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B15N Tube Preamp DI Build Report

#65
Appropriate size (and spec'd) iron for the application.

There are some significant disadvantages to excessively large cores, not that the marketing folks responsible for such nonsense would care.
 
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#72
sloppy_phil said:
Those sound clips are awesome! That's definitely got the vibe of the fliptop sound in there, no mistaking it.

Whereabouts in T.O. are you located? If it's something you're into, I'd love to try that thing out in person! :D
Click to expand...

I'm in North York near Bayview Village mall. PM me, it would be good to have more input.
 
#75
Does anybody have experience with different 6SL7s? I have this old stock russian tube, but I also have some new production tung sol. The russian tube sounds so good I haven't bothered changing it out yet.
 
#76
Just a ballpark and we won't hold you to it.
If you build 100 amps assuming 50 are pre-sold, what you sell them for?

Then again, you may not want to get into light manufacturing although with "patent applied for" documentation, it looks like it could be farmed out to a small fab shop.
 
#77
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#78
I'm fortunate to live near a NOS tube shop with an owner who knows nothing about making music but knows everything about any tube ever made. Here's what he said about NOS 6SL7's...by and large, they're all about the same. Now I haven't done a lot of tube rolling, but I have tried your basic Sylvanias, GE's and RCA's, and yeah, they all sounded pretty similar to me in my B-15N (25w version). And they're still fairly inexpensive and much better in a B-15 than the Russian Sovteks I've used. The Sovteks are so glassy sounding...I thought it might be OK when I tried one at home, but I did one set with it and swapped out the Sylvania I had in the second channel as soon as we finished because it sounded good but bland by comparison. And while I haven't tried any other new 6SL7's, I've not heard good reports with them in B-15's, either. And it's totally why Ampeg used NOS 6SL7s in the Heritage B-15's and are using 12ax7's for their less expensive Heritage B-15N...because new 12ax7's can sound more B-15-y than new 6SL7's.

OTOH, your box isn't a B-15 ;) and it just may be possible that those Tung Sols you have might work out for it if the Russian tube you have is working well. Jule Potter is using new 6SL7's in his Monique preamp and people really dig it and it sounds excellent on recordings I've heard. Your recording sounded excellent with the Russian tube. But what if...?

I would totally get a NOS tube or two if I were you. You don't need the $150 RCA's, either. I think your cheapest ones will be sufficient for experimenting.
 
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#79
JimmyM said:
I'm fortunate to live near a NOS tube shop with an owner who knows nothing about making music but knows everything about any tube ever made. Here's what he said about NOS 6SL7's...by and large, they're all about the same. Now I haven't done a lot of tube rolling, but I have tried your basic Sylvanias, GE's and RCA's, and yeah, they all sounded pretty similar to me in my B-15N (25w version). And they're still fairly inexpensive and much better in a B-15 than the Russian Sovteks I've used. The Sovteks are so glassy sounding...I thought it might be OK when I tried one at home, but I did one set with it and swapped out the Sylvania I had in the second channel as soon as we finished because it sounded good but bland by comparison. And while I haven't tried any other new 6SL7's, I've not heard good reports with them in B-15's, either. And it's totally why Ampeg used NOS 6SL7s in the Heritage B-15's and are using 12ax7's for their less expensive Heritage B-15N...because new 12ax7's can sound more B-15-y than new 6SL7's.

OTOH, your box isn't a B-15 ;) and it just may be possible that those Tung Sols you have might work out for it if the Russian tube you have is working well. Jule Potter is using new 6SL7's in his Monique preamp and people really dig it and it sounds excellent on recordings I've heard. Your recording sounded excellent with the Russian tube. But what if...?

I would totally get a NOS tube or two if I were you. You don't need the $150 RCA's, either. I think your cheapest ones will be sufficient for experimenting.
Click to expand...

I'll buy a Sylvania and try it out. It's actually close in price to the new production Tung sol.
 
#80
JimmyM said:
Just noticed there's no thru jack. Do you not plan to use this outside of recording?
Click to expand...

Azure Skies said:
I built this for myself for live direct purposes. I don't need to reamp an amped signal--I use in-ears to monitor my DI signal.

I'll look into the possibility of a thru jack; it makes sense to have one.
Click to expand...

You just gotta have a parallel quarter inch out. I would want to use this as both a pre-amp and a DI. No quarter inch out would be very restrictive.
 

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