[OctavianH]

The specs of A2293/CV4079 are better than a single section of most any 6080/6AS7 in terms of output impedance. Plus they're Twins so they're way more adorable with beautiful curves.

Thank you, mr. Lobal. Valuable information.

 

[OctavianH]

I definitely learned that I do not have a reason to go to the CD wall. Whenever I go there I do only ugly stuff. LOL

South of Heaven was my favourite.

Ok, lesson learned, you never go to the CD wall.

 

[LobalWarming]

Thank you, mr. Lobal. Valuable information.

You're welcome! Have you tried the more neutral Twin regulators, the TFK ED8000s? They seem more linear than the GECs to my ears, which may or may not be what one wants... like the A229s they work very well OTL and OTC connected. Sometimes I prefer them to the A229s, sometimes other way round. My tastes are fickle.

 

[OctavianH]

You're welcome! Have you tried the more neutral Twin regulators, the TFK ED8000s? They seem more linear than the GECs to my ears, which may or may not be what one wants... like the A229s they work very well OTL and OTC connected. Sometimes I prefer them to the A229s, sometimes other way round. My tastes are fickle.

Nope. Sorry.

 

[LobalWarming]

Oh... you might really like them... bring you back to the Triode side... again.

https://tubedata.jp/sheets/128/e/ED8000.pdf

https://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_ed8000.html

Different pinout than A229... because... of course. But can one ever have enough adapters?

 

[OctavianH]

Different pinout than A229... because... of course. But can one ever have enough adapters?

Looks interesting but I do not want to have other adapters in house again.

 

[OctavianH]

By the way, if anyone is interested, my adapter for A2293 to 6V6 looks like this:

Might be useful since there is no pinout available.

PS. Plate = Anode LOL

PS2. How to interpreet it: Column 2 is wired to Column 4 and the meaning of each of them is in the right side. As usual, check yourself and do not believe me.

 

[LobalWarming]

Looks interesting but I do not want to have other adapters in house again.

Well... could just the adapters outdoors in summer... and store them in a shed during winter and not bring them into the house.

Or... could have Deyan build the adapters, bring them into the house and put them in the bottom of a drawer as if they'd been there for years and you forgot about them.

 

[OctavianH]

Deyan build the adapters

Deyan is very good in what he is doing. He is flexible and he does very nice adapters. I am supproting him but I also need a break. You cannot use every tube in the world. You are also very smart mr. Lobal and while I like and support what you do, I prefer to take a break sometimes.

 

[LobalWarming]

Deyan is very good in what he is doing. He is flexible and he does very nice adapters. I am supproting him but I also need a break. You cannot use every tube in the world. You are also very smart mr. Lobal and while I like and support what you do, I prefer to take a break sometimes.

Understand. Take a break and enjoy listening to your vast collection of strapping pseudo-triodes... and then possibly when you're bored this decade or next you might consider the ED8000. Or those big gaudy triodes, the ones with 300 Bees in them. They say they sound like honey.

 

[OctavianH]

Understand. Take a break and enjoy listening to your vast collection of strapping pseudo-triodes... and then possibly when you're bored this decade or next you might consider the ED8000. Or those big gaudy triodes, the ones with 300 Bees in them. They say they sound like honey.

I will explain a little bit how I choose my priorities Mr. Lobal, but this has to come with a small story. When I started with tube amps I was usually following others advices. A strong point for me in choosing a tube amp was the community using it so I can obtain some advices from more experienced users related to what could be good. The advices were nice, but in the end everyone was recommending the usual suspects which were already getting expensive. The value of a tube has nothing to do with the price associated, it has to do with the fame it has in several circles and availability. When you use only what others advise, you can reach a comfortable level, but it will never be the best you can obtain from your own chain. The breakthrough will be in the moment you will discover what you like and start following your own path, but this comes with experience. Experience let's you choose what tubes are suiting you best and also let's you discover new types which others do not use and those might be extremely cheap and extremely good. That is the point of maturity, in my view, of a tube roller. The moment you can choose for yourself without taking into consideration the advices of others. But this comes with a cost: more adapters, more study and some risks that some tube types might not work as you expect. This also requires a tube amplifier you know very well and it is built to last, the majority of the mass produced models are not good in this regard. This is why I always advise people to choose custom made amplifiers which are much above their price range and let you do more than what others are able to do (McChanson, Eufonika, A1101 Audio or in the past UltraSonic Studios). Custom tube amplifier builders are the leaders and the rest are just followers at a higher price.

