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GE JAN 5654W vs Chinese 6j1 (Russian vs Chinese 6N6 power tubes)

bikingbuddha

bikingbuddha

Well-Known Member
I just did a bit of tube rolling back and forth then figured out something strange with my Little Dot MKII amplifier. I am using a HD-6XX with it and FX Audio DAC-X6 (as a dac). I upgraded the stock tubes with Russian power tubes (Matching) and GE Jan5654W (Matching - Green letters) about three months back and i was listening as usual. Things were all good and today i thought of switching back and forth with DAC-X6 and Little dot to see because when i bought the little dot with stock tube there was a clear night and day like difference (Little dot in a good way). But today i noticed that DAC-X6 sounded much better with better low end bass etc. I decided to do this because i really felt something is lacking in my little dot.

Then as a solution i put the stock tubes back. Suddenly the LD MKII is back where it was, i can't believe for the life of me that these Chinese tubes were better sounding with more power in the bass than Russian + GE Jans combines. So for the testing purposes i left the chinese power tubes and changed it back to 5654 and the sound became less bassy to me.Then i tried the Russian power tubes and Chinese 6J1 (Stock) and there wasn't much to notice but still good bass and when i put all the chinese tubes back the sound was damn good.

Why is this...? is something wrong with my ears or the tubes? Does GE Jan 5654W sounds less bassy than chinese 6j1?

I am not sure how many hours i have used the GE and Russian tubes so far, maybe they need longer break in time...? i think i have probably use them maximum of 30 hours or so during last month or two. Does this mean they need burn in time and things will get better afterwards.....?

I don't have any other tubes to try on because i am new to this.

please shed some light on this matter.
 
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I will add that I have Russian and Chinese tubes for my 8802. The original 1959 Maggie branded and all the NOS tubes I have purchased for it sound better to me.
 
GChief said:
The simple answer is you like the Chinese tubes better. That’s about as audiophile as I get when some one questions something sounding better or worst to them. I am sure someone will come along and give the overthought nuke it Audiophile version.

:beerchug:
Click to expand...

Lol....! You maybe right but i don't like things specifically just because it is made in somewhere or others say it is good; but to my ears the stock tubes sounded much better, especially in the lower frequencies and soundstage wise.

Funny part is everywhere i see, people bash the stock chinese tubes of these amplifiers for being poorly made and using cheap materials. This is the part i am unable to explain.
 
GChief said:
I will add that I have Russian and Chinese tubes for my 8802. The original 1959 Maggie branded and all the NOS tubes I have purchased for it sound better to me.
Click to expand...

That's what everyone say and that is whole purpose of buying ge jan jan russian tubes over the stock chinese ones. I guess it didn't turn out well for me.
 
bikingbuddha said:
Lol....! You maybe right but i don't like things specifically just because it is made in somewhere or others say it is good; but to my ears the stock tubes sounded much better, especially in the lower frequencies and soundstage wise.

Funny part is everywhere i see, people bash the stock chinese tubes of these amplifiers for being poorly made and using cheap materials. This is the part i am unable to explain.
Click to expand...

I have a Aune T1 and a Little Bear something pre-amp that the tubes are actually in the ckt just not for looks like a lot of them. All the NOS surplus tubes I have used in those sound better than the Chinese tubes that they came with to me. Sticking by my personal preference comment :D

:beerchug:
 
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The 5654's sounded much better than the 6j1's in a little Nob Sound hybrid headphone amp I have. It was a night and day difference. I built a preamp with tone controls using a board from China a few years back. It used 6n1's, 6n3's, 6n11's, etc. The 6n3's sounded really good, the others not so much. Sometimes it just depends on what you put a certain tube Into.
 
Lavane said:
The 5654's sounded much better than the 6j1's in a little Nob Sound hybrid headphone amp I have. It was a night and day difference. I built a preamp with tone controls using a board from China a few years back. It used 6n1's, 6n3's, 6n11's, etc. The 6n3's sounded really good, the others not so much. Sometimes it just depends on what you put a certain tube Into.
Click to expand...

