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In Reply to: Preamp choices for TS T 16 OTL amp ? posted by Fred J on March 7, 2005 at 14:33:58:
Well I suppose you've considered the obvious, the TS Grounded Grid. That's what I have to go with my T16 monos. One thing to keep in mind is that most and perhaps all other hi-performance tube preamps will cost more.
Follow Ups:
I did as if for no other reason one would assume some synergy as well
as the fact that 2 different folks I've bought tubes from who are both personable, obviously serious enthusiasts and both are virtual human encylopaedia's of tube and ciruit design and they both own TS
GG pre's and are very enthusiastic about them.
The problem I have is I'm getting to be an old diabetic fart, and even when I was a kid my Uncle once characterized my skills as "Kid
you have the manual dexterity of a bear cub trying to Ja#K O@# wearing boxing gloves, which sadly is true, and I'm a bit dain bramaged as well so building is out of the question, I found a really nice TS GG on the Gon for $600 it was TS factory Built had
every upscape capacitor expensive wire and even a really upscale
volume control pot, unfortunately after 2 day's I finally received a response to my $600 offer and he'd sold it for $500, adding insult to injury ;-)
Right now I'm using the pre-outs on my SS Moon 1.5 which was the best match of the other 3 or 4 SS Pre's I tried with my 45 SET.
Think I should just continue to use a Solid state pre until I find a TS GG or source an affordable tube pre to tide me over ? Is a SS pre and OTL amp generally a poor set up ?
Kind Regards FredJ
I have one and after a few simple mods (better output caps and I reduced the feedback a bit) it performs nearly on the level with my other (expensive) preamp (Silvaweld). I would say that you simply can't do better short of serious money. I haven't heard a SS pramp yet that is as good.
In fact Bruce himself suggests somewhere that if you want to save money, a solid-state preamp might be the best way to go - getting low OPZ, speed, low distortion. My old Audionics ss preamp (1979) works pretty well with my T16s, it just sounds a little less transparent, and less 'sweet' for things like strings. The price for the assembled GG is $800, not too much more than the price you were looking at.
- Myself, I wouldn't go the passive preamp route unless I either knew it would work well, or could return it for a refund if it didn't. If your CD player has a volume control then you can try plugging it straight into your power amps - that's pretty much what a passive will sound like (it'll just add switching for multiple inputs and perhaps a more sophisticated attenuator).
So far I've used my Moon 1.5 Integrated in the preamp role (sounded wonderful, my Older but High End Sim audio preamp still sounds wonderful but subtle differences, and I even tried going direct from my Korato Tube Phono Stage (However I failed to consider the fact that there is no way to control the gain ;-) and it sounded absolutely magnificent despite being as loud as the Ramones or the Who in concert in their glory day's, my critters vacated the listening room en masse ;-)
I have a close friend who designs and builds full range loudspeakers
and obsessively buys and sells interesting tube gear, I think I'll prevail upon him to loan me a couple of different tube pre's, and
use my ears as the final arbiter, that said however the TS T 16 OTL
initial impressions are that it's an extraordinary amplifier ! The 15 watts/ch. seem more like 150 watt's/ch.on my Fostex FE 208 E Sigma
(98 db)driven TQWT's, it definately seems to have more grunt than my 75 watt/ch Moon 1.5 solid state, and it seems that no matter how much I jack up the gain there is no apparent congestion,compression or discernable distortion, it's a far different experience than any of the other tube amplification I've used or tried in the past.
Thanks for the excellent advice.
Kind Regards FredJ
No problem driving a tube amplifier with a ss preamp. Problems occasionally can arise if one tries to drive an ss amplifier with a tube preamp, because an ss amplifier tends to have a low-ish input impedance whereas a tube preamp (compared to an ss one) tends to have a high-ish output impedance. (You want the output impedance of your preamp to be substantially lower [Rozenblitt would say about 10X lower] than the input impedance of your amplifier, to avoid hf roll-off.) Nowadays most well-designed tube preamps have low enough output Z even to drive most ss amplifiers.
Lew- Thanks for dispelling some of my considerable electronic's/audio
ignorance. I'm going to have to find the time at some point to do some serious reading so I can logic these things out armed with
some basic solid knowledge, at this point, I'm more like one of the natives that worshipped shot down Japanese or American Pilots in WWII
as they'd never encountered a non indiginous hominid before ;-)
Kind Regards FredJ
You can get the Sovtek 6c19pi at Tubedepot for I think $9.95 each
Sovtek is the only current manufacturer of this tube
Glad you like your amp. By the way I have the SE-OTL and am using a Sonic Euphoria Passive pre with it and it is incredible. Also a good sounding solid state pre should work just fine with your amp although the GG is a great match. After all Bruce designed both and he knows what he is doing.
Alan
Alan- Thanks for the response and great advice !, So far I'm delighted with the T 16 OTL, I've tried it with my Moon 1.5 pre-outs, an older but Higher end Sim Audio preamp, , sounded wonderful but with some subtle differences, and at one point I went direct drive from mu Korato tube phono stage without considering the fact that their is no way to reduce the gain and amazingly enough it sounded incredibly clear and clean despite exceeding the Decibal level acheivements of a Ranmones concert back in their glory days, there was an immediate mass critter exodus from my listening room, the cats have yet failed to gain the courage to return ;-)
The TS T 16 OTL and I'm assuming other OTL's as well is seemingly
a very different experience from my previous Tube amplification listening I find the T 16's 15 watts/ch. seem more like 150 watt's/ch
on my DIY Fostex Fe 208 E Sigma driven full range TQWT's, and I can turn the gain up to painful levels with no discerable compression
or distortion, and so far the musicality seems to be right up there with my 45 SET, my only way of judging involves how long I'll remain planted in my Barcalounger, blowing off possibly important phone calls from clients, and the involuntary toe tapping response etc.One question ? I found these tubes on eBay 6S19P (6c19ri) Svetlana Tubes. QTY = 4Item number: 3879545540 forwarded to me by an
Inmate on the Tube Asylum, would you consider these a usefull or safe equivalent ?
Kind Regards FredJ
My understanding is that the 6S19P is the same as the 6C19P.
It should be allright to use
Alan
Thanks much Alan ! I'll need to do some reading and learning on tubes and electronics in general as my profound ignorance leaves me
terrified that I'm going to use the wrong tube or varient and end up with a small mushroom cloud upon firing up the given component ;-)
Regards fredJ
The "C" character in Russian is the same as the "S" character in English.
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