All about electronic valves and hi-fi
I went to see my friend Tony today and helped him to fix his 01a preamp implementation. Time ago Tony used a prototype version of my gyrator PCB to build the Gen2 preamp with the addition of an output follower to address the slew rate limitations he had on his system due to the larger capacitive load.
Luckily we found the fault easily and it was a bad solder in one of the smoothing HT chokes. Once fault was rectified, we proceeded to take some measurements of this preamp.
A very interesting Russian directly-heated pentode related to 4P1L is the 2P29L. It has a similar mu (μ=9), much higher anode resistance 2.8-3KΩ and transconductance of 3mA/V when triode-strapped. The filament requirements are much lower at 120mA. I picked one valve from my collection to submit it to the mercy of the curve tracer:
The triode curves are really nice:
This valve is as linear as the 4P1L (hooray). As a preamp it can be easily implemented like the 4P1L Gen2 preamp using a gyrator PCB which simplifies the building process:
Running it at 15mA and slightly above the recommended 160V achieve its lowest distortion.
We could also use this valve as a driver for a 4P1L preamp, which comes very handy for filament bias:
More than 4 years ago I ran a lovely 71a preamp which sounded amazing. I used it for some time and enjoy its sound up until I continued with my exploration around DHT preamps. Recently I was asked about how to implement this lovely valve again.
The CX371a / 71a valve is a great candidate for a line stage with its low mu and anode resistance. In my experience you have to run it above 20mA and over 100V to get the best out of this valve:
The implementation of this preamp is dead simple and a few components are needed on top of the gyrator PCB:
I haven’t starved the filaments as I found this valve not to be microphonic. If you have an 01a preamp you can modify it slightly. The interesting thing is that you can run it with just 180V. Even 150V should work and you need 25mA on each channel. A J310 or BF862 lower JFET device will work fine and you will need a heatsink for the top device (e.g. DN2540). Filament resistor is anything close to 50Ω. I used some 51Ω Russian NOS wire wound resistors, but any combination will be fine.
Enjoy
Ale
Some of the DIYAudio fans have built this version of the 4P1L with great success. There are several upgrades that can be easily implemented to improve this. I haven’t tried this myself, but my recent experience with the Gen3 and the 01 preamp gen2, I think are worth trying:
Hope this is useful
Ale
A full write up of this preamp design and build can be found here
IntroductionBuilding a new version of the venerable 4P1L “Siberian” was very encouraging. This belated project finally came to life after some recent work on a new set of power supplies. So why 4P1L again? I always found the 4P1L sound to be unique. Great detail, overall tone and fantastic treble. What it makes it well suited for pre-amplifiers is not just its linearity (probably being the most linear valve out there) but the fact that it has a low anode resistance and current capability to ensure any challenging load can be handled effectively without any sound degradation. This can be heard particularly on the treble where the input capacitance of the amplifier is more evident and it is translated into treble loss. Other DHTs like 26, 01A, 30sp can only handle a few milliamperes of anode current and is not enough to charge and discharge the parasitic capacitance at high frequencies. More importantly, the 4P1L has filaments which aren’t demanding. This is a unique feature amongst DHTs that is rare and very useful. Having low-current filaments that can be either configured at 325mA or 650mA, low grid voltages and high transconductance in a valve is very useful. This mean that filament bias can be easily implemented without burning unnecessary power by swinging many volts to perform the desired level of amplification.
Continue reading “4P1L DHT Preamp Siberian (Gen3) finished!”
An idea discussed with Rod Coleman, Andy Evans and others in DYIAudio forum which still is evolving. The purpose is to increase the output driving capability of this preamp using a cathode-follower stage. A bonus is to provide the filament bias using the cathode-follower valve filaments:
Albert sent me recently some great pictures and feedback of his 26 pre-amplifier using gyrator as the anode load similar to my design on the 26/01a.
Here are Albert’s notes on his 26 preamp:
“I have my 326 with separated power supply, 5U4G – 8uf PIO – 20H – 50 ASC – 30H – 50 ASC + 18uf pp feeding the Salas’ HV Shunt V2 Regulator, then to 2 ( left and right ) cascoded DN2540 gyrators. Rod’s filament supply coupled with filament bias @ 850mA with anode @135v. I don’t have anything to check the distortion, but this is the most good sound preamp that I have finished to date. It pleases my ears so much that I have the intention to turn it on once I’m in the house. It sounds gorgerous with very good image seperation. Sound stages are wide, deep and absolute quiet. The highs are sparkling smooth with lots of details. Mids are lush and warm with admirable vocals. I’ve found it even better at the lows if compare with 2x 156c. It goes deeper with clear notes.”
Martin kindly sent me a couple of pictures of his latest DHT preamp incarnation of the 4P1L Siberian:
Here are some notes from Martin about his pre-amp:
“A bit more about the circuit, I have built the power supply around the nice AZ1 mesh rectifier. First cap after the rectifier is an obligato 6,8 UF oil followed by a 10H choke and a 100 UF ASC followed by the SSHV2 that I purchased via DiyAudio group buy. On your suggestion I have used the CCS from your 301A preamp. If I refer to my previous preamp with the EF6 penthode in triode connection in parafeed configuration I can say that the 4P1L preamp sounds more detailed and with more air around the instruments. Finally I will do some tests with different output caps to find out if this makes a difference. At the moment I use the Vitamin Q.
Best regards,
Martin”
Now that I have a very quiet preamp indeed, I’m a happy bunny. Changed today the pair of White Westinghouse 26 ST NOS that I’ve been using for over a month with a pair of RCA CX-226 and have to say that I enjoyed a far more sweeter and rounded tone out of this preamp.
Bass is still deep and treble is clear with the sweetness of the globe valve fingerprinted in the tone as you would expect. I will run this setup for a month and report results…
You can still see the clips used to provide earth return at the output to avoid the ground loop that I unnecessary created. God knows how may tweaks I did to improve the HT rail ripple before I realised that it was a simple ground loop.
