Month: December 2020

300B/845 Amp: Driver Options

For more than 6 months I’ve been playing with a lot of satisfaction my 300B amplifier with the 47 driver. Since then, I’ve made 2 modifications:

  1. Major one was the introduction of my Open-Baffle (OB) speakers. These are the “Liionidas” based on the LiiAudio C-15 and W-15 drivers. I need to do a proper write-up of these, but have to admit their sound has taken my system to another level. They are simply superb. Detail and dynamics are beyond expectations. Nothing less to be expected from the designer (Leon Huijgen) :
Initial test of the Liionidas OB speakers
  1. Second modification was minor, I removed the Zobel network from the input LL7903 to minimise loading to the source. Also, after several tests I found that the impact in the HF resonant peak is minor as the source has some resistance (below 100Ω) which is beneficial. So the 300B amplifier looks like this now:

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01a Low Gain DHT preamp

How many times I’ve been asked “how do I lower the gain of the DHT preamp?” many builders love the DHT sound and yet don’t really need that gain. Of course when you use a transformer load, step down is the obvious choice. And it works really well when you invest in a very good quality OPT.

However, when you use DHT with high rp, generally most of the low current ones, you face a tough challenge with regard to frequency response.

With the hybrid mu-follower topology (aka gyrator) we have the problem that the gain is fixed to nearly mu.

I’m in love with the DHT sound and in a preamp a 01a and the 801a/VT-25 DHT Preamp Update preamp cannot be beaten in my view. They all deliver a gain of 8 with a hybrid mu-follower topology.

This can be overcome in the following way: Continue reading “01a Low Gain DHT preamp”

SRS551 Pentode Curves and Model

It’s been a long and weird year with COVID-19. This evidently has kept me a bit distracted and changed priorities (as probably has done to you as well). Anyhow, here are the belated curves I was asked to publish.

SRS551

The SRS-551 is a lovely powerful transmitting pentode from RTF. Similar (or close enough) to RS1003 and F3a. Much more accessible in price is the SRS-551. I have a nice stash of NOS valves somewhere lost in my attic storage. Either way, they sounded nice and could definitely live in my setup. The valve was intended for audio modulation in FM transmitters so it’s very reliable and linear device. Distortion was extremely low when I measured it but most importantly it could work really well with local feedback to squeeze out 14W in Single-Ended at nearly 490V/100mA bias point with an LL1623 OPT. The distortion was below 0.7% predominantly H2.

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