[Toonartist]

Those adapters look great Hopefully the extra housing won't take too long to arrive! The adapters I have EL38 & EL39 both have caps but I'm sure the pinout was different so I just bought then specifically for each tube type.

 

[bcowen]

Adapters from Deyan came in today. I really like the rugged & sturdy look of these. Not sure if there are any sonic difference between them and other adapters (i.e. Mrs. Xuling).

Sorry to topic-drift here a bit, but wanted to add a big thumbs up to the Deyan metal-cased adapters. Love 'em! Plus I love how he's willing to make (or at least consider) about any custom configuration you could want. Below is a 6SN7 to 6922 adapter he made for the Schiit Vali 2. The Vali has a recessed socket, so if not for something like this you'd have to use a socket saver in addition to the adapter:

A '51 Foton 6N8S struttin' its stuff:

 

[mchuckp]

UPDATE: I went ahead and soldered it on. Had to use some tape to keep the board from angling off the pins as it kept wanting to lean off in one direction.

Ok guys...Noob question #2:

I'm getting ready to solder the small board to the Alps potentiometer. Right next to each of the 6 solder pins of the Alps there are tiny bits of metal that causes the Alps to sit just above the PC board instead of flush with it. I'm assuming this is on purpose. Looking at pix on Parts Express, I can see them. Couldn't tell from the pix in manual if it was like this or flush. Just wanted to be sure before I solder in case they aren't supposed to be there. Here's a pic. Just noticed it cannot sit flush.

Thanks!

 

[Phantaminum]

@L0rdGwyn Have a question for you. Would you be able to use 6C8G tubes in this amp with the right adapter? Looks to be similar to a 6SL7 just with half the gain. Thanks!

 

[L0rdGwyn]

@L0rdGwyn Have a question for you. Would you be able to use 6C8G tubes in this amp with the right adapter? Looks to be similar to a 6SL7 just with half the gain. Thanks!

Yeah 6C8G is similar to a 12AY7, you'd need a pair but should work with an adapter.

 

[khaine1711]

UPDATE: I went ahead and soldered it on. Had to use some tape to keep the board from angling off the pins as it kept wanting to lean off in one direction.

Ok guys...Noob question #2:

I'm getting ready to solder the small board to the Alps potentiometer. Right next to each of the 6 solder pins of the Alps there are tiny bits of metal that causes the Alps to sit just above the PC board instead of flush with it. I'm assuming this is on purpose. Looking at pix on Parts Express, I can see them. Couldn't tell from the pix in manual if it was like this or flush. Just wanted to be sure before I solder in case they aren't supposed to be there. Here's a pic. Just noticed it cannot sit flush.

Thanks!

A gap is fine - mine is even a bit slanted lol.

 

[Toonartist]

Well…. It happened eventually, I bought the Elrog 274b (the Aegis side lamp). It’s been running for just over 60 hours now and feel like I can compare it with the Mullard GZ34 & Brimar 5R4GY, my other two favourite rectifier tubes with the Aegis.

In simple terms, the Elrog 274b is like a refined Mullard GZ34 that had a love child with a Brimar 5R4GY. It has the detail of the GZ34 but sweeter highs, mids and it has the texture of the Brimar 5R4GY but with more low end weight / impact (especially with AC). I think the warmth of the Brimar 5R4GY extends a little further towards the mids than the Elrog though.

Words that came to mind when listening to the Elrog 274b: expansiveness - all directions, detail, transparent… very, texture, great pace… very agile. Imaging and layering feels really precise….and weight, authority. It’s not a dry sound, sweet and musical I would say. But big, extends all directions.

My two standout combos...

Atrium Closed, Elrog 274b, Mullard EL38 & RCA Red Base 5691.
Listening to electronic & EDM genres with this load out was really fun but it also felt special in that it was smooth and refined with weight and detail. Open with a nice out of head / headphones sound to it going in all directions (great depth). It felt pacy, energetic in a foot tapping arms waving type of way… just great fun. When you focused on the details, it was very easy to track sounds around the stage and when sounds moved, it felt smooth... all very 3 dimensional. I’m looking forward to listening to other genres with this combo.

Meze Elites, Elrog 274b, GEC KT88 & RCA Red Base 5691.
Listening to classical and acoustic it provided an effortless big soundstage that was rich in tone and texture… solid 3 dimensional sound that seemed to radiate all around, air without sounding thin. Imaging was very precise, you could easily make out where each musician was playing from and the movement of sound within the stage. A big effortless sound. When I swapped out the GEC KT88 for the EL38 with classical, I missed some of the weight and richness that the KT88 provide, it felt like the EL38 tipped the balance a little to far towards the highs with the Elrog for classical. Very listenable still but I prefer the Brimar 5R4GY + EL38 for that genre with the Meze Elites.

