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Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ

Gidday mate! :-)

Here's my take.

A rectifier's job is to produce DC. Which we certainly don't want to re-produce. And thus can't hear.

It is my belief that the only audible difference - between good valve rectifiers of the same type - can be the variance in voltage drop, (because this affects the total storage energy of the PSU.)

IIRC Jim McShane thinks so, too!

More? All valve rectifiers have serious Peak Inverse Voltage (PIV) safety limits, of most importance when we switch our valve amp's off. This severely limits the amount of PSU capacitance we can use downstream of them.

Given the availability of SR SS diodes and the immense potential advantage that HV PSUs have in total storage energy (0.5C X the square of the supply voltage), and the audible advantages of high storage PSUs, I can see no advantage in limiting that storage with a VR.

When we were rebuilding my pair of LEAK St20s back in the 1990s my experience with the available GZ34s was very disappointing. Cheap ones failed quickly, Mullards were $$$$, ......

So we used Soft Recovery (SR) solid state diodes - snubbed as well - and lots of by-passed capacitance, pushing ripple way down and giving very satisfying slam and short term headroom.

And, it left space for an extra PSU cap, too! ;-)

I have not had to replace them, for over a decade. I will go to Schottkys, if I ever need to.

So, if they really NEED replacing, and you don't want to build an SS diode bridge, buy the most reliable VRs for the money.

With the rest? Buy some more recordings, or put the money into something for the wife.


Warmest

Tim Bailey

Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger



Edits: 10/29/16

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