Rebuilt Quickie: "The Bonze"

Bonzo · 30878

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Offline mcandmar

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Reply #15 on: April 27, 2014, 06:58:24 AM
Nice build, curious to your hear your impressions on the various tubes, especially the Philips and Siemens..

M.McCandless

Offline Bonzo

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Reply #16 on: April 27, 2014, 07:37:18 AM
It's hard to describe now, as my system had a lot of canges: new speaker cables (UBYTE), improved psu of my old ecl86 dual mono (now near tube maximum limit, more speed and power).
I based my judge fisrt on microphonic: Philips and Siemens gave me the less microphonic problems of the whole lot, then I hook the Quickie to Darling. The Darling gives a bit of "loudness" effect to the music, so if I don't see this effect I know tubes rolled off something somewhere... So Siemens are a bit bass-shy, but very detailed and "fast", Philips are more balanced but a touch less speed.
The other tubes (RCA, Sylvania, Mullard and RF-not pictured-) are good, RCA non JAN better, but Philips and Siemens are addictive :-)
Always searching for some Telefunken to try them out.
Test disks
3d: any cd from Mapleshade;
Dynamic and speed: any old Dire Straits LP;
Tone test: ELP Picture at an Exhibition LP from Original Master Recording.
Ciao!

Bisogna avere orecchio!

Offline Bonzo

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Reply #17 on: October 21, 2014, 10:19:20 AM
Another update:
I buy a NOS Telefunken pair on ebay Italy...only checked if they work ATM...stay tuned!
Now I think I have all the tubes I need...
Teles are really beautiful, with the old Italian tax stamp on it...lovely!

Bisogna avere orecchio!

Offline mcandmar

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Reply #18 on: October 21, 2014, 01:34:08 PM
Can you post a pic of the tubes with Tax stamps?   I have a Marconi tube i got from Italy with unusual labels on it, always wondered what they were.

M.McCandless

Offline Bonzo

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Reply #19 on: October 21, 2014, 08:00:53 PM
Here they are.
The stamp is similar to the ones you can find on vine bottles, I have a pair of lovely Marconi 6sn7 and a pair of 807 with the stamp on it.

Ciao!

Bisogna avere orecchio!

Offline mcandmar

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Reply #20 on: October 22, 2014, 05:03:58 AM
Those labels i have not seen before, interesting. Also interested to hear how you get on with those as you own all of my favorite tubes, the Philips, Siemens, Telefunkens, Navy RCA's, and Mullards.

The Valvos are worth picking up too, and if you mod for 1S4 tubes try a few Czech 1L33's. They are horribly microphonic but i really like em, curious for somebody else to try them and see what they think.

http://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php?topic=6098.0

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbottlehead.com%2Fsmf%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Ddlattach%3Btopic%3D6098.0%3Battach%3D5586%3Bimage&hash=bc9375ef09c36317adec7edf4909a5c7a46e06e3)

M.McCandless

Offline Bonzo

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Reply #21 on: October 22, 2014, 09:14:38 PM
Ciao mcandmar,
I red your post and always thinking of doing the mod, but I'm too lazy...  ;D
I built also a sort of "quickie clone" changing tube's workpoint and something else, just to experiment a bit, maybe i can try the mod on it.

1L33 has also that "glow factor" I miss in the quickie...  :)

Speaking about tubes I think standard RCA's are a bit better than JAN ones, the latter being too much microphonic for my taste, now I have to do some more listenig session with the Tele's.

To reduce vibration I use also Mapleshade-inspired cork/rubber feet and I have to admit they do a good job for external vibrations.
I have also considered putting a rubber ring between tube socket and plastic plate.

Ciao!

Bisogna avere orecchio!

Offline mcandmar

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Reply #22 on: October 23, 2014, 06:10:17 AM
You can do the mod via a toggle switch so its a quick and easy changeover.  Thats how i have mine setup, and another switch to move a few pins around so i could experiment with 3A4 and 3Q4 tubes too.

M.McCandless

Offline aragorn723

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Reply #23 on: November 03, 2014, 03:43:48 PM
Mcandmar,

Have you noticed any significant differences from trying 3A4s and 3Q4s vs. the 3S4 in sound?

Dave


Offline mcandmar

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Reply #24 on: November 03, 2014, 04:11:02 PM
Quote from: aragorn723 on November 03, 2014, 03:43:48 PM
Mcandmar,

Have you noticed any significant differences from trying 3A4s and 3Q4s vs. the 3S4 in sound?

Dave

Cant really say as i only bought one set of each to experiment with and never did anything with them. The intention was to work out if any changes to their operating points were needed and modify accordingly. From memory one had higher gain which was useful, one has a higher power output, and there was also differences in trans conductance, distortion specs etc.   I wonder if the BH guys have tested them?

M.McCandless

Offline aragorn723

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Reply #25 on: November 03, 2014, 04:54:36 PM
one interesting thing about the 3q4 is that you can get a pair of telefunkens on ebay for $20, vs. $35 for a 3s4 pair!

Dave


Offline mcandmar

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Reply #26 on: November 03, 2014, 05:57:16 PM

M.McCandless

Offline Bonzo

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Reply #27 on: November 03, 2014, 08:30:41 PM
Just a thought: 3q4 seems a drop-in replacement to me, according to Radiomuseum.org:
This is our beloved 3s4 http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_3s4.html
and this is 3q4 http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_3q4.html

They seem pin to pin equal, is it correct?
Instead of a switch, have you tried to build a socket adaptor?

Ciao!
« Last Edit: November 03, 2014, 09:13:49 PM by Bonzo »

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Offline mcandmar

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Reply #28 on: November 04, 2014, 07:03:47 AM
Yup that looks right, it was the 1S4/3A4 that had different pinouts. You could make adapters, though i dont know what you would start with.  I just found it easier and neater to add a few switches, easy to do when your dealing with such small voltages.

M.McCandless

Offline Bonzo

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Reply #29 on: March 06, 2015, 08:26:12 AM
Mcandmar,
today I tried those beasts!

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ody3CCxtH-k/VPn9aDkFJ5I/AAAAAAAABJc/fTyTYWUw5AA/w926-h520-no/WP_20150306_006.jpg)

3Q5GT so HUGE with the adapter!  ::)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-iXVd6ALrTLE/VPn9f5uDRUI/AAAAAAAABJ0/UMtKJv2xeZw/w292-h520-no/WP_20150306_009.jpg)

Size mismatch ;D
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-KHf8OisID0E/VPn9dIIZFVI/AAAAAAAABJs/TEL3IfHcngM/w292-h520-no/WP_20150306_008.jpg)

Nothing more than a quick check to see if everything works, but they seems pretty good!

Bisogna avere orecchio!

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