Remember These?

[Mike H]

Photos or it didn't happen

[Cressy Snr]

Photos or it didn't happen

You’ll have to wait ‘til Owston.

As an aside I’ve been experimenting with bypasses on the output caps. Tried expensive Jupiter “Astron” paper caps and got a gorgeous vintage tone out of the amp. Tried extremely expensive Mundorf silver/gold foil in oil and it was OK in a hi-fi sort of way. Tried polypropylene bypass caps and it sounded harsh in the upper mids and lower treble - not pleasant.

Then I decided during a brainstorm of stupidity to use some little black 8uF Sprague Atom 450V electrolytics as bypasses and got the best tonal balance and sweetest treble of the lot. WTF? I give up.

Must be easily pleased or something.

Think I’ll take up knitting.

[IslandPink]

Seems like a good experiment and a valid result. I've found that mixing caps with very different ESR ( effective series resistance ) rarely works.

Tried extremely expensive Mundorf silver/gold foil in oil and it was OK in a hi-fi sort of way.

Thing about those is they are not film/foil, they are metallised film, despite the high price tag. Did I ever mention which ones I prefer ?

[Cressy Snr]

It surprised me that the little electrolytic bypasses did the job soundwise, but there it is. The ESR explanation makes sense. Thanks for that Mark.

Gonna search out some music over the next fortnight, to dem the amp with at Owston, which isn’t far away now. The lack of power is going to make the choice of music a lot more important than when I had 50 WPC of NVA clone last year. I’m using CD as a source this time; none of your low res, iTunes download malarkey. It won’t be “system challenging” music; not with only a Watt available. It’s unfair to expect the thing to deliver that sort of stuff in a room that size, so I’m going nowhere near Metallica, The Prodigy or Massive Attack.

[izzy wizzy]

Thing about those is they are not film/foil, they are metallised film, despite the high price tag. Did I ever mention which ones I prefer ?

And that's always puzzled me. Do they buck the usual trend of metallised film? I'm no cap roller but have always preferred film foil if I can.

[Mike H]

Then I decided during a brainstorm of stupidity to use some little black 8uF Sprague Atom 450V electrolytics as bypasses and got the best tonal balance and sweetest treble of the lot. WTF? I give up.

Must be easily pleased or something.

Think I’ll take up knitting.

Actually I'm not surprised. Have had mucho aggro with non-elecs in the past, finding something I like, actual elecs, mostly good.

[Cressy Snr]

The best part of using the 6H30 is that it ca be easily replaced by a 6H6p or 6H1p and more. My guess is, from listening to all 3 tubes in my sound systems (AR, SE OTL ), that a 6H30 might sound too sterile in a single output tube OTL. The 6H6p might sound warmer with more bass, the 6H1p a little more open in the upper mids with a little less punch in the bass than the 6H6p.The 6H6p needs double the heater current if tube rolling should be an option. But they are drop in replacements.
However, with some special attention to what the 6H30 needs in order to sound best it can be an exiting experience. With how much current and at which voltage the 6H30 is used will decide how good or boring it will sound. Lots of experimenting and listening.

Interestingly, today I found my old pair of 6H1P at our Ant’s place, came home with them and plugged them in after cleaning the pins with alcohol. Can’t remember where I got them; they may have been courtesy of either Mark or Andrew L, about 10 years ago.
I would say that they sound exactly as Wolfgang had said they would, ie. nice and open in the upper mids and top, leading to a slightly more airy sound than the 6H30pi but with less bottom end heft. They have more gain than the 6H30pi which might account for the slightly more dynamic presentation. I may dem the amp at Owston with 6H1P as the slightly subdued bass will give the 13E1s an easier time of it when trying to fill that room. It doesn’t matter in the house but at Owston, the amp will be able to use that feature of the 6H1P

I’d thought I’d had a couple of 6H6P, which I think I got off Nick around 10 years ago, but these appear to be missing in action. Steve probably has them now. Couldn’t do a full three valve shootout therefore, but there’s no reason to disbelieve Wolfgang judging by what I found with the 6H1P.

[Cressy Snr]

Then I decided during a brainstorm of stupidity to use some little black 8uF Sprague Atom 450V electrolytics as bypasses and got the best tonal balance and sweetest treble of the lot. WTF? I give up.

Must be easily pleased or something.

Think I’ll take up knitting.

Actually I'm not surprised. Have had mucho aggro with non-elecs in the past, finding something I like, actual elecs, mostly good.

Aye, the Spragues seem to do it.

[Mike H]

In that case, it ain't broke don't fix it!

[Cressy Snr]

Another interesting bit is that with the 6H1Ps being higher gain than the 6H30pi, you would have expected there to be higher noise levels when idling. This was not a problem. In fact noise levels were actually lower. These are “ev” versions of the 6H1P, which is presumably a low noise version of the standard valve?

This makes me wonder if these valves came from Andrew L, who had a “developing dish” phono stage way back when. The valves would have needed to be low noise in that application.

[Cressy Snr]

Gonna search out some music over the next fortnight, to dem the amp with at Owston, which isn’t far away now.

Well, a week down the line and I’m no nearer, finding anything, although it’s been great fun reacquainting myself with music I haven’t played for donkeys’ years.
The problem as I see it, is that so far I can’t find anything in the way of plinky plonk bollocks. The missus has “Simply Eva” by Eva Cassidy and that’s about it. Virtually the whole of the rest of my CD collection is 60s Hammond driven soul jazz, 60s R&B, Stax, Motown, Atlantic soul, with a smattering of Steely Dan, Eagles and the 1987 first CD issues of the Beatles catalogue, which are not a patch on the later remasters, none of which I’ve got. I’ve not bought a CD for 15 years at least.

So it’s an Eva Cassidy track first to get the plinky plonk out of the way, then some Hammond jazz, followed by some real Deep Soul, which won’t be an easy listen, so I’d best not go first.

[izzy wizzy]

Well, a week down the line and I’m no nearer, finding anything, although it’s been great fun reacquainting myself with music I haven’t played for donkeys’ years.
The problem as I see it, is that so far I can’t find anything in the way of plinky plonk bollocks. The missus has “Simply Eva” by Eva Cassidy and that’s about it. Virtually the whole of the rest of my CD collection is 60s Hammond driven soul jazz, 60s R&B, Stax, Motown, Atlantic soul, with a smattering of Steely Dan, Eagles and the 1987 first CD issues of the Beatles catalogue, which are not a patch on the later remasters, none of which I’ve got. I’ve not bought a CD for 15 years at least.

So it’s an Eva Cassidy track first to get the plinky plonk out of the way, then some Hammond jazz, followed by some real Deep Soul, which won’t be an easy listen, so I’d best not go first.

Am I missing something here? Any wise words for a new presenter? I just thought you say what you got and play some stuff; show and tell stylee. Is there some kind of "plinkty plonk taste police" out there ... whatever that is? Reckon I better bring a load of records.

Cheers,
Stephen

[IslandPink]

Are you sure you're feeling OK Steve ? I've never noticed any rules. Nick normally tries to play the whole of Soft Machine 'Third' , I usually bring some Fall, which about 2 people like. Bring records, Stephen - even if they don't all get played, we can look at the records.

[Dave the bass]

Is there some kind of "plinkty plonk taste police" out there ...

Nah, no taste police as such, just public humiliation and a 1 to 1 session on the ducking stool.

[Greg]

............just public humiliation and a 1 to 1 session on the ducking stool.

1 to 1? Surely that’ll make ducking ineffective.

See-Saw, maybe?