When removing the Elrog and popping the GZ34 back in, I felt like I missed the expansiveness… felt more side to side and less spherical in terms of soundstage. A bit more grain, not as smooth in the mids and highs and of course not as much bass impact. The Brimar has great warmth and texture but misses the detail, highs of the Elrog… less expansive feeling. The EL38's help provide the extra detail, stage for the Brimar and it's a combo I really like.

So, the Elrog 274b is a very nice tube that shines (literally) but it is damed expensive. Would I recommend it…. Yes BUT, only if you have all the power & input tubes you want. You could buy a pair of RCA Red Base 5691, Mullard GZ34 (normal not metal base), Brimar 5R4GY CV717, a pair of Mullard EL38’s and a very nice bottle of single malt and still have some change from the cost of the Elrog! And if you don’t have any of those tubes, that’s where I’d recommend the money be spent first! Just makes more sense.

But… if you already have all that and more (power purification etc) and want something a little special and could do with an extra light in your listening room… go for it. I’ll certainly be replacing it when the time comes

 

[khaine1711]

Well…. It happened eventually, I bought the Elrog 274b (the Aegis side lamp). It’s been running for just over 60 hours now and feel like I can compare it with the Mullard GZ34 & Brimar 5R4GY, my other two favourite rectifier tubes with the Aegis.

In simple terms, the Elrog 274b is like a refined Mullard GZ34 that had a love child with a Brimar 5R4GY. It has the detail of the GZ34 but sweeter highs, mids and it has the texture of the Brimar 5R4GY but with more low end weight / impact (especially with AC). I think the warmth of the Brimar 5R4GY extends a little further towards the mids than the Elrog though.

Words that came to mind when listening to the Elrog 274b: expansiveness - all directions, detail, transparent… very, texture, great pace… very agile. Imaging and layering feels really precise….and weight, authority. It’s not a dry sound, sweet and musical I would say. But big, extends all directions.

My two standout combos...

Atrium Closed, Elrog 274b, Mullard EL38 & RCA Red Base 5691.
Listening to electronic & EDM genres with this load out was really fun but it also felt special in that it was smooth and refined with weight and detail. Open with a nice out of head / headphones sound to it going in all directions (great depth). It felt pacy, energetic in a foot tapping arms waving type of way… just great fun. When you focused on the details, it was very easy to track sounds around the stage and when sounds moved, it felt smooth... all very 3 dimensional. I’m looking forward to listening to other genres with this combo.

Meze Elites, Elrog 274b, GEC KT88 & RCA Red Base 5691.
Listening to classical and acoustic it provided an effortless big soundstage that was rich in tone and texture… solid 3 dimensional sound that seemed to radiate all around, air without sounding thin. Imaging was very precise, you could easily make out where each musician was playing from and the movement of sound within the stage. A big effortless sound. When I swapped out the GEC KT88 for the EL38 with classical, I missed some of the weight and richness that the KT88 provide, it felt like the EL38 tipped the balance a little to far towards the highs with the Elrog for classical. Very listenable still but I prefer the Brimar 5R4GY + EL38 for that genre with the Meze Elites.

When removing the Elrog and popping the GZ34 back in, I felt like I missed the expansiveness… felt more side to side and less spherical in terms of soundstage. A bit more grain, not as smooth in the mids and highs and of course not as much bass impact. The Brimar has great warmth and texture but misses the detail, highs of the Elrog… less expansive feeling. The EL38's help provide the extra detail, stage for the Brimar and it's a combo I really like.

So, the Elrog 274b is a very nice tube that shines (literally) but it is damed expensive. Would I recommend it…. Yes BUT, only if you have all the power & input tubes you want. You could buy a pair of RCA Red Base 5691, Mullard GZ34 (normal not metal base), Brimar 5R4GY CV717, a pair of Mullard EL38’s and a very nice bottle of single malt and still have some change from the cost of the Elrog! And if you don’t have any of those tubes, that’s where I’d recommend the money be spent first! Just makes more sense.

But… if you already have all that and more (power purification etc) and want something a little special and could do with an extra light in your listening room… go for it. I’ll certainly be replacing it when the time comes

Beautiful tube, kinda weird to see the rectifier 10x brighter than the power tubes though.

