Another 300B Push Pull (not WAD)

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Max N
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#1 Another 300B Push Pull (not WAD)

Post by Max N »

This is the general shape of the 300B PP that I have at the moment. It is essentially the same as the one I took to Owston a couple of years ago. On that occasion I was using a CD player with balanced outputs, now I am using one of the AK4393 boards.

Image


P2 is a variable resistor which adjusts the current through the 300Bs, and the 100mA meter shows the average current. (I might not bother with P2 and the meter because I don't think the current will be too far out)

P1 allows balancing of the current in the two tubes. I'd like to use one of the Yamamoto 300-0-300 meters to facilitate this adjustment, but I can't figure out where/how to connect it.
The meter is +/- 1mA and has an internal impedance of 180 ohms
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Greg
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#2

Post by Greg »

Hi Max,

That looks simplistically interesting and I well remember the excellent sound presentation of your amp at Owston on that occasion.

I know you did conversion work leading on from your own WAD 300B clone project. Out of interest, are the interstage Tx's the original SP wound or something different? What O/P Tx's have you used?

Regards,

Greg
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Paul Barker
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#3

Post by Paul Barker »

Looks very interesting.
Max N
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#4

Post by Max N »

Hi Greg
At the moment I am still using the WAD 300B clone but only as an output stage. The 6072 and 5687 are disabled/bypassed.
Also, I know that you reduced the dissipation of the 300Bs by increasing the cathode resistor. Instead, I have converted my amp to choke input, thereby dropping the HT voltage. The GZ37 is used as a rectifier in a hybrid bridge with two ss diodes. I fitted two of Mike's 200mA chokes, which seem perfectly happy as input chokes. And they have the same mounting hole spacing as the SP wound ones, so they were easy to fit. The SP Wound chokes were then used as the second choke after the first cap. I don't think I've made myself very clear, so I've attached a PSU file which you can look at in PSUD2 - you'll need to change the file extension to psu .This shows the power supply for one channel, everything after the bridge is duplicated for the other channel.
This all results in an operating point close to the original (very conservative) Western Electric 'typical' values of 300V and 60mA. I'm never going to be able to buy any more WE tubes, so I want them to last. :-)
The output transformers are James JS6255H. Do you remember when you and Neal came round to my house to compare our respective WAD PP clones? I had these OPTs fitted to mine then, so you have heard them before, in a context where you could compare them to the SP Wound ones.

The interstages are the bifilar wound ones that Neal had made by Morite, originally for the 211 PP project. I think they are pretty good. This is a 1kHz squarewave at +/- 100V:
Image

Any questions, just ask :-)
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pre65
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#5

Post by pre65 »

Max, I'm sure when I asked Mike about using his "electronic choke" modules as the first choke in a choke input PSU he said NO !

Had you tried a conventional choke first and the electronic choke second ?
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#6

Post by Max N »

Sorry Phil, I guess I was a bit ambiguous - I meant the Danbury 200mA chokes, VT1131 here:

http://livinginthepast-audioweb.co.uk/xfrmrchokes.php
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#7

Post by Max N »

Still hoping someone can suggest a way to hook up the balance meter - anyone?
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#8

Post by pre65 »

Max N wrote:Sorry Phil, I guess I was a bit ambiguous - I meant the Danbury 200mA chokes, VT1131 here:

http://livinginthepast-audioweb.co.uk/xfrmrchokes.php
Ah yes, I use a couple of them on my d3a/6B4-g monoblocks. I think it was me making assumptions as I knew you had some "electronic chokes". :oops:
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#9

Post by Max N »

I guess if the DCR of each half of the OPT primary is the same (or if I make them the same by adding a suitable resistor in series with one side) then the voltage drop across each should be the same. So could I connect the meter across the OPT primary? Would I need a switch to disconnect the meter when playing music?
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#10

Post by Nick »

If you are taking the output directly from the dac on the AK board, you will have a extra 2.5v on the grid, so possibly need a bigger shared cathode resistor.
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#11

Post by Paul Barker »

Why don't you monitor each cathode of the 300b's and either use two current sinks one per valve or one current sink where they meet and an adjustable resistor on each branch from the 300b's.

Also ditto Nick on the DAC output but I expect you are onto that.