Now let's get to the subject. In the latest years I have reached the conclusion that only two tube types are making sense for me to follow and the rest will always be under their level. I always wrote here that the american tube sound was killed for me by the british sound and later that the old original Philips sound killed the british sound for me. It is true, this is the reason I use mostly old Philips P8A pentodes in the last months. The two types I am interested in and I follow are the tubular metal base Philips pre-EL34 models and the "red base" ST shaped old Philips P8A pentodes like 4654/EL50/EL3/6 and so on. There are two different signatures associated to these tubes, the metal base ones being very neutral and technical sounding on my amplifier, a more solid state approach which retains the tube goodness. The others are more creamy and rich sounding while retaining a lot of the qualities of the others. The old Philips sound is vivid, creamy and rich, a tone which will become addictive in time and will make you never wanting again what you listened before. I always make the parallel with the Samsung android phones when explaining how these tubes are sounding. The AMOLED screen used in the S-series phones is the Philips old sound, while other tubes are the normal LCD screens. I am sold to AMOLED screens and you can see that looking at the photos I post here which are all enhanced in sharpness and color. After I take a photo I put some filters on it and make it more into that direction. This is what I like and follow also on the sound.

Now, let's put some nice photos otherwise this will remain a boring long post mr. Lobal. These are the metal base construction tubes I currently follow and I will always follow them for technicalities.

There are much more types than these but, of course, I made a photo of what I have here close to me. As you can see, we have a 4689, a 4654K and an EBL21 loctal. All share the same construction from my point of view and this is bringing value to the sound these provide. Always follow the metal base construction for technical sounding tubes. And of course, do not pay crazy prices for these like people pay for metal base EL34. Does not make sense, these have the same level of sound and also retain their signature based on the tube type (4689 is more musical, mid forward while 4654K is a kind of more linear EL39 for example).

And now let's go to what I consider the pinnacle of the tube world. The ST shaped old Philips pentodes which are sounding spectacular on new modern designs of tube amps like the one I am using. A very neutral, low distorted, sharp sounding tube amplifier which goes somewhere in the middle of the tube world and solid state while retaining the tube naturalness. This is Eternity, fast, sharp and natural sounding. Not tubey, not soft, not solid state. In the middle being true to the original sound of music.

These are the best tubes ever produced mr. Lobal. Nothing can surpass this and nobody will ever build something more than this. While I hated the socket and always had problems, I have to admit that I never found something better than these. On top of my neutral and sharp sounding amplifier these are bringing an organic and natural sound which is not easy to be matched by something else. This is the true hi-fi sound, transparent and also organic, vivid and alive without letting you think it is exaggerated. American tubes cannot match this, they are grainy and narrow sounding. British tubes are sweeter and mask a part of the grainy sound with forced mids or smoothness but all are veiled, add a "sepia" filter on top of the photo which is nice but also decrease transparency. The old Philips pentodes are transparent, dynamic and also sound big, wide and let you enjoy a full cinema OLED movie. Speaking of current times they are the Dune II on a huge OLED screen. Because I watch a lot of SF movies and wait for Dune II to see this is how I would compare these.

