[Slade01]

@JKDJedi I'm back in 6080 land. I got plugged in that Chatham 6080WA, and what a departure from the Sylvania JAN 6080WB I first had. No matter what I tried with the Sylvania, it just sounded muddy, bloated, just plain bad. The Chatham's got clarity, though sound stage seems slightly more narrow than the average 6AS7G....but makes the music more full bodied, its a tad on the darker side. I was running this power tube initially with a regular Tung Sol 6SN7GT and a Sylvania 7N7, which were a "just okay to good sounding". But the perfect pairing for me, I discovered is using it with a 6C8G. The properties of the high gain tube balances out and works swimmingly with this darker 6080. Hits the stride just right with this type of pairing. I am beginning to really think tung-sol/chatham's can do no wrong at this point.

 

[cddc]

@JKDJedi I'm back in 6080 land. I got plugged in that Chatham 6080WA, and what a departure from the Sylvania JAN 6080WB I first had. No matter what I tried with the Sylvania, it just sounded muddy, bloated, just plain bad. The Chatham's got clarity, though sound stage seems slightly more narrow than the average 6AS7G....but makes the music more full bodied, its a tad on the darker side. I was running this power tube initially with a regular Tung Sol 6SN7GT and a Sylvania 7N7, which were a "just okay to good sounding". But the perfect pairing for me, I discovered is using it with a 6C8G. The properties of the high gain tube balances out and works swimmingly with this darker 6080. Hits the stride just right with this type of pairing. I am beginning to really think tung-sol/chatham's can do no wrong at this point.

Cool...it's all about pairing and synergy.

Great to hear 6C8G sounds great in your amp. Just be careful with the transformer, if it becomes too hot, you'll need to shut down the amp. I've been warned multiple times in the BHC thread not to use tubes with high gains, like 12AT7, 12AX7, etc.

 

[JKDJedi]

Rolling a fat RCA Joint (RCA 6GU7)

 

[JKDJedi]

Where do they stack up?

@Paladin79 has an interesting topic going on at The Reference 6SN7 Thread ( https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-reference-6sn7-thread.117677/page-73) He had nearly 20 people, test a group of tubes (eight in total), hidden in PVC pipe, and according to their liking number/score each tube. The tubes were rolled on a schiit lyr and/or a custom Bottlehead Crack amp.The schiit Lyr has a constant transconductance output stage so no power tube needed for that amp and the Bottlehead is OTL design, they used a Tung Sol 5998 for pushing duties. From those two amps this was the out come..


Ken-Rad black glass 93.4
Melz 1578 91.7
CBS/Hytron 5692 90.4
RCA grey glass 89.7
Sylvania Bad Boy 88.3
Foton 1954 84.7
Tung Sol Mouse ears 80.1
Sylvania 7n7 Frankie 75.4

Of the eight tubes tested I have six, The Melz and CBS / Hytron are not in my possession. I'm currently doing my own testing (with 421a power tube, closest thing to a 5998 that i got) and it will probably take me a week to do.... three of the six sound realty special and you guys might be surprised at the number one spot. My Fotons just got in today so lots of work/fun ahead of me... AND...If you have these tubes jump in and please share your results!!

 

[Paladin79]

Where do they stack up?

@Paladin79 has an interesting topic going on at The Reference 6SN7 Thread ( https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-reference-6sn7-thread.117677/page-73) He had nearly 20 people, test a group of tubes (eight in total), hidden in PVC pipe, and according to their liking number/score each tube. The tubes were rolled on a schiit lyr and/or a custom Bottlehead Crack amp.The schiit Lyr has a constant transconductance output stage so no power tube needed for that amp and the Bottlehead is OTL design, they used a Tung Sol 5998 for pushing duties. From those two amps this was the out come..


Ken-Rad black glass 93.4
Melz 1578 91.7
CBS/Hytron 5692 90.4
RCA grey glass 89.7
Sylvania Bad Boy 88.3
Foton 1954 84.7
Tung Sol Mouse ears 80.1
Sylvania 7n7 Frankie 75.4

Of the eight tubes tested I have six, The Melz and CBS / Hytron are not in my possession. I'm currently doing my own testing (with 421a power tube, closest thing to a 5998 that i got) and it will probably take me a week to do.... three of the six sound realty special and you guys might be surprised at the number one spot. My Fotons just got in today so lots of work/fun ahead of me... AND...If you have these tubes jump in and share your results!!

