Bottlehead Kits > MonAmour
6SN7 sub for 5670 in Monamours
Altecboy:
Recently I bought a pair of 6SN7-to-5670 adapters from Garage1217 dot com. $25 each. Made in the USA. Took about a week to get to me in NJ.
I must say this is a worthwhile experiment. The gain is a bit less, but even with my passive preamp, it plays plenty loud.
To my ears the 6SN7 plays more refined than the stock 5670 tubes. My speakers are Altec Model 19 clones and they play a bit hot in the upper midrange in my very live room with the stock tubes. Much smoother with the 6SN7. The imaging is improved as well.
In my system, this was not a subtle change.
Gerry E.:
--- Quote from: Altecboy on October 11, 2023, 08:05:23 AM ---Recently I bought a pair of 6SN7-to-5670 adapters from Garage1217 dot com. $25 each. Made in the USA. Took about a week to get to me in NJ. I must say this is a worthwhile experiment. The gain is a bit less, but even with my passive preamp, it plays plenty loud. To my ears the 6SN7 plays more refined than the stock 5670 tubes. My speakers are Altec Model 19 clones and they play a bit hot in the upper midrange in my very live room with the stock tubes. Much smoother with the 6SN7. The imaging is improved as well. In my system, this was not a subtle change.
--- End quote ---
I'll add that this has been my exact experience too! The Garage1217 adapters are the best I have come across and Jeremy is a great guy to deal with. Also, I strongly prefer TS RP 6SN7s over any of the 5670 variants I have tried in my BH Paramounts (even with the lower gain, though I use an active line-stage).
I occasionally try various 5670/396A types but always go back to 6SN7s due to their warmer, smoother and tonally dense sound. BTW, I"m aware that somebody on the BH Forum posted the exact opposite conclusion, so there is plenty of room for differing opinions. However, I think it's silly to make a definitive declaration.
Gerry
Larpy:
That's interesting. I've read that the 6SN7 doesn't swing enough voltage to properly drive a 300B. Not true?
Paul Birkeland:
The 6SN7 does have less gain, but that's not a limit to voltage swing. The limit of voltage swing has to be analyzed in terms of the 6SN7 operating point and loadline. I don't see any reason why you couldn't swing 250V RMS with a 6SN7, but you'd have to put a ton of signal into the grid to do that (15-ish volts at least), and that ends up being the issue. In a modern HiFi system, there's generally such a ridiculous abundance of gain that having a power amp that's super insensitive may end up being a blessing at the end of the day, though we would tend to avoid selling one setup like that.
johnsonad:
You know what's funny, I had the exact same experience with Model 19's. I preferred the 6SN7 to the 5670 with that speaker. With my current speakers, the 5670 is the clear winner to my ears. It's nice to have more than one choice.
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