No, not sure. I heard it from a source, but not THE Source, which is why I phrased it as I did. Perhaps someone here can nail it down.
SET amp owners thread
- Thread starter bonzo75
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Silvercore doesn’t have a specific iron. On some new ones he used a nano crystalline transformer. His regular ones are much cheaper. He varies the silver according to budget.
the common thing was just before the pandemic he also built the neohybrid design that Silbatone have. He is good friends with JC and Cheung, and has been to Seoul to listen to the various WEs and you often find him in the WE room at Munich
FWIW, I was told the same thing by the designer of this amp.
yes it was quite good, I heard it with audionec but did not get any compare. It also allows the rolling of various 4v valves so SQ will change accordingly
Those OPTs will make a HUGE improvement and putting in a good rectifier (see my updates below) might make as big of a difference!! And my upgrade below was from an already good Russian NOS tube.
I’ve loved those OPTs for many years, but when I had the chance to buy a pair of Tommys Litzwired nanocrystalline SATI OPTs, I couldn’t resist. Since then I also aquired his nc interstages, AVCs and gridchokes. The two latter yet to install
Not sure…model is SATI 520B ultimate
Sounds like i have to take the bridge to the mainland and visit Tommy one day ! 
I have some experience in using rectifier tubes. Russian and Soviet rectifiers have the worst sound. Even new versus used.
Sounds good to me! I mounted the first choke a few days ago, but had to pause the other one for a few days due to work and amp 2 is due next week. The OPTs will be next.
Today I picked up 4 NOS VT-229 (Sylvania JAN HCS and Ken-Rad) driver tubes from one of my local tubeguys. Rectis are next. The Ken-Rads where recommended by Thorsten Loesch for this amp. Exciting times ahead.
Yes- I was only using that example to illustrate an issue with the Russian tubes- they are usually not exact replacements. 5U4s have their own set of issues, being highly dependent on the condition of the filament. I very much doubt that the Russian 5U4 meets actual 5U4 specs either; (as another example to illustrate what I'm talking about) we use a lot of Russian 6H13Cs which are their version of the 6AS7G, but really its a different tube. In our M-60s, a set of the Russian tubes gets us 60 Watts at full power while the American 6AS7G gets us 80 Watts (both into 8 Ohms). That's a bit more difference than just plate resistance to account for that.
Put more simply, if you want actual 5U4 performance, you'll want to put a real 5U4 in the socket, not one that is simply marked that way. Does that make more sense?
If you want to see what's happening, measure the voltage drop of the tube under load.
I don't know which voltmeter or oscilloscope you can hang on your ears, the measurements are the same, but the sound is different.
Not the ones I've seen. The Russian variants have greater voltage drops and so respond more dramatically to changes in the AC line voltage. The resulting lower B+ corresponds directly to reduced output power and altered operating point, which alters the distortion of the audio circuit. I can't think of why that would not be audible- harmonics after all are what make up the sound of musical instruments.
Same old tune. As @SVS said, our ears tell us different rectifiers can sound different. That’s certainly true in my experience and it’s not just due to voltage drop. I don’t know why there is such resistance on this. Is there any doubt signal tubes that measure the same sound different? Everything matters. But as I have said a number of times, for those who think rectifiers of the same type sound the same, that’s fine, just leave the vintage NOS tubes for the rest of us.
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