[triod750]

In short hearing in my left ear is weaker than the right. I figured with dual mono I could adjust to what sounds right to me. Might also be useful for an unbalanced set of tubes as well.

I am riding that same horse.

 

[Xcalibur255]

It's a great looking amp. But I don't see a tube rectifier, C3g sockets and and one 6SN7 socket with 6/12/24 volts? So I don't think it's finished? Is it? lol

What, no ice cube maker?

 

[Xcalibur255]

The red/black combo had pop to it, but this grey tone that leans just a bit toward blue really works. I like it better and better with every new photo.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Thanks @Xcalibur255 , credit goes to @pravous for choosing the color, I'm a fan of gray tube amps myself.

Will be shipping this out tomorrow, so last listen tonight, have to break out something fancy. Got the Fivre 6C5G and a pair of Western Electric 421A going.



On the speaker front, finally got a hold of Klipsch customer service after nearly two weeks, guess they've been backed up. Anyway, they are sending me a pair of Forte IV grills, going to remove the grill cloth then and either A) send them to Speakerworks for a professional metal grill fitting or B) DIY it. Either way, once I have plans finalized, will order the Forte IV.

Next week I will build the bronze Airmid.

 

[Xcalibur255]

I'm very curious how metal grill covers might change the sound of the speaker. Won't you get reflection off the internal side of the metal portions and cause some cancellation or other interaction right in front of the baffle?

 

[L0rdGwyn]

I'm very curious how metal grill covers might change the sound of the speaker. Won't you get reflection off the internal side of the metal portions and cause some cancellation or other interaction right in front of the baffle?

Yeah there will be some effect, no doubt. Speakerworks describes the grill material they use as "transparent", they go in a lot of hifi systems and feedback is very positive, but I'm sure there will be some contribution from the grill. Even the stock grills have an effect on the FR - without, there is a bit of a peak at 6kHz which is tamed with the grills on. I have no choice though based on WAF lol if I want the speakers, they need the metal grills! I'm not particularly fussy about a perfectly flat FR, I'm something of a purist, not into EQ and all that jazz, something has to be really egregious to get me worked up about it. Based on what I heard when I demo'd them, I think it will be a good fit.

 

[Xcalibur255]

Yeah, that's the other thought I was having. Some speakers are tuned to be netural with the grill on and will have weird peaks when they are off. I would expect a fabric to have more of a pure attenuating behavior, affecting a specific frequency range depending on the weave and thickness of the fabric. The metal grills on the other hand will be passing MOST of the sound through with no filtering/attenuating at all but a small portion of it is going to reflect and locally cancel right in front of the speaker cone.

My guess is that the attenuation effect of a metal grill might be more wideband than that of a cloth one, affecting a wider frequency range but with a lesser attenuation effect. It might have the effect of giving the speaker a very slight bass shelf because the mids and low treble range might be broadly attenuated just slightly. I haven't really thought about it much since I'm a "grills off" guy but that's the theory that comes to mind from a bit of pondering. That actually sounds like it would be a good thing IMO.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Yeah, that's the other thought I was having. Some speakers are tuned to be netural with the grill on and will have weird peaks when they are off. I would expect a fabric to have more of a pure attenuating behavior, affecting a specific frequency range depending on the weave and thickness of the fabric. The metal grills on the other hand will be passing MOST of the sound through with no filtering/attenuating at all but a small portion of it is going to reflect and locally cancel right in front of the speaker cone.

My guess is that the attenuation effect of a metal grill might be more wideband than that of a cloth one, affecting a wider frequency range but with a lesser attenuation effect. It might have the effect of giving the speaker a very slight bass shelf because the mids and low treble range might be broadly attenuated just slightly. I haven't really thought about it much since I'm a "grills off" guy but that's the theory that comes to mind from a bit of pondering. That actually sounds like it would be a good thing IMO.

Yeah I hadn't given it much thought beyond the making it happen and keeping it aesthetically pleasing given that I have no choice, but the grill should act like low pass filter to some extent and attenuate higher frequencies based on the size of the grill holes. I think the overall effect will be subtle though. I'll ask Speakerworks for their $0.02 when I call them. I'm likely going to mod the speakers (I just can't help myself), which at the minimum means I will upgrade the crossover. If I go any further than that, I will get a mic to take measurements with each change, if so I'll do a with and without metal grills test and we will get to the bottom of it

 

[Monsterzero]

Thanks @Xcalibur255 , credit goes to @pravous for choosing the color, I'm a fan of gray tube amps myself.