And now, in the end, a few words about why I do not run for ED8000 as mr. Lobal advised. I do not think any other tube in the world except the metal base constructed ones (with Philips materials) or the ST shaped P8A pentodes is able to reproduce the music at the level I started to enjoy lately. I make new posts on the tube rolling thread only because I am bored. I never search for something else because I know I have found the pinnacle. My focus is not to make research for new tube types, but to discover more of the P8A or metal base construction tubes and explore more in that area. There is a middle ground between these and the "common" tubes. These are the rimlock tubes (ECC40, EL41, EL42) which are incredibly well sounding despite they are small. I love my pair of metal base foil getter EL41 and I will never find another EL84 based tubes better than it. Even if A2293 is addicting, the king here is the metal base foil getter old Philips EL41.

I will get bored and try other stuff, but I will never go back to the normal tubes anymore for longer listening periods. In the last months I have bought incredible tubes in the range of 10-15 EUR/piece because nobody is looking, while others stand in the queue to pay thousands on 300B or others I am there at the auctions ending with one bidder - me. Now people laugh at me but one day, they will understand the real value and why these had to be the focus and not other tubes which are still in production or already sold at very high prices because of the fame in the community.

Ok, time to end this post apocalyptic post. LOL

 

[OctavianH]

I spoke about the middle ground but went fast on it. I will return.

Here we have a WIRAG EL84 with A-code near some ECC40 Eindhoven and near the EL41 Philips metal base foil getter. I spoke about this EL41 tube several times and told everyone that it kills almost anything I have ever heard. No EL84 can touch the true Philips sound of old EL41. Rimlock is the missing link between old metal base or P8A ST-shaped tubes. They are far above normal "octal" tubes and retain some of the old Philips sound the rest are providing. Of course, they sound much narrower and smaller than the rest of the bunch but well, this was expected.

When all run for 6SN7 or 6AS7/6080 I run for 6SL7 and 6N7. When all run for 300B or other famous tubes I run for 4654/EL41 or many others which are made with Philips materials and share commonalities with the construction types of these. We are running out of time, because the true value in the tube world is becoming more and more unavailable. I am not alone, there is a whole industry in the shade following the true sound (of course, what they use or buy is far away from what people use or recommend on these forums) and they are buying more and more tubes. I was lucky to be one step forward and find what I need for myself.

One important decision I have taken lately is to contribute more on the radiomuseum.org. I will put there more and more stuff to be available for everyone. So my focus will not necessarily be on the tube rolling but on preserving and history of these very nice old tubes. They need more people and I am here to help.

 

[OctavianH]

And now a useless post about Slayer. I was praising them yesterday but listening today to more albums than South of Heaven I realize that they just got faster and more aggressive but loosing their own fun. It think this is just like tubes, you go higher gain but you loose the point.

I still think their masterpiece is South of Heaven and what they have done lately was to expand more on the technical side. While I like a lot the Seasons in the Abyss era or Divine Intervention I strongly think that the best of Slayer was on the previous work like South of Heaven.

Mandatory suicide. Massacre on the front line.

 

[ARCXENOS]

One important decision I have taken lately is to contribute more on the radiomuseum.org. I will put there more and more stuff to be available for everyone. So my focus will not necessarily be on the tube rolling but on preserving and history of these very nice old tubes. They need more people and I am here to help.

Well, a lot of the publicly available pictures can get a higher definition update!

 

[Isaacc7]

And now a useless post about Slayer. I was praising them yesterday but listening today to more albums than South of Heaven I realize that they just got faster and more aggressive but loosing their own fun. It think this is just like tubes, you go higher gain but you loose the point.



I still think their masterpiece is South of Heaven and what they have done lately was to expand more on the technical side. While I like a lot the Seasons in the Abyss era or Divine Intervention I strongly think that the best of Slayer was on the previous work like South of Heaven.

Mandatory suicide. Massacre on the front line.

Heh. Sometimes I get excited by your posts about tubes and then you post something like this and I remember that we are after very different goals! Not sure we could listen more different music lol. As I came across this post I was listening to a John Coltrane song. We probably have tuned our systems a bit differently.