[phthora]

Hey all! I will soon be the owner of a bigger ben Rev one and very excited! Can’t wait to discuss tube rolling with you all. I have quite a few totl tubes from my crack, including some 12au7 and 6sn7. I already have a 6sn7 to 12au7 adapter that I had used back in the day with an old dark voice 336se. All suggestions welcome!

Good for you, man! I saw that beauty in the classifieds and if the timing had been different I would have bought that amp instead of the LCD-5. Congrats! Looking forward to your impressions.

 

[DenverW]

Which totl 12au7 do you have?

A couple! I have a pre 1955 amperex welded plate 45 slant getter, a Marconi b329, Telefunken black coated G73R, and my favorite of the bunch is a welded plate Lorenz circle getter. Then a lot of good standard ones like the Telefunken smooth plate and Siemens silver plate and such. Yay for tubes!

 

[DenverW]

Good for you, man! I saw that beauty in the classifieds and if the timing had been different I would have bought that amp instead of the LCD-5. Congrats! Looking forward to your impressions.

Hoping to love it, as it’s now my single most expensive piece of gear! I remember starting out in audiophile world years ago thinking…hmm that hd600 is expensive!

 

[nwavesailor]

You WILL love it!
I have had my BB for a little over a year and it pairs wonderfully with the TT2 / M scaler and DAVE M scaler.

I settled on GEC KT88 (or GEC TT21 w/ adapter for less $) and many great Tele, Valvo, Brimar, Tung Sol , Raytheon, HiVac 12AU7, 12AT7, 12AX7, 4033, 4035 as well as 6201, even a dual adapter with 2, 6J5 instead of a 6SN7. There are SO many great input tubes that sound fantastic in the BB it is very fun to try the combos.

I settled on the USAF 596 rectifier or Emissions Labs 5U4G.

 

[DenverW]

So I’m excited to have the bigger ben arriving, and for fun I’ve been looking into some tubes and variants I did not have a lot of knowledge on. I’ve attached a little sheet below; if anyone sees something not compatible or that would cause a problem let me know. I didnt get into 12au7 and 6sn7 variants because I’ve got those locked from Bottlehead . I also didn’t dig deep into rectifier tubes, so suggestions are welcome. In fact, any suggestions are welcome!

a question: are there combinations of tubes below that could damage the amp or tubes used?

Power Tubes:

KT88

6L6/6L6GC/6L6GC-STR

6550

EL34/6CA7/KT77

KT66

KT90

TT21 (with adapter)



Input Tubes:

6SL7/5691/ECC35/6SU7

6SN7 -low noise floor

12AU7 (adapter) low noise floor, good for efficient headphones

12AX7 (Adapter) ECC83/5751/6681/7729/7025/ECC803S/B759/12DF7/12DT7/12AD7 High gain

12AT7 (Adapter) ECC81/A2900 medium gain



Rectifier tubes:

5AR4/GZ34 - power, good for inefficient headphones

5U4B – lower noise floor, good for efficient headphones

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Hey all! I will soon be the owner of a bigger ben Rev one and very excited! Can’t wait to discuss tube rolling with you all. I have quite a few totl tubes from my crack, including some 12au7 and 6sn7. I already have a 6sn7 to 12au7 adapter that I had used back in the day with an old dark voice 336se. All suggestions welcome!

You are going to love it. That was a great deal. Having the 5 taps really gives you a lot of flexibility in tuning the sound to preferences. Also, having a nice preamp will help reduce the noise floor.

 

[nwavesailor]

Yup, it's a great amp!
No plans to replace my BB now paired with a Dave DAC.

 

[DenverW]

@nwavesailor any combos that I need to avoid that will overly stress the tubes or amps or might have a danger?

 

[nwavesailor]

That's more of a Justin question.

The only tube he outright told me NOT to use was a Raytheon 5694 (with a 6SN7 adapter) that had WAY too much current draw.

 

[DeweyCH]

Hey all, would anyone have a recommendation of the best amp among the Mogwai SE, Forge, and Pendant SE for my primary quartet of headphones - Susvara, Rognir, VC, Auteur? Or is the answer "just wait and get a Bigger Ben you dingus"?

 

[mfgillia]

Does anyone have the latest version of the Bigger Ben who can comment on both the overall performance / experience and relative noise floor through the different taps?

 

[DenverW]

Following up from my earlier question regarding any of the tube I listed above being unsafe in any particular combination or format; I wrote an email to Justin and he let me know that any combination of those posted above is fine.

I can see why ZMF and Ampsandsound have collaborated, both companies have excellent customer service. Justin wrote me back in a couple hours, on superbowl sunday. If you're thinking of buying one of his amps his support shouldn't be a worry.

 

[nwavesailor]

Following up from my earlier question regarding any of the tube I listed above being unsafe in any particular combination or format; I wrote an email to Justin and he let me know that any combination of those posted above is fine.

I can see why ZMF and Ampsandsound have collaborated, both companies have excellent customer service. Justin wrote me back in a couple hours, on superbowl sunday. If you're thinking of buying one of his amps his support shouldn't be a worry.

Yup, as busy as Justin is with ampsandsound, he is always accessable and a true good guy in this crazy audio biz!

 

[DenverW]

I have some 12bh7 and E80cc tubes around, I’ll have to give those a test with the 12au7 adapter.

 

[nwavesailor]

Does anyone have the latest version of the Bigger Ben who can comment on both the overall performance / experience and relative noise floor through the different taps?

I have a newer version (?) of the BB that is now a little over 1 year old and I can only 'hear' a dead black background using the 3 taps I use most frequently, low z, 16 ohm, 32 ohm. This was not the case with my Pendant as I always had a little bit of hum depending on the tube combo.