PDA

View Full Version : Where to find the bottle heads



hruyter
22-08-2011, 18:43
Hi

Some of you who visit the entrance may have seen that I just joined a few days ago, having taken ownership of a lovely hand built valve amplifier.

I have often heard people rave about the sound of a valve amp especially a guitarist colleague of mine. I can now appreciate what people are saying as I also enjoy the rich warmth of the sound (as my ear perceives it)

This prompted me to join this forum having seen a number of bottle based amps in the gallery.

I am struggling to find a section of the forum where aficionados of this form of sound reproduction gather.

I want to get the most out of my new toy where should I be posting thoughts, questions and other stuff related to valve amps.

Hill

TBL
22-08-2011, 19:02
Welcome to AOS, There isn't a specific section for Valves although plenty of members here use valve amps and are very knowledgeable and all aspects of valves amps and tube rolling.

Just post in this (blank canvas section) maybe start with some more details on your amp and first impressions on the sound etc.

Cheers

Ian

The Grand Wazoo
22-08-2011, 19:42
Hi Hill - welcome to AoS.
There is no special section - the valves & valve lovers are everywhere! If you're doing a review perhaps it could go into the Strokes of Genius section, otherwise, as Ian says, Blank Canvas is a pretty good place.

Welder
22-08-2011, 19:49
Hello Hill.

Have you tried The Antiques Roadshow. I don't know if they have a forum dedicated to Valves but, apparently there’s a bit of interest for all that early post WW11 electronics ;)


:sofa:

Reid Malenfant
22-08-2011, 19:52
:eyebrows:

DSJR
22-08-2011, 19:59
I think you'll find that practically ALL of us love and respect well reproduced music, no matter how amplified :) Valves can do aome things so well, but other things can be done superbly with transistors. Hybrid amps can be an ideal compromise and, sorry to plug Glenn Croft yet again, his current stuff is amazing value and has most of the best of both I feel... :)

Marco
22-08-2011, 20:11
Have you tried The Antiques Roadshow.

Aye, you can lump them into the same category as you, zimmer-boy! :ner:

:lol: ;)

Marco.

SPS
22-08-2011, 20:14
Hello Hill.

Have you tried The Antiques Roadshow. I don't know if they have a forum dedicated to Valves but, apparently there’s a bit of interest for all that early post WW11 electronics ;)


:sofa:

nice one... but some of the best tubes are actually pre ww2

might be hard to believe till you hear them.

Jonboy
22-08-2011, 20:29
we're all here somewhere, we just don't need to brag about the virtues of valves too much, we just all know how good they are

:sofa:

hruyter
22-08-2011, 20:55
Thanks guys for the friendly replies and also for those from the more narrow minded too. :rolleyes:

Just to give everyone here some context...


I am an IT consultant and so can well appreciate the digital. I ripped my first MP3s in around 1996 and played them on my computer using the first version of WinAmp.
I have also always been able to appreciate older systems, after all they are the vehicles by which we have arrived at today's technology, and often when we apparently improve something in one aspect (make it smaller, cheaper, more energy efficient, etc.) we often have to make compromises in other areas.

As for music taste I am equally contrary some might say.

I love the music of the 60's and 70's and among the first things I played on my deck once connected to the new amp were
Jimi Hendrix and
Sky.
I also like:
Blur,
Oasis
Arctic Monkeys
Franz Ferdinand
Michael Buble

But I am also in my late 30's so have a deep love of dance music and proudly call my self an old skool raver and have been known to jump around the room to the latest dub step.

As a result of all the above, these are the components that make up my system, I am sure there are many improvements I can make as I learn to better appreciate all the elements and how they can be changed or replaced to improve the sound as I wish to hear it.

Technics 1210 mk2
Yamaha AV amp
2 x Kef Q35
2 x Kef Q Compact
1 x MS centre speaker

The new addition is :

Single ended EL34 amplifier hand built by my girlfriend's father in Sofia All the tubes are old CCCP military stock apart from the EL34 pair which are more modern Svetlana units, I hope to purchase some early 70's Svetlana tubes soon.

I will post some pictures very soon and let you know what I make of the sound I get.

Hill

Jonboy
22-08-2011, 21:13
Hi Hill, i would say that you won't get the best from your new valve amp unless you get some more effecient speakers that run at 8ohms, i ran Kef reference speakers for a while and found they performed best on the end of a solid state amp even though they were 6 ohm 91db sensative like yours.

hruyter
22-08-2011, 21:34
Hi

You are absolutely right, I found very quickly that I did not like the sound of the Q35s connected to the valve amp, but the Q compacts are actually 8 ohm so I swapped them in and they sound really nice considering their diminutive size... except for one particular LP that I played and the bass was a little overpowering. it is a very bassy record (Ambient Dub) but this was a bit much. Perhaps it was reflecting back through the deck and resonating or some such effect
(I still know so little of what might be happening)

Just as a note
I found the output from the record deck was too low to be amplified direct so I have plugged the deck into the phono input on the Yamaha and taken the pre-amp out from the Yamaha to plug into the valve amp. The Yamaha has a nice feature called "Pure Direct" in that it removes all effects and tone control and hard switches to just amplification. I am still a little uncomfortable that I have the Yamaha in the way or is this a normal situation? Do I have to get Tony to build me a valve based phono pre-amp? or is there a change I can possibly make to the amp itself that will negate the need for a pre-amp?

Anyway I am open to suggestions as to what I should be looking at in terms of speakers for the valve amp.
Tony (The amp builder) suggested horn type speaker boxes with a single wide range driver was best for this type of amp. He gave me some plans that I could follow if I get really bored.

thoughts?