It's alive!!!!!
It is wild seeing the heaters exposed...it actually freaked me out enough that I traced the pins on a spare just to prove to myself that it was ok.
One thing that is odd, one heater is mucho brighter than the other...I need to meter it and see whats up, it could be that the valve is just that way...switching out would be a good way to test that.
I am a little gunshy about running it because I may have hurt the valves in my various mis-wirings. I have 8 westinghouse 6j6 on the way though so I will put it through its paces then.
The caps still drain relatively fast after shutdown. I cannot figure out what that could be a function of? I used different diodes in this pre vs. the 1n4007 of "standard" fare.
The data sheet is here, its a BA-159...was this a bad choice?
http://www.vishay.com/docs/88536/ba157.pdfAnyways, the obligatory pics and first impressions:
Impressions, I only have a couple songs on it so I cannot give too much and the caps and whatnot should burn in also but first impressions are positive. This is no Aikido or Shrimp but it is no slouch either...for under $200 in parts I bet it could be mass-produced and sold for $500ish. Sound is smooth with good detail. Decent soundstage but not extremely deep. Good overall tonal balance that I first thought was thin on the bottom but it is more like very accurate. Warm mids, nice smooth highs...probably a little laid back.
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