#5621
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I've never tried a Sophia or Psvane 6SN7. Seems like a lot of money to find out how they sound. I still love my 1960s Westinghouse 6SN7GTB tall, black plate, copper rods. Have 4 of them. Set for life & beyond. Liked these better than any other NOS or new production I've tried, including Sylvania chrome domes, RCA red-base 5692, Tung-sol and a host of others.
My speakers best attribute is their huge, open soundstage and the Westinghouse were clearly the best in that arena. I was lucky to even have tested them. I rounded up about 20 6SN7s from various sources and one just happened to be in the lot. I had not sought it out. Was comparing all of them over the course of a few weeks and when I popped it in and let it warm up, I played one of my demo cuts and immediately was wowed by it. As it was a used tube, there was no need for breaking it in. I haven't used any other 6SN7 over the past 18 months. |
#5622
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I don't know who is manufacturing the blue Sophia tubes. |
#5623
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Dennis shipped the preamp with some entirely bog standard Sylvania 6sn7gta with red print, from the late 70s/early 80s I'd guess, which remain some of my favorite 6sn7's. I'm currently experimenting with my Sophia 274B (blue but NOT mesh plate) in the LP 3.1 with their Sophia 6sn7 brethren. Oddly, I guess, I have a Sylvania green-print chrome top 6sn7 in the driver stage of the preamp instead of a 6bx7 or 6sl7. I may play around with that today. I'll say this for the Sophias: they are stable. I've had trouble with microphonic 6sn7's in my 3.1 recently (as I've detailed on these pages) and these are, in fact, very quiet. Which is nice. In my Inspire FireBottle Universal SET I still have the Haltron 6v6 paired with a Sylvania 5u4g. I'm using the original Phillips 5691 driver tube that the amp shipped with, having never seen fit to futz around with it too much. I'm not dissing Sophia but I do think their price points are off. I bought a Valve Art 274B from Tube Store for 40 bucks. It sounds great. As great as the Sophia 274B? Not sure, but it's not far off. I'm intrigued by the Inspire 45 amp y'all keep writing about. Later today a friend is dropping off a 45 amp he's not using on my front porch...I've heard it many times and am excited to try it in my system...Will be interesting to hear if it can drive my Altec 604s, paired with the 3.1. |
#5624
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#5625
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FloridaBoy nailed it. Every time I think, "HEY, this is by far the best combo of tubes I've ever heard! I'll never need another!", I give myself about three weeks and of course I'm back to rolling again.
The KT150/Sophia 274 combo is stunning in my Inspire. But when I threw the Haltrons in just for kicks I was reminded of that silky, slightly more euphonic presentation of a lower output tube...which makes me all the more interested to hear the 45 that should be arriving later this afternoon. |
#5626
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I do use other rectifiers, with my favorite being a new production Genalex GZ34, which I think is nothing more than a slightly upgraded, or selected pick, Sovtek. It does the job. Paid $35. My only complaint about it is that it is too small ... I like those big, impressive looking rectifiers! |
#5627
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Again, I'm pretty sensitive to "bang for buck" but found myself with a few extra dollars and wanted to try a new production 6sn7, so decided to shell out more than I would've liked for the Sophia 6sn7. Jury is still out. Sounds very good but I'm just not sure it's that much better than a number of others that I have... |
#5628
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#5629
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#5630
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Spent all yesterday afternoon listening to my friend's custom built 45 amp with Emissions Lab mesh plate 45's, with the Inspire 3.1 preamp. Sounded...okay. They really cannot drive my Altec 604's which is kind of a bummer. They were really working hard to get the 604's woofers moving, which has been my experience with a lot of flea watt amps on these Altecs. Kind of a shrill high end, okay midrange, loose and weak bass. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He also loaned me a Waamamp 45/2a3 amp, which I'm currently listening to with the Emission 45's. Even with smaller output iron and altogether "cheaper" parts--no fancy caps, etc., unlike the other amp--it sounds...better than the "fancy" amp. There are some vintage Cunningham globe 45's here, but they really pooped out with the Altecs. My sense is that with other speakers this amp and these tubes would be magical but as I've mentioned, the 604's are some finicky speakers. It's taken a lot of time and money to dial the Inspire combo in to where I feel like I'm getting the best out of the 604's, but I'm very, very happy with where I am with the Inspire stuff and the ALtecs. May I go ahead and assume that nothing in Dennis's 45 design would be much different from the above 45 amps? FWIW, I think the custom amp is based on a Bottlehead circuit. |
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