[Oublie]

Hi Folks,

I just replaced the tubes in my stax T1W amp for the first time since I purchased it. Before this i had to have the volume at around the 1 o'clock mark in order to effectively drive my omega's and even then the sound although good seemed to be missing some hi frequency detail. I have swapped in a set of rca clear tops and rebiased the amp. Now i don't need to go above about 11 on the amp and the sound seems a lot brighter and more detailed.

Now my questions are these, with age and when tube start to wear do you see a decrease in the sound level meaning you have to turn the pot higher for the same volume level?

And secondly how much affect does biasing have on the level of detail and volume in a tube amp?

I didn't check the bias settings on the amp prior to removing the GEC tubes that were there so I don't know if the bias was off or not.

Thanks.

 

[AudioCats]

the lack of top end detail might have something to do with the T1 not having enough current output.

 

[spritzer]

That and the 6CG7 is a horrible tube for this job.

 

[Oublie]

That doesn't really answer the questions guys. although i'm a tube noob so don't know a lot about them, I have heard that 6SN7's can be used in place of 6CG7's but don't know what the point or benefit of this would be as its my understanding that the 6cg7 is a miniaturised version of this.