• 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.

Line stage question

Status
Not open for further replies.
My line stage consists of a grounded cathode amp cascaded into a cathode follower.
The tube is ECC99 and the operating point is 150V@18 mA each section.
B+ is 360V, load resistor and CF cathode resistor are 10k.
My measurements showed that the GC section draws 18mA but the CF section draws 16,5 mA.
Why ?
Should I reduce the CF cathode resistor at 9,7K to achieve equal current draw and cathode
to plate voltage ?

Thanks
Mic
 
Hmm, I seem to remember something about this from way back.
Wasn't it something about this on the Audio Genesis website? ( now gone )
Something to do with the power supply and subjective dynamics, I believe.
I may be wrong.

cheers 😉
 
Tim, the idea was that there is a cancellation at the supply end; at AC, as the inverting amp's current drops, the CF's current increases by a near identical amount. So it's a valid way of optimizing a circuit to use with weedy supplies and inadequate bypassing. Of course, it begs the obvious question...
 
As I'm not an expert, I would like to know if this non-symmetrical operation between the two sections of the same tube is something to worry about.
Normally, each triode shares the same load resistance and current draw. So, in my case I expect to see each section to draw 18mA.
But no, they don't. As I said before the GC section draws 18mA@153V and the CF draws 16.5mA@158V.
Maybe it is not such a big issue and to my ears it performs quite good.

Thanks for your replies.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.