7 and several of its variants at some point in the near future. I’m primarily listening to three output tubes now; the 6bg6, the 5992 and the 350b, and each of them sound so good I could just stop here and be happy too. But tube rolling is a whole hobby unto itself!
You are certainly right about the 2a3 and 300b tubes! I do happen to like both of those tubes quite a bit, as well as the 45 and 71a, but the price to value rating is quite low there. Consider that a pair of 1953 new in box Western Electric 300bs sold on eBay last week for a cool $5000 dollars! So one single tube (admittedly the holy grail of the SET world! And possibly a very good financial investment in and of itself) cost more than a brand new Mini Torii complete with a Decware power cord, Decware interconnects and a nice variety of NOS American input and output tubes…shocking really.
In my experience at least, this little Mini Torii sounds just as good, and in many cases, quite a bit better than any of the other SET amps I have experience with. Overall, I think the output tube’s pedigree becomes less important when it is on a base as solid as this amp is. There are certainly differences in the presentation between one type or even one brand and another, but often those differences are rather subtle and neither can be said to be clearly better or worse. Always it is subjective between listeners, rooms, and other components.
In this amp, it is my feeling that it will be hard to find a compatible tube that sounds bad, and many will find that the stock 6v6 configuration is miles ahead of whatever they may have heard in the past. And we know that the price of a good set of NOS American 6v6, or 6l6, or 6bg6, or 6f6, or 6y6, or 6k6, etc is far less than even a cheap Chinese pair of 300b that may or may not sound good and may or may not last beyond its 30 day warranty.
Just my opinion of course, but I think a lot of the sound quality here has to do with the Decware output transformers, but even more than that I think it is the tube regulation. I’ve had tube regulated power supplies on an amp before, and that makes a big improvement, but what has been done here is certainly a large leap beyond that! At any rate, the wide tube rolling capability, using many tubes that I already owned, combined with a past positive experience with Decware, are the reasons I chose this amp. I’m a tube roller! And for me, this amp offers the ability to have many amps in one package, and they all sound excellent. Very, very nice.
Please keep us posted on your “third channel” Mini Torii project!
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