Will be shipping this out tomorrow, so last listen tonight, have to break out something fancy. Got the Fivre 6C5G and a pair of Western Electric 421A going.



On the speaker front, finally got a hold of Klipsch customer service after nearly two weeks, guess they've been backed up. Anyway, they are sending me a pair of Forte IV grills, going to remove the grill cloth then and either A) send them to Speakerworks for a professional metal grill fitting or B) DIY it. Either way, once I have plans finalized, will order the Forte IV.

Next week I will build the bronze Airmid.

There seems to be a bit of conflicting reports on the WE421 vs. 5998. Some say there's an audible difference, others say theyre identical. Whats your view, Keenan?

Also, on my GOTL, the 6C5 can be used in the 6J5 socket w/o adapter, yes?

 

[L0rdGwyn]

There seems to be a bit of conflicting reports on the WE421 vs. 5998. Some say there's an audible difference, others say theyre identical. Whats your view, Keenan?

Also, on my GOTL, the 6C5 can be used in the 6J5 socket w/o adapter, yes?

Yessir, can totally use 6C5 in place of 6J5.

As far as 5998 vs. 421A, structurally they are identical, which would lead you to think there is no difference. IME, it depends, as I've found there are audible differences even between different constructions of 5998, I owned a ton of these tubes at one time, sold off most of them. I have a pair of 5998 with copper grid rods that sound significantly better than their steel grid rod counterparts. Why? No idea, but they do and are right there with the 421A. I did all that listening a long time ago though so hard to say if I was delirious at the time or not, but for me it went 421A = 5998 (copper grid rod) > 5998 (steel grid rod).

 

[bcowen]

Yeah I hadn't given it much thought beyond the making it happen and keeping it aesthetically pleasing given that I have no choice, but the grill should act like low pass filter to some extent and attenuate higher frequencies based on the size of the grill holes. I think the overall effect will be subtle though. I'll ask Speakerworks for their $0.02 when I call them. I'm likely going to mod the speakers (I just can't help myself), which at the minimum means I will upgrade the crossover. If I go any further than that, I will get a mic to take measurements with each change, if so I'll do a with and without metal grills test and we will get to the bottom of it

What I did to my Tekton Lores. Didn't change any values, just got mo' better parts. Made a pretty nice improvement (Neotech PCOCC wire too). They are a $1k pair of speakers (new), so did it make sense to spend $300 on better caps and wire? Yes.


Original crossover:

New ones:

 

[L0rdGwyn]

What I did to my Tekton Lores. Didn't change any values, just got mo' better parts. Made a pretty nice improvement (Neotech PCOCC wire too). They are a $1k pair of speakers (new), so did it make sense to spend $300 on better caps and wire? Yes.


Original crossover:



New ones:

Nice!!! Did you feel it was a big upgrade sonically? That's what I'm looking to do - replace the sand cast resistors with Mills MRA wirewounds, replace the inductors with nice air core types, and MAYBE replace the caps, but options will be limited as Klipsch uses some real oddball values in the Forte IV crossover, so have to wonder if the replacements (which would not be top-of-the-line) would really be an improvement over the originals, which are also films.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Here is the Forte IV crossover, guy on Audiokarma took some pics and catalogued all the values (except for the inductors, which will probably need to be measured).

It will be a big pain to upgrade, but such is DIY.

 

[leftside]

Yessir, can totally use 6C5 in place of 6J5.

As far as 5998 vs. 421A, structurally they are identical, which would lead you to think there is no difference. IME, it depends, as I've found there are audible differences even between different constructions of 5998, I owned a ton of these tubes at one time, sold off most of them. I have a pair of 5998 with copper grid rods that sound significantly better than their steel grid rod counterparts. Why? No idea, but they do and are right there with the 421A. I did all that listening a long time ago though so hard to say if I was delirious at the time or not, but for me it went 421A = 5998 (copper grid rod) > 5998 (steel grid rod).

Also made over a period of over 30 years. Lots of different construction types during that time. Only Western Electric made them in the 1970’s and 1980’s tho as TungSol wasn’t around by then. They all sound good. Would have to listen/compare again tho to see if I could hear any differences.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Also made over a period of over 30 years. Lots of different construction types during that time. Only Western Electric made them in the 1970’s and 1980’s tho as TungSol wasn’t around by then. They all sound good. Would have to listen/compare again tho to see if I could hear any differences.

Yeah when it comes down to it, they all sound good, no one would be disappointed with any pair. And they seem to be getting more scarce at an accelerating rate thanks to all the idiots making amps that use them.