• 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.

anyone ever use EL86/6CW5?

As Tweeker said.

That circuit was there for a while using Philips 600 ohm loudspeakers as counter-performance to the "vicious" uquibitious output transformer of the day. As I recall, it did not stay for long - the loudspeakers did not 'make it'.

As for EL86, they are rather similar to the EL84, but not so sensitive (needing a somewhat higher g1 drive voltage). They had a higher maximum plate voltage (600V), and was mainly employed in voltage regulators of the day. Unless there is economical advantage, I would stay with EL84 in normal circuits.
(To answer your question, I did occasionally use them.)
 
Hi mctavish,

mctavish said:
there is an interesting otl circuit in the phillips datasheet for this tube, just wondering if anyone has built it or has worked with this tube?

Actually both. Be prepared not to get anyway near the Po as stated in the spec sheet. Besides that, EL86/6CW6 or PL84/15CW5 are very nice pass regulator tubes ;) There are quite some circuits out there using it in HiFi apps (and instrumental amplification, too) if you really look for them.

BTW, you can get the triode-strapped curves here. Also, don´t miss the General Electric spec sheet recommendations if you are heading for sheer Po (20W and up from a pair).

Regards,

Tom Schlangen
 
I have several 6CW5 tubes and have used them in a few designs. Beware that they are NOT interchangeable with the 6BQ5 / EL84 even though the pinout is the same.

They had a higher maximum plate voltage (600V),

In my books (GE, RCA) the 6CW5 carries a 250 volt maximum plate voltage. The screen grid is rated for 200 volts. These can be violated a little, but plugging one into an EL84 amp will cause a bright red glow, for a short unhappy time.

I have used them in a Simple P-P board. They like 3000 to 3500 ohm plate to plate load with about 275 to 320 volts of B+ MAX! That is cathode biased so the tube sees 260 to 300 volts. Any more than that and the death glow comes on quickly. Some tubes don't even like that much. Given these limitations I can still get 15+ watts out of a pair.

The 6CW5 will work well on lower B+ voltages (150 to 200 volts) where the EL84 goes limp. This makes them good for hybrid amps with the output tube and a BIG mosfet are wired together in "darlington" configuration.
 
Not to belabour; the 1970 RCA Tube Manual sometimes show different voltages for max. plate voltage and plate supply voltage, sometimes the same. The latter is where I got the 600V from (former = 275V there). But nowhere do they say what exactly plate supply voltage is supposed to mean.

Also not to hi-jack the thread, but perhaps someone here can elucidate on the difference for everybody's benefit.
 
thanks for the posts guys. think i will try this circuit over the

weekend and see how it goes. i was really interested in using it

with some hi-q fullrange speakers, hoping that the output

impedance wouldnt be too big an issue. ive heard of those 600

ohm phillips speakers, and i wonder what their construction was

like...
 
600 ohm

Hallo guys!

I make this amp with ECC88, 2XEL803 per channel, with some modifications for working point.
Of course, I made boxes with ellipsoidal, full range speakers 5W 600 Ohm, especially
for this purpose. Amplifier have very flat frequency response and low distortion, smooth and
warm tone. I use schematic for some old Phillips black&white TV set.
 

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EL86/PL84 were intended for lower voltage/higher current circuits than EL84 or circuits where the available voltage was shared between two series valves. Hence a lower max anode voltage can coincide with a higher max supply voltage.

As a company which made both valves and loudspeaker drive units, Philips was in a good position to help them match in impedance terms, by developing lowish impedance valves and highish impedance speakers. Maybe they had developed a clever method for winding high impedance voice coils? The idea never really caught on.
 
EL86(6CW5) works very well in guitar amp. at Ua~350-380V with fixed bias, but UG2 must be under 200V in this case. Output power was over 25W (Push-Pull classAB, Ua=370V, UG2=185V, UG1~-18-20V, Ia0=25mA) with OT impedance Raa~4kOhm, with THD~4%. Also work perfect in small HI-FI amp (2x6W, Push-Pull ClassA/AB, Triode conected with Raa~3,5kOhm, and Ua-k~230-240V) over 5years with 6CW5(EL86) from "EI-Nis"-manufacturer.
 
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That Philips topology was used in some of the famous Carlsson Speakers, The coalbox and OA6-1(bi-amped 1 amp for 10" bas and 1 amp for 8"mid and tweeter).

The tweeters had a small opt so it was never totally OTL.

OA6-1 is a very good sounding setup.

Have some of those old philips 9710AM hiding in the storage.
 
Take a look at Hammond organ AO-44. A wonderful simple amp design. Also Scott stereo integrated Type 200. I've run AO-44s for stereo and was happy. Ripped out the reverb section and compression crap, went straight to the tube and left it stock. They can be had for a song. That's my audio secret....