Tube finds

Sounds great. Take good care of those Tele's. I bet they're worth well over $100ea especially in the condition you described. It's interesting how you prefferred the Telefunken in the first stage. I hear Tele's are more dry/analylical sounding, so that sound gets a slight boost of warmth from the RCA. Tube rolling is so much fun.

I found out something very interesting last year. When I first got into tubes, my mom told me that my grandpa used to sell Telefunken tube radios. That's so cool.

Here's somethin very funny I read on audioasylum. A guy asked what Telefunken means because it's German. A member replied saying it means "phone sex" as a joke LOL. Tele-funken = Phone sex ROTFLMAO:D.

Maurice

Sounds super. I also used the EH ECC82 but they weren't gold pins. Very nice sounding tubes. My favorite was the Mullard ECC82. It's very cool how you got to hear the tubes breaking in. I've experienced this a few times with new tubes. You might want to give the Ei ECC82 Elites a try as well. The Elite version have gold pins. I was very impressed with their ECC83 which was a copy of the Telefunken smooth plate.

Can't wait to try out the EH 6922. The pre should arrive next week. I'm goig to try the JJ 6922 also. Do a search in the tube forum on audiosylum.com Tube rolling on that pre shouldn't be expensive because it's only using a single 6922. So I'm going to have a Sinle Ended Triode pre going into a push/pull triode amp. I'm so excited.

Maurice

Mike,
Golden Tube Audio SEP-1. I haven't heard a tube pre with my Dynakit in a long time since my ASL broke down.

Very cool. Let me know what you think of the Ei. Don't know if the 82's are a copy of Tele but I know for a fact the 83's are.

Maurice

That's great to hear. So looks like current production is really approaching NOS quality. Some current production is just as good as NOS, IMO. I think the "NOS is better" crowd are just snobs. These are the people who won't even touch the new stuff. One thing I really liked about my Ei is the super low noise level. That tube was almost dead quiet!

Mine had a big flash too but I already knew about it from reading tube forums before purcasing the tube:).

Just wait until you get your Dyna. You're going to have a fu*king blast rolling EL34 tubes. My JJ E34L are just starting to break in and they sound very different now than they were straight out of the box. I'm guessing they've had around 30hrs. Every brand of current production EL34 tube sound very different from one another. The JJ have WONDERFUL sound. Very pleasing highs, tubey bass and very realistic mids. The tube bloom is on full force. I really like the mids because it's not "refined" nor "aggressive". Sounds like live music. I've never heard live music have that "refined" sound audiophiles lust after. Too refined and it sounds fake to my ears. The SED EL34 is an example of this.

Maurice

Awesome! Sounds like you're really enjoying the amp. Did you get the JJ EL34 or E34L? The E34L is suppose to be a better tube with 20% more headroom with better bass and dynamics. Mine took around 25hrs to break in. More warmth and dynamics.

How steady is your bias? It will fluctuate with your home's line voltage. Best thing to do is to measure your bias every 20 mins or so and when you find out during which time it's at its peak, set it to around 1.4V. Make sure it never goes over 1.56V or the plates will glow and the tubes will die.

You're absolutely right about tube watts blowing away SS watts. Mine blows away 120W of NAD power:D.

Keep me posted as you roll EL34 tubes. Another one you can try out is the Electro Harmonix 6CA7 which can be used in place of EL34 tubes. I purchase my tubes from www.thetubestore.com Some EL34's take a lot of time to break in. My EL34EH took 100's of hours. The ones I've tried are JJ E34L, EL34EH, Shuguang EL34-B, SED EL34, Svetlana EL34 and EH 6CA7. All have their own unique sound. I'm sure you'll find your favorite. So far my fav's are the JJ E34L and EL34EH.

Any plans on mods or restoration? You can visit www.dynaco-doctor.com or www.triodeel.com for parts, mods, upgrades. I'm going to upgrade the power supply caps next. I hear the larger capacitance upgrade really gives the amp a boost in power. I think dynaco-doctor have upgrades for your PAS as well.

Isn't it amazing how good these old amps can sound? When you're all set don't forget to strap that amp in triode;). Enjoy the new toy.

Maurice

WHOA! Very cool. That amp is in excellent condition. Careful when working under the hood. The old wiring and socket connections are crusty and can easily snap. Looks like you're going to be very busy working on this amp. So I'm guessing you'll be stripping her down for the rebuild? You have some nice plans but there's a few you should leave the way they are. The power switch and rca ins. If you bring the power switch to the front, you'll have to run a wire there which will sit very close to the rca ins and there's a very good chance that they'll pick up too much noise from the power line. The rca ins should be left on the front. It was designed like this to keep the small signal path as short as possible to the 7199 driver board and to keep it away from the transformers. Modify the amp only if you're sure you won't be selling it in the future (I'm sure you won't:D) because its value will continue to drop as you move it farther away from stock.

Your plan for the wooden panels and cage sounds very ineresting. I see that you really like blue:). Keep us posted on your work with this amp. I'll post a pic of mine when I get the chance.

I see you've got the Mullards in there. How does it sound compared to the JJ. I hear the JJ sound closest to Mullard. Nice choice in IC btw. I'm also using a pair of AQ Diamondback from source to pre and XLO from pre to amp.

Maurice

Sounds like a great plan. I'm still doing a lot of thinking about the driver board. By this summer I will get a new 7199 board or the upgrade board using three 6922 tubes from dynaco-doctor.com I've been doing a lot of reading about the upgrade board and everyone who is using it say it's a much better sounding board than the 7199. It keeps the warmth and smoothness of the original but have better HF and LF extension. Another reason for me wanting the upgrade board is because the price of NOS 7199 is getting out of hand and they're hard to find. The current production Sovtek is garbage and I will only use RCA black plates.

Glad to hear the JJ sounds that good compared to Mullards. But like you said, maybe they weren't matched very well or they could be weak. I agree about the JJ sounding very lifelike. I love mine. I really enjoy the EH as well. They have more HF extension and is a more lively sounding tube. Yours should start to break in by now. They should sound warmer, smoother and bass should be more powerful.

Maurice

Madmax,
Thanks for the heads up on the BB. If I get the upgrade board on my amp, I'll need 3 of them and I'm sure that's going to cost a lot of $$$. So I think I'll look for a single one and use it in my pre which accepts both 6DJ8 and 6922. Looks like the BB's are pretty rare. Amperex are easy to find but not BB's.

F1,
Those are nice looking amps. Big tubes too:).

Maurice

Hey Russ,
Received the pre yesterday. :eek:I AM SHOCKED!!!!:eek: The sound is absolutely amazing! After looking at the pic MM posted, the amperex you sent me does indeed look the same internally. The box only said Amperex and the label on the tube have been rubbed off, that's why I thought it was a regular Amperex. I found the JAN a little bright but it could be the Klipsch or it needs to break in. I'm going to break it in when I have more time. I haven't tried the Amperex yet. So far my fav is the GE black glass and Mullard. The GE have amazing mids and highs but lacks deep bass. I have the Mullard in there right now. Thanks a lot for everything. My system kicks serious **** now!

Maurice