Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Craig_R]

Right After Getting My Spendor BC1 BBC Monitor Speakers Today I have to say I am Shocked How Good They Are. Beautiful Mid Range and Highs, Bass is Alittle Bloated, But have found some information online to tighten that up.

Any How I have Been Reading These Speaker Really Come To life With a Valve Amp Most people are talking about Quad II Valve Amps And I nearly Fell off My chair when i saw the price of these things and you need two as they are only mono amps Gulp

So What I am wanting to know which valve amps are ok but not stupido money, and what do all these valve numbers mean like  EL34, ECC83, ECC81 i am guessing these are different kinds of Valves  :-/ :-/

[Jay w]

I take the mickey out of my father in law, he is mad on his audio kit...

he wold tell you yes it is worth it, he has two sets of Quads speakers, one set 67 the other 69.

I have to say that for speakers that are now 40 years old they sound out of this world

[Craig_R]

Quad Speakers linked up to Quad amps are out of this world nothing even comes close to them even in this day and age.

Alot of people say Good Amps and Speakers from the 70's are as good if not better than modern day stuff

[Kevin Wood]

I have a pair of valve amps that I built about 10 years ago because they seemed an interesting project more than anything else.

One thing I would say is that if you like tight, punchy bass they're proabably not for you, especially if the speakers are on the large side. They just don't have the damping to achieve that.

IME, They give very good, involving midrange and treble doesn't have the harshness that solid state amps and bad digital source material sometimes gives - nor the detail, if I'm honest. Much as I like to think everything can be measured I'm going to have to finish by saying there's "something" about them....

Having said that they come in many shapes and sizes and each have their quirks. A 300b single-ended amp without feedback is a very different beast to a push-pull pentode design with a load of negative feedback.

Blag a listen to a few, ideally with your speakers, is the best advice.

Kevin

[Kevin Wood]

So What I am wanting to know which valve amps are ok but not stupido money, and what do all these valve numbers mean like  EL34, ECC83, ECC81 i am guessing these are different kinds of Valves

To answer this bit, yes, there are hundreds of different types of valve. Just like transistors, for example, you have several different fundamental types of valve and also different applications call for different shapes and sizes. Some handle very small signals at low power levels, some handle large amounts of power, some high frequencies, some low.

The numbers do follow some logic regarding the number of electrodes, heater voltage and so on, but there are also so many exceptions and conflicting systems of numbering that you may as well just google them to find some data.

Kevin

[Craig_R]

I dont want Punchy Bass Kevin just alittle tighter than it is, But thats not going to be the amp to solve it. i like smooth good sound not loud hard core rave kind of sound

Do you have any photos of your amp ? How on earth did you build one? where oh where would you start a project like that ?

Craig

[Kevin Wood]

On the subject of BBC monitor speakers, I was talking to a mate of mine a few months ago and it turns out his father was one of the team who developed the LS3/5A.

His web site: http://www.ls35a.com/

Kevin

[Craig_R]

Yep Been through that website with a fine tooth comb i have listened to a pair of those great mid and highs but i have listened to the Spendor BC1 they are alot better, looking through the websites it looks like there is a big rivalry between the two sets of speaker fans.

So Your mate can he get some LS3/5A's Cough Cough lol

[Kevin Wood]

I started off with a Maplin kit, as it happens. Will take some pictures but it's basically one of these :

http://www.livinginthepast.demon.co.uk/xfrmrvt425.html

Although I built them as a pair of monoblocks because the power supply is a bit underrated for both amps in any case.

Keep meaning to do a  few more tweaks to them as the design is lacking in a few areas.

Kevin

[Admin]

I am going to be very interested to read Mark DTM's comments...  

Me, I would go for a good quality normal (ie not valve) amp but that is down to me not being an audiophile (unlike Mark).

I suspect Mark will give a more technical explanation on it all.  

[Pitchfork]

Right After Getting My Spendor BC1 BBC Monitor Speakers Today I have to say I am Shocked How Good They Are. Beautiful Mid Range and Highs, Bass is Alittle Bloated, But have found some information online to tighten that up.

Any How I have Been Reading These Speaker Really Come To life With a Valve Amp Most people are talking about Quad II Valve Amps And I nearly Fell off My chair when i saw the price of these things and you need two as they are only mono amps Gulp

So What I am wanting to know which valve amps are ok but not stupido money, and what do all these valve numbers mean like  EL34, ECC83, ECC81 i am guessing these are different kinds of Valves  :-/ :-/

Valves are not as reliable as semiconductors & it is a myth that they are better
I have lots of high powered amps for Guitars & PA, give me solid state anyday, in fact I now use Switch-Mode digital amps for the PA as they are considerably lighter having no transformers in them
Valves give an apparent enhancement to sound by adding harmonics due to them having a mechanical content that 'resonates', but this can be achieved by a well designed solid state amp (My Sessionette 75 being a good example)
EL34 is an output Pentode usually used in push-pull pairs giving about 30 watts RMS max output
ECC83 is a hgh gain twin Triode used in pre-amp circuits
ECC81 is a lower gain twin triode used in output driver stages such as phase-inverting for the push-pull

[Kevin Wood]

Valves are not as reliable as semiconductors & it is a myth that they are better....

Oh, I absolutely agree. In practical terms semiconductors are a much better bet and if I were humping amps around from place to place valves would ne a no-no. In terms of stage amplification you can achieve the same sound using effects so why make your life difficult?

From a point of view of home construction and Hi-Fi, however, you can build an amp that sounds excellent using a very simple design and straightforward construction techniques using valves, so I think they still have a place. It's much easier to design and build a crude semiconductor amp and much more difficult to furnish yourself with an excellent semiconductor amp IME.

If you're buying new off-the-shelf you'd be mad to go for valves because they're massively overpriced and you can get a very good solid state amp for not a lot of money these days.

Just like steam trains and old Bentleys, they are in the most part totally obsolete, but it'd somehow be a shame if you didn't come across them now and then.

Kevin

[Craig_R]

Ill have to see what mark thinks on this subject   I wonder if there is a solid state amp that reproduces the Valve sound.

Well it was nearly all over this morning any how noticed one of the bass drivers was distorting at very low volumes.

Turns out these speakers are very old and the bass units can sag over timeand end up rubbing the coil against the magnet, So did a search this morning and found some good sites on the spendor BC1 speaker and rotating the driver worked a treat phewwww as its about 100 quid to get one reconditioned as there is nothing even close on the market to replace it with.

Craig

[Ken T]

Semi-con amps are nice but the sound of this is in a class of its own !



They are a bit heavy tho !

Ken

[Kevin Wood]

Semi-con amps are nice but the sound of this is in a class of its own !



They are a bit heavy tho !

Ken

He He.

Years ago when I was about 17 our window cleaner came round and, seeing the collection of test gear in my bedroom, asked if I would be interested in fixing one for him. He duly brought it round and it was a 5 minute fix. A mate of mine played a guitar and, like all wannabe guitar heroes of the time, used to have wet dreams about Marshall valve amps so I invited "the band" round, much to our neighbour's disgust, for an impromptu concert.  

You know you're not trying with one of those unless you can look in the back and see the anodes glowing!

Kevin