tubelabSE with 300b

[Green77]

Hi all!

Thinking of building a TubelabSE with 300 tubes.
Have a few questions

1. Can i drive the amp to max with only my cd connected? 2V max output..

2. Is 90dB speakers ok with this amp?

Thanks // Daniel

[tubelab.com]

Most CD players will drive the Tubelab SE into clipping at full volume. I have a few CD's that were mastered at a low level so they don't clip the amp at full volume, but are still plenty loud.

I use 87db speakers on mine. They will not get "rock concert" loud but are plenty loud in a small 3 meter by 4 meter room. My wife is always yelling for me to turn it down. I am building some 96 db horns to get louder!

[kmtang]

I am having trouble with my wife and daughter yelling at me - turn it down... with my 1.5W 45 tube amp. My Tannoy speaker is only 91dB one.

Surely it is better to use large and efficient speaker to get all the juicy from the 300B.

Johnny

[Yvesm]

As a rule of thumb, use +10dB for WEG (Wife Ears Gain)

[tubelab.com]

As a rule of thumb, use +10dB for WEG (Wife Ears Gain)

I think hers are +10db as you suggest, but the Old Husband Factor is about -10db for a 20db delta.

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by tubelab.com

As a rule of thumb, use +10dB for WEG (Wife Ears Gain)

I think hers are +10db as you suggest, but the Old Husband Factor is about -10db for a 20db delta.

I have a basement room, as long as I don't rattle the living room floor too severely all is cool.. I have 300B SE amps and speakers which even without room gain are over 100dB efficient - it gets pretty loud regardless of WEG or OHF based auditory criteria.. Wait until the GM70 amps are done - they will be nearly 5dB more powerful than the current amps..

Actually most of the time I like to listen at moderate volume levels that my wife considers merely loud, she has never heard the system flat out.

[Green77]

Thanks

[Mr. Zenith]

As a rule of thumb, use +10dB for WEG (Wife Ears Gain)

About three years ago I bought a pair of those little Radio Shaft Minimus 7's at a hamfest for $5. The original plan was to use them in my secret underground lab- er, I mean garage.

They weren't the most efficient speakers in the world, but not bad as far as "shop dog" speakers go. The problem was they never failed to elicit a royal rousting from my wife, who was constantly reminding me that they were rattling the windows at the other end of the house. I wound up replacing them with a pair of JBL bookshelf jobs with 6-1/2" woofers - I don't remember the model - and I haven't heard a peep since.

Needless to say I'm content to live with the mystery!

[tubelab.com]

My neighbors noticed a strange phenomenon with my home made Open Baffle speakers.

My wife has our living room all done in antique stuff. My Naugahyde covered speaker cabinets that I built back in high school were banished. They were last seen being used as the PA for a country band in West Virginia.

In order to fit in the antique motif I found a matching pair of 1941 vintage Zenith console radios. I carefully disassembled the radios, replacing the speaker drivers and baffle boards with 15 inch Hawthorne Silver Iris drivers. All mods are reversible, the original speakers, boards and Wavemegnets are safely stored.

The speakers work great, except that they really need a bigger room. The bass is serious and solid. These speakers excel at loud rock and they don't need a lot of power to get loud. 15 watts will shake the house. (SSE in UL with KT88's)

The people that live across the street discovered the phenomenon. If I crank something loud, especially Pink Floyd, it is audible in their front yard. The bass however is quite loud inside their house and the sound appears to be coming from behind their house. It doesn't appear to be a one note resonance since you can hear most of the bass line but not any of the music.

I am finishing some horn speakers so I will repeat the testing.

[jrenkin]

I think women have different frequency responses than men. First, they don't enjoy bass you can feel, second, they have better high frequency hearing, third they are often younger and so have better high frequency hearing, fourth they didn't abuse their ears listen to loud music in their younger years so they have better high frequency hearing. The list may go on...

We men, with relatively little in the way of high frequency hearing and our penchant for bass tend to increase the volume so we can hear the highs and feel the bass and women get overwhelmed.

I should know better than to try and define women, this will come back to bite me...just sying there are differences.

I remember doing a frequency hearing test through my PC on my main system, with wife (not audiophile and 7 years younger) and my 6month old present. I could hear 14khz as well as she could, 16khz about 3-4 dB down and 18khz up not at all, but she could, and she was really annoyed by the sound.
At 18khz, by the way, if i increased to volume enough so i could even just tell something was there, she hated it and the baby started crying...

Interesting on the sound carrying thing. I have an open loft above my main system that also has a bend in it. That is where i have my electronics workshop and the sound there is as good as in front of my speakers. I should take some measurements, but you know how hard it is to play sweeps, pink or white noise on a main system with a baby in the house?