Now if someone could make a 3-way comparison between Elrog, EML and Linlai 274b ...

 

[Toonartist]

Beautiful tube, kinda weird to see the rectifier 10x brighter than the power tubes though.

Now if someone could make a 3-way comparison between Elrog, EML and Linlai 274b ...

Yeah... I've drafted an idea to make a wooden layered shade so that I can see the detail lower down but will obscure the very bright element part. In low light it really is like looking straight at a lightbulb

I would add the Takatsuki 274b to that comparison list. By all accounts, that is supposed to be a special tube as well!

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Adapters from Deyan came in today. I really like the rugged & sturdy look of these. Not sure if there are any sonic difference between them and other adapters (i.e. Mrs. Xuling).



Also sad update from my build. I have finished pretty much everything including internal wiring for more than a week. However, upon finishing up stuff, I discovered that my Lundahl distributor made a mistake and order only two transformer housing instead of three. I am really tempted to do some McGuyver stuff to mount the output transformer just to test the amplifier - the only thing holding me back is that one has to turn the amplifier on its side to do the test points, and I'm not sure my ghetto mounting solution would hold ...

So I played it safe and tried to source one separate housing. Turns out harder than I expected, a few distributors refused to sell the housing separately ... One retailer in China agreed to sell me one ...hopefully I can get it in a few weeks.

Back to tube adapters, any tips on determining which pentodes need adapters (apart from those with obvious tube caps) and which tubes can share adapters?

Also can the Aegis uses EL86/6CW5 @L0rdGwyn ? A local seller got these EL86/6CW5 for quite cheap and he said in most cases it's a safe drop-in replacement for EL84.

EL86 probably not a good one, it's a low voltage tube, datasheet really doesn't have triode curves above 200V. Even if you run it with a high Vdrop rectifier, it looks to bias pretty close to its max plate dissipation.

 

[mattiastomas]

Well…. It happened eventually, I bought the Elrog 274b (the Aegis side lamp). It’s been running for just over 60 hours now and feel like I can compare it with the Mullard GZ34 & Brimar 5R4GY, my other two favourite rectifier tubes with the Aegis.

In simple terms, the Elrog 274b is like a refined Mullard GZ34 that had a love child with a Brimar 5R4GY. It has the detail of the GZ34 but sweeter highs, mids and it has the texture of the Brimar 5R4GY but with more low end weight / impact (especially with AC). I think the warmth of the Brimar 5R4GY extends a little further towards the mids than the Elrog though.

Words that came to mind when listening to the Elrog 274b: expansiveness - all directions, detail, transparent… very, texture, great pace… very agile. Imaging and layering feels really precise….and weight, authority. It’s not a dry sound, sweet and musical I would say. But big, extends all directions.

My two standout combos...

Atrium Closed, Elrog 274b, Mullard EL38 & RCA Red Base 5691.
Listening to electronic & EDM genres with this load out was really fun but it also felt special in that it was smooth and refined with weight and detail. Open with a nice out of head / headphones sound to it going in all directions (great depth). It felt pacy, energetic in a foot tapping arms waving type of way… just great fun. When you focused on the details, it was very easy to track sounds around the stage and when sounds moved, it felt smooth... all very 3 dimensional. I’m looking forward to listening to other genres with this combo.

Meze Elites, Elrog 274b, GEC KT88 & RCA Red Base 5691.
Listening to classical and acoustic it provided an effortless big soundstage that was rich in tone and texture… solid 3 dimensional sound that seemed to radiate all around, air without sounding thin. Imaging was very precise, you could easily make out where each musician was playing from and the movement of sound within the stage. A big effortless sound. When I swapped out the GEC KT88 for the EL38 with classical, I missed some of the weight and richness that the KT88 provide, it felt like the EL38 tipped the balance a little to far towards the highs with the Elrog for classical. Very listenable still but I prefer the Brimar 5R4GY + EL38 for that genre with the Meze Elites.

When removing the Elrog and popping the GZ34 back in, I felt like I missed the expansiveness… felt more side to side and less spherical in terms of soundstage. A bit more grain, not as smooth in the mids and highs and of course not as much bass impact. The Brimar has great warmth and texture but misses the detail, highs of the Elrog… less expansive feeling. The EL38's help provide the extra detail, stage for the Brimar and it's a combo I really like.

