EML300B Mesh – initial test

My friend Mirek sent me from Czech Republic a few valves for testing, including a pair of precious EML300B Mesh valves. I managed to slot them into my system before departing for holidays. I only listened to them for a few hours, so these are only initial impressions.

EML300B Mesh

I like the sound and was expecting the additional level of detail and sound of the mesh plate. Worth addition clearly. I wouldn’t say it’s a significant step improvement, just minor, subtle details are clearer. You won’t go wrong with the standard EML300B. The Mesh is a nice upgrade but you will need to think (as always) where it best to put the money on. I’d invest in the iron and overall circuit before you get to throw more money on the output valves. That’s my view.

Anyhow, great job Emission Labs for this superb valve.

300B SE Amp: 47 Driver

Going DHT end to end

As previously mentioned, I played around with the 46 driver.  I love it sound and is a great valve. However, there were 2 reasons that pushed me to switch to the 47. Firstly, I wanted an extra tad of gain. Secondly, I have a nice stash of RCA 247 globe which measure extremely well. I’ve been reserving it for a 47 PP amp with local feedback (a la Pimm) and hopefully will get to in the future. Anyhow, the 47 in triode mode has a mu of about 8 which in combination with the SUT, gives me good gain to drive my 300B. After tweaking on the bench the stage for optimal swing and distortion performance, I ended up with the following circuit:

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300b driver experiments

I’ve been enjoying and carefully listening my new 300B amplifier. I have to say that I love every bit of its sound, treble detail and strong bass. The amplifier is fast and can drive very well my speakers. I only discovered that due to my low level DAC, the gain of the D3a in triode is yet not enough to get it to maximum power. So, I hooked in my beloved 01a preamp. The overall gain is too much of course so had to place the volume control at the output of the 01a stage.

I think a gain of about 130-140 should be ok. Perhaps if I get around in adding the 6SF5 stage then it may be good enough.

So this got me thinking. Of course I have on my list 2 driver tests:

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