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Blue glow

snowdownunder

snowdownunder

Active Member
G'day guys,
Just a quick question. I have a 300b amp and it sounds great, tonight I had all the lights in the house switch off and I noticed that one of the output valves had a slight blue glow and not the other, does this mean anything?

snow
 
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Do a search and on Google. There's lot to learn about but its not something to worry over.

Cheers,

David
 
Great link

G'day defilamintkid,
That is a great web site you guided me to. I'll need to read it a couple more time to get all to sink in, but I've learnt allot already. Thanks heaps.:thmbsp:

G'day Nirky,
Yep I agree, it does look great, sounds better.:music:

snow
 
G'devenin' snowdownunder..

Glad the article is helpful noticed you mention having a 300b amp..
please share some about your gear and what you really appreciate
most sonically about your 300b amp as perhaps other amps you
may have used in the past

The article seems to indicate svetlana 300bs are long lived 4000-10,000 hrs.
hope you get same or more !

See ya soon ..
 
300b Photos

G'day defilamintkid,
I'm self taught on the computer and not very well. I've tried many times to up-load photos and it just doesn't happen. I've found this zip file of some photos of my amp being built and it has up-loaded. I might need to learn a bit more about zip files.
At the moment I have a rega2 turn table, I use a garrott brothers P-77 dynamic coil cartridge with a parabolic micro tracer stylus. I've fitted a clear audio weight and shaft, VTA on the fly and incognito wiring kit which go to a clear audio smartphono phono amp.
My CD player is a Rotel RCD-971 HD CD player.
The amp is called the "Time Machine" a 300b set single ended triode amplifier hand made in Australia by EHT communications Pty Ltd. It is 9 watts per channel. The input stage uses old stock 6SN7 valve and is self biasing. The guy who builds the amp name is Earle and he hand winds the output transformers. It came with electro-harmonix 300b gold output valves, one of them gave up the ghost and I now have full music 300b/n output valves (I don't now what the /n means) but they do sound good. The amp has hum pot adjustments and the full music valves do have less hum than the electro-harmonix valves. It also came with a sovtek 5U4G rectifier valve and I have since changed it to a mullards 5AR4 duel halo getter (not sure what that means but it's in your link, so hopefully after a couple more reads and I will). It has a negative feed back switch (not sure what this if for, again it's in your link) but I prefer the sound with this switched off.
The amp is built with,
Carbon composition resistors
Philips (Dutch) cathode bypass capacitors
JJ can power supply filter capacitors
Military grade paper in oil coupling capacitors
Silver plated, Teflon insulated wire
Alps audiophile attenuator
Hand wound transformers
This means nothing to me, it's in the manual. If you would like to know the specs just let us know. The specs are amp and valves specific so since I have changed some valves it may now be a bit different. I had some mods to my amp when it was being built, they were a wooden switch on the front panel, pre out&in and Earle said he done some extra shielding because of the sensitivity of my klipsch La-scala speakers.
So I have La-scalas speakers and have fitted these with ALK extreme slope networks, these are ES500T and ES5800 and I have these bi-wired.
Before the time machine I had one of Earles universal "Tweaker" amps, which had 4 pairs of output valves (only used one pair at a time) and 3 types of input valves, this was also a good amp with no hum, but I love the Time Machine and I think it goes lower that the tweaker.
Before that I had a Denon PMA-700V integrated amp, I had this connected to my speakers for about 15 years and still use it for switching the radio tuner, TV tuner, VHS and DVD. The Denon has no speakers connected to it at the moment, it is connected to the time machine. I'm no good at describing how an amp sounds and in over 25 years I've only owed 3 and have had the same speakers for nearly 25 years.
Vinyl is my preferred source.

What type of gear do you use?

Thanks again for your link

snow
 

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Last edited:
Snowdownunder..

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, things got busy.

Though I never heard of the brands of equipment just the make up of
them as you describe sounds like some good audio chef cookin' up some
good stuff...your system sounds like it is all one could hope for with
regard to soundstage and 3d imaging..

Mine not quite so refined but enough comes through to enjoy a lights out
close the eyes let 'er sing away..

My system

Ah!! Njoe Tjoube ( dutch for new tube)
McIntosh MX 110 tubed tuner pre-amp
Denon POA 2200 ss 200w/ch
Infinty Beta 50s (new)
Blujeans cables ic/ speaker wires (Belden wire)

I am considering getting a tubed power amps as tubes bring out the
3d aspect music far better than ss (my opinion )

Now here is a link to what i think is the world's largest subwwoofer
Powered by tube amps just scroll all the way down have fun !! :D

http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm

Now I'm sure that you folks down under must have something to top that.

Tiz all for now
 
Now here is a link to what i think is the world's largest subwwoofer
Powered by tube amps just scroll all the way down have fun !!

