6V6

[TonyTecson]

i have grown to love those 6V6 amps, on my 90db floorstanders, volume is never an issue..
the 12w6 in a guitar head was preferred over the 6bq5 so i made an amp out of it also...

 

[Tubelab_com]

I should have kept my mouth shut on that one a while longer. The 6EZ5 has vanished from the $1 menu....... Even at $4.00, they still qualify as "bargain basement".

OK, I'll restate that. I should have bought say 100 of them before I said anything. I only got 10. One was DOA.

Now that I DID get a bunch, I can talk about the 6HA6/6HB6. It is a 6BQ5 with more Gm but a different pinout. Rogalski sold me about 40 pounds of them for 35 cents each!

 

[Salas]

6V6 + 6SL7 Baby Huey - the best HiFi amp I've ever designed/built or when including commecrcial amps, the best I've ever heard.
Cheers,
Ian

Weirdly enough I once decided to make preamp with 6V6.

 

[kward]

I built a 12BH7-->6SN7 LTP-->6V6 PP UL amp a few years ago simply because I wanted to see what the 6V6 sounded like in comparison to the EL84. Mine's got Pope (Philips) grey glass output tubes, and it sounds absolutely fantastic--delicate, feather light on top and a good amount of bass slam on the bottom. And the thing I like the best about it: that 3-d sound scape is to die for.

 

[homeskillet]

I played with some 6V6's I didn't realize I had last night for several hours. Triode connected with a 3.5k one-electron. They showed the quirkiness of my driver schemes very well. Eventually connected the grid directly to my +4 db out sound card and it was lovely. A little quiet but I listened to music I didn't even really like and just kept listening. Very nice. -Fred

 

[scott17]

Any thoughts on the difference in plate structure between the 6V6 and 6W6? The 6W6 seems to be larger?

 

[Eli Duttman]

I played with some 6V6's I didn't realize I had last night for several hours. Triode connected with a 3.5k one-electron. They showed the quirkiness of my driver schemes very well. Eventually connected the grid directly to my +4 db out sound card and it was lovely. A little quiet but I listened to music I didn't even really like and just kept listening. Very nice. -Fred

A 5965, with closely matched sections, mates well with no NFB triode wired 6V6s. The 3,500 Ω O/P trafo primary is a tad low, but who really cares. 10M45S CCS loaded 6922 section drivers would give you all the gain necessary to try some GNFB, assuming the One Electron "iron" has the requisite magnetic headroom. Full pentode mode, with regulated g2 B+, is also worth a try. NFB, of some kind, is absolutely necessary, when full pentode mode is employed.

 

[homeskillet]

A 5965, with closely matched sections, mates well with no NFB triode wired 6V6s. The 3,500 Ω O/P trafo primary is a tad low, but who really cares. 10M45S CCS loaded 6922 section drivers would give you all the gain necessary to try some GNFB, assuming the One Electron "iron" has the requisite magnetic headroom. Full pentode mode, with regulated g2 B+, is also worth a try. NFB, of some kind, is absolutely necessary, when full pentode mode is employed.

Thank you for the IXYS regulator suggestion. I remembered I had a couple and I'm playing with this (below) right now. It sounds pretty close to what my soundcard connected to the 6V6 sounds like and the waveforms look similar on the scope throughout the stages.

I was surprised the regulator worked on the cathode. The waveform at the anode is better looking with it. Adjusting the pot on the output of the regulator really changes things. It's difficult to imagine what is going on. I know the cathode of the 12AT7 as well as the 12AT7 and it's load resistor are in parallel with the cathode resistor of the 6V6. It's so easy to make yet so boggling.

I think I've got something really silly to regulate the filaments on the 6V6. -Fred

edit: the values on the pots are just the pot values and not what they are set at but easy to determine with meters on the 6V6 grid and cathode or the 12AT7 anode.

 

[emk2]

Thanks all for your input.

I have prototyped a 6v6 ppp (full pentode with 6AC7 front end) a few weeks ago, it sounded pretty good

Nice little bottles for sensitive loudspeakers..