GChief said:
That’s not what I meant, I mean you just like the way those tubes sound.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same because I own a little 6N3 preamplifier which is connected to my speaker amplifier. When I change the Chinese 6N3 to 5670 GE JAN the difference was like night and day. I was expecting something similar on my LIttle Dot MK II with GE Jan 5654W. But it went the other way around and 6J1 one sounded so much better than the GE5654. Today for testing purpose I burned-in the amp with Russian 6N6P + GE Jan 5654W hoping that things will change after a while of tubes being used. I guess now they are having somewhere close to 50 hours of run time. I just checked and they still sound so much worse than the stock 6J1's. Power tubes doesn't have much effect in sound quality it seems but the 6J1 makes everything better. I myself don't know how to explain this so I got my wife to check it, she has no idea what these things are but after listening for a while she also said the 6J1 has better in everything and bass sounds better so it can't just be me.

I think something is wrong with my GE tubes, maybe they are some rebranded fakes. It has green letters and white letters says 5654 and green letters saying 5654W. They seemed pretty legit from the look, and i got them down from eBay.
 
Old thread, but maybe this is of interest.I ended up here trying to figure out how 6J4 (single triode) and 5654 (single pentode) can be interchangeable in RIAA preamps on Amazon.

5654 is an industrial version of 6AK5. 5654W is a ruggedized version. 5654/6AK5 are same as European EF95. Some NOS tubes have both EF95 and 6AK5 or EF95 and 5654 on their boxes. They were extremely common in commercial, military and aerospace equipment and there are a lot of NOS tubes in the world. I think some old Tektronix oscilloscope plug-in modules used 6AK5/5654's. They are single pentodes in 7-pin miniature envelope.

6J4 is a single triode. 6J1 is a pentode as this thread above is already discussing.

I found a website with tube datasheets with a comment that a Chinese FU-32 SE amp used 6J1 triode-wired pentodes

Equivalence between old US tubes and differently-numbered Chinese and/or Russian pentode tubes sometimes exist because they are usable as substitutes, not necessarily identical. Just close enough.

People hear differences among different brands of the same tube number, so close-enough-to-substitute tubes from different markets/countries would be reasonably expected to exhibit at least the same degree of sonic variation...because two different numbered tubes are two different devices. In different circuits, one might sound better than another...and two different opinions might exist. Doesn't mean one is 'better' than the other. Two different tubes in two different circuits increase the YMMV variables.

I didn't start researching the too-many-to-study Little Dot and other amps to see which use pentodes as pentodes vs pentodes as triodes, but when pentodes are triode-wired, it is less common to find triode curves for some, and people posting questions about the scarcity of triode-wired curves for certain pentodes. For example, triode-wired curves for 6AU6 pentodes are common. For 6CB6/6CF6, another pentode, triode-wired curves don't seem to exist. They have different pinouts, but someone on a different forum said that other than the the different pinout, the 6CB6 triode operation could be assumed to be close enough to use the 6AU6 triode curves. Better than not having any at all.

For quite some years, the tube/valve market has had more current production from places other than the US and many more variations. Tubes were hard to find a couple or few decades ago. It's easier now than ever to find inexpensive tubes. Buyer's market, not seller's!

Ah, here's the schematic for the FU-32/6J1 amplifier.
http://www.r-type.org/articles/art-261.htm
 
One more thought. Some writers say some sellers laugh at you when you try to order matched pentodes. Triodes are hard enough that the 'matching' is usually qualified as matching in certain parameters...not all curves over their full range. They are mechanical devices with mechanical components made on stamping and winding machines, as opposed to semiconductors made with microscopic dimensions and processes using x-ray lithography. The repeatability in solid state is better, but there are even significant variations between brands of op amps with the same p/n. Or so some people say and or hear. (Better sand?)
 
I have an FX-Audio Tube-01 preamp/buffer, that came with the Chinese 6J1 tubes. I read about the GE 5654W upgrade, so I got a pair for cheap from my local old tube guy. I honestly couldn't hear a difference.

