Category: 4P1L PSE Amp

4P1L PSE Amplifier for Sale!

Firstly, my apologies to all readers for not writing much over the last year. Things have gone a bit crazy between work and family commitments. Also, modular synthesiser work has taken a lot of interest lately to me. Finally, this blog was hacked twice and have been painful to get it back up again. Needless to say, I’m not an IT expert so I do the best I can!

Selling my beloved 4P1L

All good things come to an end. In this case, my loved 4P1L PSE Amplifier. I moved listening rooms with the growing family and space is now an issue. I no longer can store this beauty and I think it would be wise for someone else to enjoy it rather than collecting dust somewhere my attic (which is mostly full).

This amplifier gave me a lot of joy and sums up a “no-compromise” approach to DHT considering the design and component selection of the power supplies. It’s a very flexible beast as the power supplies (HT and LT) can be used in many different configurations – all the way up to a 300B and more.

4P1L PSE Output Stage
Full 4P1L PSE Amplifier
For the ones who remember my 814 amplifier, I reused the amazing power supplies which were feeding the 46 driver stage. The DHT filament raw supply is similar to these:
One PS per channel (2 boxes on the right in the picture above)
It’s a no-compromise design here. Best custom-made JMS transformers designed to fit this amp supplies with split-bobbins and copper screening.
The HT supply is my design for 300B and 4P1L PSE. It has a lot of capacity which can be reused and is very flexible with its design. It has a surge protection start up circuit and two current meter (one per channel).
I will dig out the circuit and share all documentation for whoever buys this  amplifier.
The amp use MM OPTs, 4mm plate machined by Schaefer.  Filament bias and circuit as per own my design.
All cables provided.
4 valves selected and matched to gm and Ia by me with eTracer
You will need a preamplifier / driver – which isn’t included. Anything with gain of x8 will work (preferably a DHT stage like 01a, 26,4P1L, 2P29L, etc.) – this isn’t included.

 

This is “the one and only” Bartola 4P1L amplifier. It has gone back and forth to ETF.18 and got into quarter finals on the competition (personally and a few others think it could have gone further but listening levels and setup were not the best).

Needless to say:

  • No reserves
  • Payment upfront
  • Only collection in London, UK.  No deliveries
  • Sold as-is. You need to know what you’re doing here 🙂

I haven’t got idea of what price to ask, need to think about it.

If you are interested, ping me.

Cheers,

Ale

Tuning the system for ETF

This year I entered the shootout competition and will bring my DHT system to the European Triode Festival in France. It’s comprised of the ER801a stage plus the 01a (if extra gain is needed) and the 4P1L PSE output stage

I will have to swap out the amorphous OPT for the Monolith Magnetic ones as the speaker load is 5R.

It’s going to be interesting!

ER801a Driver Stage

ER801a as Driver in my system

Received the ER801a today back from Thomas. They were working fine, it was a faulty UX-4 socket pin of my tracer which annoyingly made the grid to appear faulty and open at certain voltage level. I need to replace it.

Either way, they are now in my system and I can only say how much I was surprised with the sound of these. They take the detail and timbre of the VT-25 to a next level. Amazing result, happy to have these as part of my driver stage. The preamp is the 201a feeding the ER801a into the 4P1L PSE. 

Highly recommended valves, worth the price indeed.

DHT Audio Shootout @ London

Here’s the summary of the shootout day we had yesterday at my place with  Tony Rees and Andy Evans

Test Music

For testing the pre-amps Andy suggested the following 2 tracks:

  1.  Ravel Feria (Cleveland/Boulez)
  2. Janacek The Cunning Little Vixen Act 3 Scene 7 “A vixen’s running through the woods” Prague Theatre/Gregor


The Ravel is orchestrated for a large orchestra and percussion, and listening was particularly for the timbre of strings, brass and woodwind and the clarity of the percussion. The Janacek is for several different voices and chorus, and listening was for the tone and character of the voices and how well they were differentiated from each other. In both cases the overall clarity, life and crispness was considered.

Andy Evans

Although I wasn’t familiarised enough with these 2 tracks myself, I found them to be an excellent choice and a reflection of Andy’s musical experience and knowledge as musician. 

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6Э6П-ДР (6e6p-dr) preamp / driver

With a quick mod on one of my active preamps, I managed to implement very quickly the 6Э6П-ДР (6e6p-dr) driver in my system. Here is how the circuit looks like:

6Э6П-ДР (6e6p-dr) preamp / driver

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C-299/CX-299 DHT Preamplifier

The start of a different DHT experience with the Mule

I built the “Mule” to provide enough flexibility to test other DHTs as pre-amplifier / line stage. Using the gyrator board, the flexibility is fantastic. Can share same HT and dial the right anode voltage. The LT supply can also be shared amongst many DHTs and Rod Coleman provided me with a set of different resistors to test the list of 9 or 10 DHTs I have in mind which haven’t listed carefully on this design. 

The C-299

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4P1L PSE Amp Finished!

I’ve been travelling a lot lately so haven’t had the chance to update on this project. A couple of weeks ago I finished the 4P1L PSE Amp:

4P1L PSE Amp

The amp is outstanding, just like previous incarnations and tests I have conducted over the years.  The level of detail and tone is unique. This is what I always loved from the 4P1L. I’m running it very hot (70mA per pair) and the output transformer is Amorphous Core 3K2 (more detail to be shared soon). It’s a simple stage with filament bias, so no cathode capacitor. The filaments are wired in series to reduce the heat dissipation. Despite this adds a bit more on the output impedance, the bass is powerful. I’m very surprised with the bass, but the level of treble is amazing. It goes over 40-50kHz, I will still need to undertake the classic measurements but so far is great!

It’s absolutely dead quiet. No traces of hum. 

Some more pictures below:

Glowing 4P1L and filament resistor stack!

And the full system below:

4P1L PSE Amp: assembling top plates

The additional machined top plates arrived yesterday. I assembled them this morning. Just need to assemble the chassis now before soldering!

HT and LT connectors
Rod Coleman’s boards
Filament resistors
Filament resistors
Speaker posts
Amorphous OPT and plate

4P1L PSE project started

 A new amplifier build has begun. The 4P1L PSE is coming to life. First top plate developed and arrived this morning. A succesful layout for being the first one. Need to submit for machining the other 2 panels. It will be modular so I can make changes and experiment with different output transformers I have at hand (Monolith Magnetics, Lundahls, etc.). The HT power supply is ready and I’ve been fitting the filament supplies in child-proof boxes over the Christmas holidays. It will take me some time though to get this one up and running. Not much time to work on it am afraid.