This is my 1st post. I have been thinking of building a single ended amp for a while now. I have some tubes around and I am not sure which ones I should use in my design. I have a pair of 6v6GTA's, some el-84's, and a bunch of 12ax/u/t7's. I've also got a pair of telefunken OPT's with 5k primarys. So, I need to decide on the power tubes before I can buy a PT. Any suggestions? I am not limited to the tubes I have, I can buy more. But I'd prefer not to spend a bunch of money on 2A3's or 300B's. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks!
-Jared
-Jared
Both 6V6 and EL84 are nice tubes to use. I would go for single ended pentode (SEP) mode with a little negative feedback. In pentode mode they need very little drive, 1/2 a 12AX7 or 12AT7 would be ok.
You could get fancy and drive each one with 1/2 12AU7 in cathode follower (i.e 1/2 12AX7 -> 1/2 12AU7 cathode follower -> EL84) This would give you a 5W amp with decent bass and nice overload characteristics.
EL84 will give you more power which is a good reason to use them. Also they sound sweeter than a 6V6, IMHO. I like the bigger cathodes too. However, 6V6 are pretty decent if you have a pair of them...
SE triode mode is another option, but power will be down to 1 or 2 watts and you will need a better driver stage. Still listenable, but unless your transformers are super, IMO not worth it.
Doing a search on the forums you would see this thread about the same thing.
You could get fancy and drive each one with 1/2 12AU7 in cathode follower (i.e 1/2 12AX7 -> 1/2 12AU7 cathode follower -> EL84) This would give you a 5W amp with decent bass and nice overload characteristics.
EL84 will give you more power which is a good reason to use them. Also they sound sweeter than a 6V6, IMHO. I like the bigger cathodes too. However, 6V6 are pretty decent if you have a pair of them...
SE triode mode is another option, but power will be down to 1 or 2 watts and you will need a better driver stage. Still listenable, but unless your transformers are super, IMO not worth it.
Doing a search on the forums you would see this thread about the same thing.
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