Originally Posted by
DSJR
Marco sir, please point me in the direction of the thread you referred to in your post..
Mr TD (tech design or Tangerine Dream?), my amps were originally known as TT "Speed 100's" and by comparison with the EAR509's were incredibly "fast" and dynamic. I had them at home driving Epos ES14's for a few months and they were then recalled for update. They came back with "Genesis" badges and new input valves and sounded rather less "tense." It was only when the EL34's expired that Zia recommended Groove Tubes. I bought some, rebiassed one amp (turned it down) and it sounded lovely. The other, sadly, had the wrong resistors on top of the board (which were very difficult for the likes of me to get to) and wouldn't bias low enough. I got them fixed and sold them, replacing them with a Croft un-regulated OTL, the saga of which I've catalogued on the OTL thread. A shame it mis-behaved because it was so simple internally and beautifully put together.
I heard that Zia lost his wife and just lost interest in audio. I hope that's right and that I'm not mis-informing anyone. At least many valve designs can be sericed easily and it must be possible to reduce the bias (or cathode current?) on the amps to extend valve life (or use a different valve more able to give the required power perhaps).