So, the Elrog 274b is a very nice tube that shines (literally) but it is damed expensive. Would I recommend it…. Yes BUT, only if you have all the power & input tubes you want. You could buy a pair of RCA Red Base 5691, Mullard GZ34 (normal not metal base), Brimar 5R4GY CV717, a pair of Mullard EL38’s and a very nice bottle of single malt and still have some change from the cost of the Elrog! And if you don’t have any of those tubes, that’s where I’d recommend the money be spent first! Just makes more sense.

But… if you already have all that and more (power purification etc) and want something a little special and could do with an extra light in your listening room… go for it. I’ll certainly be replacing it when the time comes

Oh gosh. Don’t make me buy an Elrog 274b

 

[Toonartist]

Oh gosh. Don’t make me buy an Elrog 274b

Tell me about it One half feels weak that I gave in... but the other half is wavy arm happy. As in, the AC & Elites sound silly good in there genre roles. Happy days

I would like to temper that though with this. I recently added a Isol-8 Powerline Ultra to clean up the power supply. The VEGA G2.2 DAC goes into the filtered sockets and the Aegis goes into one of the high current ones. To begin with it sounded a bit off but once it settled down (about a week or so) it was surprising the impact it had on the noise floor (while there was a signal from the DAC), bass detail and imaging. If I take it out now you can hear the grainy sound return that gives false detail but also, the texture and detail in the bass reduced. With no signal from the DAC the Aegis always returns zero noise but before the Isol-8, when the DAC started there was some faint noise that I thought was part of the recordings but that's gone now.

That's why I feel that although the Elrog is really good... I couldn't recommend it over getting the other tubes first or sorting out the power side of things. Clean power just unleashes what the system can do. It improves every tube!

I was considering buying the amorphous core output transformers before the power & Elrog tweaks but now... well, I'm scared to touch or change anything as the Aegis is everything I wanted from an amp and more. Atleast you don't have to buy and horde the Elrog... they're new production and will be available as long as Elrog lives. Just buy them when you need or are ready. They have 12 month guarantee as well.

Maybe it's time to see the Aegis as complete and think about adding a turntable instead. I've some old vinyl that I haven't been able to play for years.

 

[mattiastomas]

I would like to temper that though with this. I recently added a Isol-8 Powerline Ultra to clean up the power supply. The VEGA G2.2 DAC goes into the filtered sockets and the Aegis goes into one of the high current ones. To begin with it sounded a bit off but once it settled down (about a week or so) it was surprising the impact it had on the noise floor (while there was a signal from the DAC), bass detail and imaging. If I take it out now you can hear the grainy sound return that gives false detail but also, the texture and detail in the bass reduced. With no signal from the DAC the Aegis always returns zero noise but before the Isol-8, when the DAC started there was some faint noise that I thought was part of the recordings but that's gone now.

That's an interesting thought. I recently moved apartments and before moving my Aegis was dead silent. Now in the new place I notice that there's a slight hum but only when my PC is on. When my PC is off there's no hum. Funny thing is in my old place the Aegis and PC sat side by side plugged into the same outlet and never had this issue.

So I'm wondering if its the "dirty" power source (it is an older building). Was wondering if power conditioner would help. I do like gaming while listening to the Aegis, so would like running both at the same time. That being said the hum is low enough that once the music is playing I don't hear the hum. Only in very quiet passages or in between tracks

 

[ScornDefeat]

So I'm wondering if its the "dirty" power source (it is an older building). Was wondering if power conditioner would help. I do like gaming while listening to the Aegis, so would like running both at the same time. That being said the hum is low enough that once the music is playing I don't hear the hum. Only in very quiet passages or in between tracks

Do you have the Aegis plugged directly into the wall outlet? Different outlet than the PC might still be on the same wiring/circuit, which could (theoretically) still create issues. Do you use a power conditioner of any sort?

Even something like a cheap Furman PST-8D could be helpful especially if on same outlet.

 

[mattiastomas]

Do you have the Aegis plugged directly into the wall outlet? Different outlet than the PC might still be on the same wiring/circuit, which could (theoretically) still create issues. Do you use a power conditioner of any sort?

Even something like a cheap Furman PST-8D could be helpful especially if on same outlet.

Wall outlet has 2 power points. I have 2 power strips (one plugged into each power point) and the audio equipment and PC are plugged into them. I could try plugging the computer stuff into one power strip and all the audio stuff into the other power strip and see if it makes a difference. ( Both wall outlets could be on the same wiring/circuit though)

Currently do not use any type or power conditioner.