G'day defilamintkid,
I have seen that sub (if you can really call it that) before, this time I did read it through.
Can you read minds? The reason I ask is that I have just purchased a REL Statium sub. Although I've bought the sub I wont get to pick it up untill January, it's 600 miles away. A mate of mine is picking it up for me and going to give it a run with his Klipsch Belle speakers (very similar to mine). He also has an intergrated valve amp. The REL is big bucks and is desighed for Hi-Fi. I've never owed a sub before, so this will be new ground for me.

http://www.rel.net/index2.htm


Ah!! Njoe Tjoube ( dutch for new tube)
McIntosh MX 110 tubed tuner pre-amp
Denon POA 2200 ss 200w/ch
Infinty Beta 50s (new)
Blujeans cables ic/ speaker wires

I haven't heard of the Njoe, I have heard of Infinty but don't know anything about them, I've heard allot about McIntosh and I own a couple of denon's (Radio tuner & PMA-700V amp), Sound good.

Back to the cook book, I've downloaded it to my hard drive. Once again allot of it's over my head but the more I read about them the more I learn. After reading it I can see why your thinking of a valve power amp.

Thanks again for all the links.

snow
 
That amp of yours looks very nice. Gotta love old style hand built equipment thats top notch quality. Also quite amazing the guy who builds the amps also hand-winds the transformers.
 
G'daynevening t' ya Snowdownunder.

It truly is amazing all the good literature on audio gear out there
never would've enetered my mind a notion of a taste of tubes...
let alone cooking with tubes speaking of cooking.. my dinner is in micro
and again its a tube doing the job...

Thanks for the rel.net link one important thing I read about is the
added acoustical sense of depth of stage as in distance behind the sseaker
acoustical images appear. I too am thinking sub for this reason...and my
goal is not the kabooms, blams but rather the fill in of the lower octaves
that my speakers might not reach.

Here is a link that says a lot on speaker placement and also touches
on the added dimension of depth. More great reading.


http://www.audioperfectionist.com/PD...journal2rh.pdf

Being on a very tight budget reading is becoming more eseential
in selecting gear...

The Ah! is a budget cdp where all the considerations went on the
internal design and components (paid off great !!)

The new infinity Beta 50s cannot be confused with the 2nd from totl
infinity manufactured in the early 90's.. I actually got to hear a pair of
these original Betas.. and what an awsome set of speaker about
$18,000!! Now why infinity chose to call the new series the Beta series
is a wonderment to me. None the less after reading the technology
used in the drivers..and seeing i could get these as like new but
refurbished at half price..I did and they are big value for the dollar.

Now I'm kinda stuck as to whether to get the sub or a power line
conditioner from PS Audio

http://www.psaudio.com/products/quintet_power_center.asp

So round n' round it goes..

Well din din is ready catch up w' ya later..

Greet chattin' with ya
 
G'day defilamintkid,
I hope your still around; I've been a bit under the pump the last couple of weeks. I've also been buying lots of LP from eBay, this takes allot more time than what I first thought it would.

The audioperfectionist link is a must read, it took me a while to get threw it and then I read it again. The part on the subs is very interesting. I still haven’t got my head around how the filter works, but if it can do what it's supposed to it sounds like it would be a very good thing. The REL that I purchased will work (or operate) differently. The REL will require my speakers to be used full range, after reading the article on subs I'm not sure if that is the best way to go. The latter model REL's do have a low level input, so a frequency splitter can be used. The REL that I've bought only has High level inputs. Like I said before I won’t get to pick it up until January, but once I give it a go I let you know what I think. There's a REL on eBay in the States at the moment, it's at about $1400 so far. I'm going to try and find out more about the sub in the audioperfectionist article and how the filter works.

I've never heard of a power line conditioner before, we have 240 volts down hear so I don't know if it will work the same. The 300b Amp also uses a valve rectifier. It all very interesting, I'm all for value for the dollar.

Catch up with ya soon

snow


That amp of yours looks very nice. Gotta love old style hand built equipment thats top notch quality. Also quite amazing the guy who builds the amps also hand-winds the transformers

G'day gadget73,
I agree will you all the way with your quote. The guy who builds the amps recons it take about 8 hours to wind each transformers, he must love doing it.

snow
 
Here's what I know:

There are two kinds of 'blue glow'. One is good, the other is bad. Hold a magnet near the suspect tube. If the glow reacts to the magnet, then there isn't a problem; the glow is caused by ionization around the plate(s). If the glow does NOT react to the magnet, then the glow is caused by gas inside the tube, which more than likely means the tube is subpar. :yes:
 
Snow..

G'day n evenin' to you

Sounds like you been having a time...

Just the daily grind here ...and thankful for it..

Those articles Cooking with Tubes is fun reading, the one from the
Audio Perfectionist has a lot of food for thought. I still re-read as I
can get new glimmerings of what is being explained and the interactions
of the enviorment and what subs will do for you.

For YamahaFreak ....

you may like to look at this article under the subsection
what causes blue glow,

http://www.vacuumtubes.net/How_Vacuum_Tubes_Work.htm

Very good reading there

Catch up with you later Snow
 
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