• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

searching for darling tubes.

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Im building a darling amp and need advice here.

Has anyone made sonic comparison between the 5965 and the original 8532 driver tubes?

It seems that in 8532 design, the driver is loaded with a higher plate resistance while 5965 is lower. I am no EE, but I know this effects the voltage/current ratio that DIY-ers play around with. So im sure there are sonic difference between the two circuit (other than the tube sound difference).

Im locating those 8532 tubes (d4rn hard to get in third world country..) so if anyone has spares dont hestitate to contact me, thx.
 
Initialy I was planning to drive it with 12b4 (my fav tube) but the gain is too low for the job. I talked to bob, and I agreed that 8532 is still the best tube for the job.

My darling is singing for the first time yesterday, and oh my.... marvellous!! It has the sweet tube sound without any loss of speed, just what I needed! It does all that techno with ease that is comparable to SS gears.

Applying basic grounding rules, it is hum-free now. The changes I made to bob's design is I tied the filaments to ground instead of cathod. (If you are using exotic caps on the cathode, why ruining it by tying filament ac to it?)

In fact, Im so confident of my construction that I didnt bother to check before I connect to my speakers!:D :D :D

Picture to follow after next week!
 
Its a standard darling. However, I may try the DC version someday. I am not aware of the monica version.

A word of caution for future builders: 0.75watts cannot produce enough bass. However, the reproduction of upper octaves are so good that you wouldnt really notice.:D :D :D
 
photos as promised
 

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Monica = 'DC' Darling :D remember the whitehouse mess? :lol:

It can produce decent bass, I have babysitted both the cap-coupled and direct-coupled for a few weeks, and with high sensitivity speakers, they can do dance music well. ;) but it's all subjective you know.

Looks nice, BTW. Have you been to www.diyparadise.com ? Check the Darling Club, you'll see the one of the Darling I babysitted, on wood - made by Ed Fausto. That Darling now sports Tamura F-475 OPT.
 
Aha..

I made some purchases from the diyparadise guy.
My corals are from there, in fact.

My 1626 tubes are glowing faintly, I think those tubes are dying (I didnt get them first-hand). I need to get some more spares:-(
I will be tweaking the subwoofer to blend it with the new corals.

I might try DC darling, but thats after my 2a3 project. (this hobby is burning holes in the pocket too fast!!)
 
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