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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: RE: 6SN7 tube posted by cpotl on January 7, 2015 at 08:01:06:
"I am curious sometimes about tube rolling, and the extent to which one could ever really say that "brand X" has an intrinsically different tonal quality from "brand Y."
Any tube two tubes of the same type will inevitably have different values for the mutual conductance, the plate resistance, and so on. If one pulls out one tube and pops in another and it sounds "better," could it simply be that by chance the biasing set up in the amplifier happens to be more appropriate for hitting the ideal operating point of the second tube than it was for the first tube?"
-I think so.
You could also flip this thought around, perhaps certain manufacturing processes and materials yield a product more consistent with the datasheet ideal, which was necessary in most cases for designing devices that will be made before replacement tubes.
"Even statements such as that "brand X systematically sounds better than brand Y" might be subject to the same kind of influences. For example, it might be that brand X systematically happens to have a lower mutual conductance than brand Y, and that given the choice of cathode resistor value in one's amplifier, this meant that brand X tubes ended up closer to the ideal operating point than brand Y tubes. But this would not mean there was a general statement that "brand X is better than brand Y," but merely that the person making the report happened to have selected a value for the cathode resistor that was better suited to brand X than brand Y."
-Similar to my thoughts above. If brand X was generally closer to datasheet ideals, then generally speaking it would be the desired tube to use in most cases compared to Y, generally speaking.
-Anything that strays too far from the datasheet ideals becomes a specific case which cannot have general qualities applied to it. I'm not saying tube Y is worse then X, it's just that, as you say, maybe brand Y needs some design changes to accommodate Y's actual parameters.
I also reserve room for thoughts that chemical composition of certain materials used plays a significant part as well.
I can't help but wonder if you tried to make the old style parts the same way today, that the costs and/or environmental hazards may make it somewhat prohibitive compared to the materials and techniques employed now by modern makers.
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Follow Ups
- RE: 6SN7 tube - Garg0yle 12:15:26 01/07/15 (1)
- RE: curious sometimes......... - sony6060 17:46:27 01/08/15 (0)
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