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Do phase splitter tubes in a preamp affect the sound quality? Is it worth trying out different tubes for that application?
Follow Ups:
Guma,
I agree in general. However, your question is very broad, since it is very dependent on the design of splitter. If the splitter design uses two triodes in one envelope, such as in a long-tail splitter design, then balance, linearity and gain of the tube is important.On the other hand, a concertina splitter uses only one triode, gain is a little less than 1 and balance depends entirely on the equality of the plate and cathode resistors and the equality of the loads imposed by the following push-pull stage. The tube has much less effect in this type of splitter.
Thanks for your post Ray, but it arises a few more questions.
All I know about the circuit topology of the amp in question is that it uses two 12ax7 tubes as phase splitters. If balance, linearity and gain are the main things that affect sound quality with phase splitter tubes, would it be the best solution to use selected and well tested new production tubes? And would it be a bad idea to substitute the 12ax7 by 5751 tubes, which sound better in the driver stage. Am I right to assume that tubes that sound good in the driver stage of the amp won't necessarily sound good as phase splitters?
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