24.18.227.0
In Reply to: RE: your favorite driver tube for 300B posted by Michael Samra on November 21, 2009 at 13:19:53
Good point. Certainly no passive preamp, buffered or not, will come close to working this way.
But I've found that many, many audiophiles have way too much gain in their system - all the knobs are being used in the bottom 25% of their rotation - so there is plenty of gain in most systems. And one major virtue of tube preamps (which I presume we all use!) is enormous headroom. Mine will happily put out 20 volts rms.
Figure a 300B is probably operating with around 70v bias, so 50vrms will drive it to clipping. With a choke plate load the 6SN7 will have the full mu gain which is 20, so 2.5vrms will drive such an amp to clipping. Many audiophiles use gear that could work in a recording studio as well. Studio levels are +4dB(u) with 14-20dB headroom, i.e. peak capability of 6 to 12vrms.
So while I agree it's an issue to be considered, it's not impractical or even unlikely that a system at this level of sophistication will have enough drive capability.
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