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In the Forum: Melquiades Amplifier
In the Thread: Single-stage Melquiades vs. DHT amps
Post Subject: The unexpected insanity!Posted by Romy the Cat on: 5/10/2009
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I closed up the amps and moved it to the default operation position, right along with it all Dominus cables and so on.  I played just mono music and was very interesting where I will find myself with this amp Sound.  The right channel still was serving with single stage, I of course EQed their levels.  The spare 3dB on DHT side will do good when I put the rest channels in play.

If you expect that Sound of DHT channel blew out of water my single-stage amp then it would be not corrects. They sound in a way simile with exception that DHT channel was auditable less loaded with all expected consequences. I did not detect the deficiency in Microbe Sound; the single-stage amp still was a bit above but at practically negligible level. Still, benefits from the dynamic and contrast that I got from more idled DHT was hard to discard and it was one of the features that I was going after.

I put a few tubes in play different 2.5V and different 4V tubes. The problem that I see is that all my 2.5V tubes are truly uncomparable to my single-stage amp as they loaded ageist too high impedance. The 2A3 are 800R, I drive then very softly – 38mA, so I presume the true impedance somewhere around 1.5K. The 6K of my current loading does not appear as too high but sonically it feels like it is “at the edge”. The single-stage amp sounds like swimming in a pool filled with oil – graceful, lucrative but essentially too slow (that was my objective to eliminate to begin with and I was not as the single-stage has no more gain). The 4V tubes do much better match to work with single-stage amp as they loaded harder. My 4V tubes have 1200R on plate and at 38mA it probably goes up to 2.5-3K. So, the 6K load is kind of hard load and the 4V tubes sound juts a bit more contrasty but analogous.

I put the Russian YO186, Klangfilm KL71403 and Telefunken RE604. All of them run at absolutly identical operational parameter with 38.6mA – kind of spooky. All of them measured better then new with full emission, none of them broken-in. They all were nice in own way, different and nice, (I will be taking about it what I but all of them up) even though the most proper balance I feel I got from 2A3 made by RCA during WW2.  So, why I named my post “the unexpected insanity”? Well, it is because the sound of the YO186…

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It was truly unexpected insanity. Nope the YO186 did not sound “better” then Klangfilm, Telefunken of single-stage amp. It is, as any other tubes, has own balance and own qualities but it has something that I would call “insane” – the bass. OK, you need to understand that I am listing JUST MF channel that has 1000Hz roll off. So, all my talks about bass have to be viewed from this above 1000Hz perspective. Still, the “bass” that YO186 demonstrated was juts stunning, not the quality of it of course but some amassing inflection in lower notes that made notes and lower harmonics absolutely hypnotizing. If you know the coloration of voice that native Americans have then it was in a way similar but with a very a very gentile inflection of very fine velvet texture and very-very interestingly mixed with the rest MF. It was so beautiful that I actually found myself that I would like to drive with this signature my Upperbass Channels and my Fundamentals Channels not the MF Channels …  Of course I have no power in this tube and no inductance in output transformer to do so…

Sure, I need to burn all of this in and listen more of it but the first impression was positive and educational. The lower octave harmonics of YO186 is truly a discovery from me. In a way it reminds me the bass of Tannoy Red but without the tacky softness. The YO186 is not overly extended at HF, the Telefunken and Klangfilm beat YO186 but what it does with voice is a quite eyebrow raising… I think it will be a lot of fun to play it more…

The Cat

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