In Reply to: End Of Zen schematic posted by Tom §. on October 29, 2001 at 07:29:32:
Hi Tom,If only it could have more power…..That’s was my daily mantra with the Zen. At the end of the day 1.5w is 1.5w. Once TG hooked his Laurels up to my speakers it became impossible to pretend that I had enough power.
More power. Ok you’ll think I'm pulling your leg but I’m straight up serious. Take the output transformer off the 12B4 and stick a small good quality cap on the plate and hook it up to a 6L6 Cathode follower. Parafeed of course – autoformers is even better. The 6L6 is run as a tetrode and sits on a choke that can handle 80-100ma.....
My current amp is a 6H30 input a choke loaded 10Y and 6L6 cathode follower. It’s a GREAT amp. Before that I had my Zen amp modified to drive the 6L6 cathode follower and it sounds like a great big Zen with killer bass and much better highs the the standard amp. It had all the good things (and some of the bad). What was the bad? Well in my opinion the Zen is a great little amp but the midrange is not right (I'm being very picky here so no flames please.). Its dark and a bit closed in and not properly integrated with the music. Just my opinion.
The 6L6 Cathode follower is incredibly transparent. You hear the SV83 as it is. The SV83 as a triode it’s a good but not great tube. Lets stop fooling ourselves – you can do much better. Going from that to 10Y was a giant step up. So now I have 10Y with about 6 or so watts. You can have even more power with a KT88 output. The KT88 is a bit warmer and not as clear. After living with both I think the 10Y works best with the 6L6.Cheers,
Anthony
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