Yesterday afternoon I read John attwood's very long Triode Mafia thread about small transformers which he tested as DAC outputs. Though in those days theye weren't using the AK4393/6 so the needs were different. Alan Wright was telling them all how important it was to buy reclocking kits from him, and Lynn Ollsen was telling them all how he invented the idea of transformer coupling in 1997 (non of the rest of us apparently ever thought of it) and it was the only way anyone with any sense should now go.

Quite a hillarious thread if you are an observer of human behaviour and you were actually a partaker throughout the period when you can look back and see the blatant chest puffing.

But, one of the things I did glean from the thread was that a few significant people, well Alan Wright anyway did think the low pass filter was necessary. But he conceded that John Attwood maybe got away without needing it because his transformers naturally filterd the 50khz (or whatever frequency it is at) grunge. And that was his excuse for why John didn't like the capacitor coupling.

IF the above is true, perhaps you should in any case consider coupling to the grids of the 5687 through a balanced transformer. OR reinstate the 50khz (or whatever frequency it needs to be) low pass filter.

But no doubt Clive has more wisdom to throw on your plan.

The rest of the topology? Cock on!

The beauty of the plan is that you could convert it to the Steve Bench Single ended style of going balanced right up to the output stage :idea:
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#12

Post by Max N »

Nick wrote:If you are taking the output directly from the dac on the AK board, you will have a extra 2.5v on the grid, so possibly need a bigger shared cathode resistor.
Thanks Nick
I had noted that from the other thread then forgotten to do it!
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#13

Post by Max N »

Paul Barker wrote:Why don't you monitor each cathode of the 300b's and either use two current sinks one per valve or one current sink where they meet and an adjustable resistor on each branch from the 300b's.

Also ditto Nick on the DAC output but I expect you are onto that.

Yesterday afternoon I read John attwood's very long Triode Mafia thread about small transformers which he tested as DAC outputs. Though in those days theye weren't using the AK4393/6 so the needs were different. Alan Wright was telling them all how important it was to buy reclocking kits from him, and Lynn Ollsen was telling them all how he invented the idea of transformer coupling in 1997 (non of the rest of us apparently ever thought of it) and it was the only way anyone with any sense should now go.

Quite a hillarious thread if you are an observer of human behaviour and you were actually a partaker throughout the period when you can look back and see the blatant chest puffing.

But, one of the things I did glean from the thread was that a few significant people, well Alan Wright anyway did think the low pass filter was necessary. But he conceded that John Attwood maybe got away without needing it because his transformers naturally filterd the 50khz (or whatever frequency it is at) grunge. And that was his excuse for why John didn't like the capacitor coupling.

IF the above is true, perhaps you should in any case consider coupling to the grids of the 5687 through a balanced transformer. OR reinstate the 50khz (or whatever frequency it needs to be) low pass filter.

But no doubt Clive has more wisdom to throw on your plan.

The rest of the topology? Cock on!

The beauty of the plan is that you could convert it to the Steve Bench Single ended style of going balanced right up to the output stage :idea:
When you say monitoring each cathode, do you mean use two of the 100mA meters, one per valve? I could do that but I want to use a single unbypassed cathode resistor (or a single CCS). There is a neat idea in one of the Radiotron amps, where they adjust bias by adjusting the DC voltage on the grids (Radiotronics amplifier A515), but I can't do that because I'm transformer coupling.

When I built the Audionote DAC kit about 10 years ago, they had the analogue filter on the digital PCB, and direct coupling to the analogue stage. The kits they sell now have the same pcb, but the analogue filter components are not fitted and they use a transformer to couple to the analogue stage. Or, to put it more concisely, Audionote do seem to think that you need either the analogue filter or a transformer. I did experiment with transformer coupling, using an Audionote Trans 410 and a Jensen JT-11-P1.
But its worth noting that Audionote are using an AD1865 at 44kHz.
With the AK4393, and especially the AK4396, the sample rate is much higher, so the analogue filter can be much gentler or maybe isn't needed at all.
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Nick
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#14

Post by Nick »

Yep, if you look at the traces that Andrew L did of the AK dac and valve stage, there were no sign of any HF content, unlike the Philips CD player we also tried.

BTW, Ali may be finding that heatsinking the 7812 regs is needed, he was getting distortion with the one I built for him, and it only happens after its warmed up.

One day I will remember to not make a major change to something (changing from one of the AK boards with a 3 dac to one with a 6 dac ) before sending it to its owner, I only had a few minutes listening to it after that.

Its that Columbo "one more thing" thing.
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