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Music in a bottle: 6H30-Pi

205.175.225.5

Posted by Tom §. on June 12, 2000 at 08:30:27

I've been putzing around with the 6H30-Pi tube for the last week and I just thought I'd pass along my impressions. It seems like the 6H30-Pi is to the 6N1P as the 6N1P is to the 6DJ8/6922.

Just some characteristics:
The 6H30-Pi has a glass envelope much like the EL-84 and 12B4 (although it's slighty taller and fatter than the 12B4). I ended up with three of the tubes and the sections of each tube performed within .5% (yeah, ½ of one percent) of each other for bias current/voltages and gain when used in circuit. The getter flash of the tube covers about 35%-40% of the glass envelope. One thing to note is that the gate to plate capacitance of the 6H30-Pi is 6pF. That's nothing to sneeze at if you want bandwidth.

The circuits used for subjective sonic impressions:
I built a preamplifier with the intention of using it with the 6N1P. It only uses one tube in a grounded cathode configuration. The cathode resistor is 220ohm with a 220uF bypass. With the 6N1P the DC bias runs around 9mA with 200V from plate to cathode. With the 6H30-Pi the bias current is 23mA with 100V across the tube section. The dual mono B+ power supplies were designed for 260V at 10mA but the supply can deliver up to 50mA if needed. The heater current required for the 6N1P was 600mA and the closest readily available trannie was a hammond that was rated 6.3V@1 amp. The 6H30-Pi heater draws about 900mA at that voltage so everything is cool in the filament PS department (ugh).

The comparison:
Since the circuit could accomodate both the 6N1P and the 6H30-Pi I decided to interchange them for some subjective sonic comparisons. I really liked the 6N1P. It had a nice, clear top end as well as solid bass. I imagine you could pound on that little tube for hours and you still wouldn't get any microphonics. A pretty goddamned nice tube for $4.

With the 6H30-Pi plugged in, things got a bit more interesting. It had the same bass character of the 6N1P but the midrange and top end was just soooooo much more engaging and sumptuous. Not really "warmer" but just more convincing and enthralling. I can certainly see why Victor is integrating them into his products. The price to performance ratio is not as great as the 6N1P but hey, ya gotsta pay for da performance. $20 per tube from Triode Electronics seems quite reasonable when compared to the prices being tagged on rare NOS tubes.

Tom §.

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