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In Reply to: Re: Please help regarding SET amp choice posted by Janos on February 14, 2007 at 00:28:19:
I really like your post. But I have to be honest about the Audio Note stuff I heard at the NJ VTV show last year. They had a few rooms there and the sound was just too polished.They could be hiding great equipment, great amplifiers and stuff in the polish, I could not tell. Maybe whoever designed the sound in the room went very conservative and tried to go for a pleasing sound.
But a local high-end audio store really seemed to kick everyone's butt, with a P-P amp and some Italian speakers. The single ended communtiy had some interesting stuff there.
You like the Yamamota 45. That is a 717a pentode driving the 45. It is a very good sound, I know, because I have a diy one here. But a pentode can get a little polished sounding too if you listen to it for a long time and really get to the nitty-gritty, although it seems to have a very balanced sound.
People mention different models, but there is not mention of the typology of the tubes, whether they are dht, idht, or pentode drivers. And I really think that tells you alot about the amp.
Can someone tell me what the 417a is? It's a WE tube and it seems to be a very good driver. I wonder who is using it.
I just like a raw live sound. I just don't like the polish. Polish goes on shoes, not sound.
Follow Ups:
I had a preamp that used this tube (the Silvaweld SWC 1000). It is a fantastic preamp or driver tube. One of the best ever made but it is apparently a bit tricky to design with because it was originally designed for high frequency amplification (like Ghz). Lamm currently uses it in their phono stage. It has a very high transconductance and is supposed to be very linear.Even more beastly (and much rarer) is the WE 437. This is used by WAVAC in a number of amps as an input/driver tube.
I’ll be also honest; I have not heard AN amps for ages. I have heard a few setups at the very beginning of my audio journey. They were the first amps, that I’ve heard that stood out from the commercial lo fi crowd. At that time my ears were not trained, but I think I have a pretty stable long-term audio memory. (Huh, what are we talking about?;).
But I can’t say with certainty how they’d compare to other amps, and how much my taste has changed since then. I’ve heard a while ago a px 25 amp that reminded me of the AN sound. Indeed, I borrow your words, it sounded too polished. You fall for the sound of the amp, no matter what it plays, as long as it’s playing on that amp. Fine for a listening session, very enjoyable, but it would be like on drugs 24/7 listening to it every night. I prefer the music itself, rather than a certain way of presentation, on a constant basis. However, once in a while, that sound is very enjoyable with the right material.I heard the AN gears from a local dealer, who was DIY nuts, and wanted to build a kit for me. He was showing me 300B tubes, and the insides of the AN amps, and a tweaked AN chain. I guess that was where I was lost to the normal world, and was infected with audiofilia.
At a Budapest High End show, somewhere around 1999-2000 I also had a chance to hear AN gear. On electronica music the crowd filled the room, they were shocked beyond belief, then fled when classical was playing. I did the same, and ended up in the other room with the Ongaku. That also looked like a tweaked chain, and despite the horrific acoustics of the hotel room, the music was wonderful, making you forget the unbeleivable price tags. Even the concurrent dealer, whom I knew, was saying that that setup played well, and he was deeply into abasing concurrent products and dealers.Indeed, most commercial amps go for sonics that catch you, and stand out. Sonics that has strong individuality, is highly sculpted, and cannot be mistaken for something else or for plain acoustic instruments. People want more, they want special. “If I pay 20K for an amp, be it special, more than a boring live concert!” Of course, this line of thinking gets you to an unbalanced sound, that, although with aspects surpassing real events, are lacking in the presentation as a whole, and make you a slave of illusion rather than making you understand the music played.
Indeed, PP amps can sound very, very good. :))) Recently heard a stock Dyna stereo 70 restored with excellent caps, in triode mode, and that one gives a supreme challenge for any amp. It played pure music, you forgot all about the gear. And no hifi details and qualities were missing...
The Yamamoto (DIY, a good friend of mines) also striked me as an amp, that has strong character. I can’t put my finger around its sonics, but there is something to it that stands out when it drives a Lowther horn.
> People mention different models, but there is not mention of the typology
of the tubes, whether they are dht, idht, or pentode drivers. And I really
think that tells you alot about the amp.Agreed. Topology makes for character, parts selection for fine tuning, tweaking the sound from muddy to crisp; build quality changes it from non-working to excellent.
Can someone tell me what the 417a is? It's a WE tube and it seems to be a
very good driver. I wonder who is using it.It’s a high transconductance, low plate resistance triode. The 5842 is the layman’s version. The super-low rp makes it a very good candidate, however, the 5842, which is electrically identical, is reported to perform not so well.
I like your comparison with shoe polish. :)
Here’s a link for we tubes:
https://www.tubeworld.com/400a723a.htm
Thank you for your comments,
Hi njjohnThe 417A (or its electrically equivalent 5842) is an 9-pin, wide bandwidth, low Rp, high-ish gain, IDHT triode that is supposed to present the tunes pretty decently. It is fairly commonly used in phono-stages, line stages, and driver stages of power amps. It has also made an appearance in a spud amp or two. They are popular drivers in DIY amps, where their co$t is less relevant and are suitable for two stage SET amps - Steve Brown, Thorsten and a few others have schematics floating about.
Gordon Rankin of Wavelength Audio uses them as driver stages in some of his amps. IIRC, he like a ~130V plate, 10mA bias (~ -2V at the grid) for these. They can be a b*****d to match between pairs - I think Gordon's designs now use a CCS in the cathode circuit to keep them matched? They have four grid connections and require some effort to prevent RF oscillations...
They sound like a pain in the a*s to use, are becoming expen$ive (especially if your require very close matching), but their reputation for good sound, gain, and low Rp are worth it for some.
Hope this helps
Ultra-consumers: Spending money they do not have to buy things they do not need to impress people they do not like.
They are certainly NON linear on their characteristic curve graphs, and can only be used to swing small small signals - to avoid nonlinerarity IMHO.
can get expensive fast. I'd say try a JAN 5687 for $5 dollars,
or something similar as a driver --and save the 417A for phono
stages and the like.
Thanks, that is very helpful.One of the last amps I got from my friend John was a 417a/183. When I had heard it at his house, I was hoping to get it and I did get it shortly after that. It has interesting qualities. It probably would not be my first choice in an amp, but if you have multiple set-ups like I do, then it is something you would want because of the interesting qualities.
I was going to do a post on it at some point. What I observed was almost like an analogy: 300b is to a 45, like a 45 is to the 183 amp here, moving in the direction of reality and pure tone. So being that the 417a is an idht, I might have to rethink my thoughts about idht drivers. They may vary more than I originally thought.
Let me try to describe it. In playing something like John Coltrane's sax, it has a very pure tonal sound. The tonal sound is just riveting, and pure it seems. So it really plays something like John Coltrane sax very well.
The sound doesn't have much width. Kind of a narrow soundstage. Not much bloom or perhaps dimensionality in some ways, but the sound seems more pure than the 45. As the 45 moves more in a realism direction compared to a 300b, this amp surprisingly, seems to outdo the 45 and more towards even more realism and purity.
Since I never had either a 417a nor a 183,I don't know what to attribute to what. I just suspect that the driver has some to do with it, since I know how good WE stuff can be.
Put a better tube (or two) in front of the 183 to really hear something special. I imagine my 183 served as a muse....BTW, my PP 47 uses 417As as input/drivers. Nice tubes but upon reflection I wish I had tried RE134s in front of the 47s.....Perhaps in front of 10Ys or 2A3s in my next amp...
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