On another note, I also have that FX Audio DAC-6. I bought some ultra-cheap op amps on the e-auction site, and rolled three kinds. Can't for the life of me remember which one I liked best. Only one sounded crappy. I went by the recommendations people were posting online about which ones sounded best. It was fun though. I think I spent less than $5, and still have a bunch of left over op amps (they were like $1 for 10!). I like that little DAC, I want to compare it side by side with my main one, a PS Audio Digital Link III.
 
With a triode circuit, the load and B+ are the two major variables. The basic shape of a triode's plate curves dictate this. With a pentode, the g2 offers an additional variable that changes the plate curves quite dramatically, and therefore the load being driven across them. The pentode is quite dependent on the g2 voltage to tune the characteristics for the load. Could be a reason for big variation when rolling similar pentodes in signal apps...let alone power tubes.
cheers,
Douglas
 
PakProtector said:
With a triode circuit, the load and B+ are the two major variables. The basic shape of a triode's plate curves dictate this. With a pentode, the g2 offers an additional variable that changes the plate curves quite dramatically, and therefore the load being driven across them. The pentode is quite dependent on the g2 voltage to tune the characteristics for the load. Could be a reason for big variation when rolling similar pentodes in signal apps...let alone power tubes.
cheers,
Douglas
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Excellent, and well put.
That said...
do "we" even know that the tubes in these little preamp gizmos are employed (or is that deployed) as pentodes, or as triodes, or that just their filaments are being used as resistors? OK I am being snarky in the latter case (me?!? perish the thought!) -- I've seen claims for those little FX boxes of... well, whatever it is that they're boxes of :rolleyes:... that the tubes are used as triodes... but I dunno.

I do have one (thanks to the kindness of a Polk forum member, which is much appreciated!) but I haven't tried tracing out the circuit.
Other than a short audition with supplied tubes (some sort of European tubes; I don't recall which brand or type) I haven't been too inclined to delve further.


DSC_0642 (2r).JPG
 
bikingbuddha said:
I just did a bit of tube rolling back and forth then figured out something strange with my Little Dot MKII amplifier. I am using a HD-6XX with it and FX Audio DAC-X6 (as a dac). I upgraded the stock tubes with Russian power tubes (Matching) and GE Jan5654W (Matching - Green letters) about three months back and i was listening as usual. Things were all good and today i thought of switching back and forth with DAC-X6 and Little dot to see because when i bought the little dot with stock tube there was a clear night and day like difference (Little dot in a good way). But today i noticed that DAC-X6 sounded much better with better low end bass etc. I decided to do this because i really felt something is lacking in my little dot.

Then as a solution i put the stock tubes back. Suddenly the LD MKII is back where it was, i can't believe for the life of me that these Chinese tubes were better sounding with more power in the bass than Russian + GE Jans combines. So for the testing purposes i left the chinese power tubes and changed it back to 5654 and the sound became less bassy to me.Then i tried the Russian power tubes and Chinese 6J1 (Stock) and there wasn't much to notice but still good bass and when i put all the chinese tubes back the sound was damn good.

Why is this...? is something wrong with my ears or the tubes? Does GE Jan 5654W sounds less bassy than chinese 6j1?

I am not sure how many hours i have used the GE and Russian tubes so far, maybe they need longer break in time...? i think i have probably use them maximum of 30 hours or so during last month or two. Does this mean they need burn in time and things will get better afterwards.....?

I don't have any other tubes to try on because i am new to this.

please shed some light on this matter.
Click to expand...

I think it may have something to do with the power amplifying circuit after the 6j1. I use an fx tube preamp. I prefer the GE 5654W JAN with my Sure Electronics AA-AB32281 2x200W Class D Audio Amplifier, but the 6J1 sounds much better with my class a lateral jfet power amp. Sometime symbiosis of audio components plays a major role in final sound quality too. Also make sure it is the GE JAN version, the regular 5654W does not seem to sound as good as 6J1.
 
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