Fotons sound can change drastically unless you replace the solder in the pins. @bcowen can help confirm this.

 

[JKDJedi]

Fotons sound can change drastically unless you replace the solder in the pins. @bcowen can help confirm this.

Thanks @Paladin79 I'll get that done before anything.

 

[DenverW]

I’ve been testing out the frankenvoice- the 7193 adapter with two Ken rad 7193 tubes. Fun looking, but lots of initial hum issues. I’ve been working on getting them burned in, and so far they’ve gone from unbearable to a slight hum in the left channel. The hum reaches high levels when I turn the volume past 9 pm.

On the other hand, I can hear the potential. If I can get this working properly I’ll be able to compare the three different 7193 tubes.

 

[JKDJedi]

I’ve been testing out the frankenvoice- the 7193 adapter with two Ken rad 7193 tubes. Fun looking, but lots of initial hum issues. I’ve been working on getting them burned in, and so far they’ve gone from unbearable to a slight hum in the left channel. The hum reaches high levels when I turn the volume past 9 pm.

On the other hand, I can hear the potential. If I can get this working properly I’ll be able to compare the three different 7193 tubes.

Don't get discouraged with the hum, just read an article that tubes that sit around for 50 years can have air creep in, the article reads that anything with hum after 48 hours should be discarded, but users here, including myself find on some tubes, burn ins up to 120 hours are not uncommon. And pics please!!

https://web.archive.org/web/20120605105654/http://www.kk5dr.com/Tubes.html

 

[DenverW]

So I’m putting frankenvoice on hold for a bit. The tubes have more burn in but no change: silent and good until 9pm on the volume knob then huge distortion in the left channel only. I’ve changed positions of the tubes in the adapter (may do nothing, who knows) and it’s doesnt change things. I have some other 7193 tubes coming, and that should help me identify if this is a tube or adapter issue. My guess is adapter, but I’ll have more troubleshooting items next week. Until then here is a pic of me running a tungsram e80cc with adapter. (And shameless plug: put up some tubes for sale on the boards

 

[JKDJedi]

So I’m putting frankenvoice on hold for a bit. The tubes have more burn in but no change: silent and good until 9pm on the volume knob then huge distortion in the left channel only. I’ve changed positions of the tubes in the adapter (may do nothing, who knows) and it’s doesnt change things. I have some other 7193 tubes coming, and that should help me identify if this is a tube or adapter issue. My guess is adapter, but I’ll have more troubleshooting items next week. Until then here is a pic of me running a tungsram e80cc with adapter. (And shameless plug: put up some tubes for sale on the boards

Just do the 48 hour burn in, I know it's a drag but worth the effort imo. I have other amps I can use so it's never a bother for me.

 

[DenverW]

I’ll run it overnight a few more nights to see if anything changes. Doesn’t hurt. The only thing I’ve noticed is when I ran a 7236 instead of a 6080 power tube it happened at a lower volume level.

 

[JKDJedi]

I’ll run it overnight a few more nights to see if anything changes. Doesn’t hurt. The only thing I’ve noticed is when I ran a 7236 instead of a 6080 power tube it happened at a lower volume level.

Interesting... 7236 has a higher output, I could be wrong

 

[DenverW]

Ya, one way or the other it seems power tubes output is making a small difference in when the distortion happens. I don’t know enough to ascertain what that means, so I’ll just troubleshoot a bit.

oh, and can you see the super ghetto black tape over the blue power light?

 

[JKDJedi]

Ya, one way or the other it seems power tubes output is making a small difference in when the distortion happens. I don’t know enough to ascertain what that means, so I’ll just troubleshoot a bit.

oh, and can you see the super ghetto black tape over the blue power light?

Going through the same with my Fotons, good news is the burn in is helping and they're sounding better every day.

 

[cddc]

Just do the 48 hour burn in, I know it's a drag but worth the effort imo. I have other amps I can use so it's never a bother for me.

I second that. I had an old NOS 6SN7 tube with hums upon initial listen, but after 24 hours burn-in hums disappeared.