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My little 12W PP Triode Valve Amp...


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I remember Winter in Melbourne.

I remember the washing being hung out on the line late at night dripping wet and then waking up early in the morning busting to use the outside loo and being fascinated with the sight of towels and shirts that had turned into pegged stiff cardboard cut outs. My cold fingers bending their inflexible edges back and forth (after visiting the loo first!  ) slimy with shimmering tiny frosty crystals. How could this be...back and forth...thinking, wondering?!? Then ma-ma would come out and yell at me...enough johnny enough...and twist my ear till it throbbed like my aching fingers.
We lived in a street of old wooden houses that had no attached garages. Their owners if they had cars would park them out in the front street. And some extremely cold winter mornings their would be a very peculiar ritual practised. On the way to School I would walk past the idling lightly sugared frosted car bodies with their long grey sooty tails of slow exhaust coiling inches above the road like long grey ash from a smouldering cigarette...waiting...waiting for their owners to splash hot water from carried steamy buckets over the front windscreen to help soften the egg shards of hardened thick ice. These cars would not move till their owners had knife peeled away the windscreen ice like the layers of a giant onion. Then and only then, when the ice was cleared, would the cars stutter and kangaroo hop away disappearing slowly into the damp grey mist. Rear red tail lights slowly fading.

I remember winter in Melbourne where I would walk slowly over grassed nature strips that were completely frost covered. Every individual blade of green, criss crossed grass, perfectly dusted white like confectionary. I relished the sound of the crushed dainty structures underfoot...crunch...kerunchh! Until one day I looked behind me and saw a long dark trail of evenly defined footprints over a white carpet leading to my cold wet black school shoes. I immediately felt guilty that I had done something wrong...something bad. I felt I had spoiled a wonderful creation that was so fresh clean and pristinely perfect. I never walked over frosted grass again. In fact not even on freshly laid concrete or washed floors. Or shoe scuffed the close manicured grassed golf greens late at night when the course was empty. Or off established bush tracks or only in the seawater not the wet smooth glistening sand at waters edge at the beach.

I remember the winters morning air chilling my lungs with a sharp ache till I breathed through my nose then mouth then nose again. I would breath out from my mouth long grey coils of condensation so heavy I looked like I was a two pack a day heavy cigarette smoker...like my ta-te would do blowing big smoke rings to suprise me...but all without the damp nicotine reek.

I remember walking to school in grey damp heavy fog so thick still and quiet that I could only see how/where I was going by looking down at my shoes and getting my bearings from the edge of the footpath or the fences, bushes, trees and electricity posts. Dark slow moving shapes would hiss past me on the road with dull pale yellow eyes. Then the slow heavy thudding of passing gigantor foot steps. Then the lightly perfumed dainty timpani clickity click clik of high heels. Then occasionally the fast regular scratchy scratch and wispy wisp of passing dog nails on damp footpath.

I remember large puddles of frozen water thick and shiny as black mirrors incongruously scattered all the way to school being crazed and cracked by my shoes. My shoes did a lot of damage and at seven years a pop I can understand now why my older self canna win tattslotto!

I remember the reflective slivers of frost in the shadowed gutters of roads and footpath edges hidding from the pale sun as I walked home from school...talk about walking on gilded splinters...Kon kon, the kiddy kon kon...Walk on gilded splinters...Walk on pins and needles...

I remember the frenzied roar of hailstones on roof that not only scared me with its ferocity and loudness but made shouting to be heard, inside, impossible. White hail cherry stones pinging crazily that stung your head with a good direct hit filling footpath gutters that stayed frozen for days like discarded long grey ropes.

I remember heavy rainfalls that filled and levelled every depression pothole but not the bucket parked on my bedroom floor filling with steady drips under the widening grey wet patch of my white painted ceiling.

I remember donning a black mac in tosh and not saying a word to anyone and then going out walking in heavy rain. I would walk for miles, almost to other suburbs, strangely content, feeling the power of Mother Nature constantly prodding my mac. It was another world to me being cossetted by Natures power. A world of introspection and my  head would fill with observations and impressions that my young self could not find the right words for.

Ahhhhh now where was I...ahhh yes my older self now with a new bespoke toy a Chanson 300B SET 12W valver! with a pair of 12W Silk Transformers with a 274B Mesh Rec Valve plus two Genalex PX300B Valves and two 6EM7's. How does it sound?!?

Welllll I'll just have to let my older self  think about that for a while to find the right words! :) 

Hooked up to my Pioneer PD-7700 CDP that's connected to my Wyred for Sound Reclocker that connects to my Gieseler Klein Dac 11 that is connected to my Wharfedale E90's all through Bills Silver RCA connections and am just awaiting arrival of Bills Silver Speaker cables to connect up to my Wharfies or Sansui SP-5000's.

I am also awaiting the arrival of the latest model StereoCoffee LDR after hearing how sensational Robmid's loaner SC model was in my system.

The SC and the 300B SET combined both produced a sound that was superb for music listening...i'll repost some of my impressions...this StereoCoffee has added enormously to my musical listening pleasure rob...my right foot has never done so much foot tapping of late! (talk about Saint Vitus dance and Tourette's Syndrome double...wtf...WTF!!! is happening to my foot! )

And I have previously posted about the SC's uncanny ability to make my collection of CDs/Vinyl seem longer in playing time by revealing so much interesting detail...lost in the listening...lost in the details of well produced music. StereoCoffee has created an issue with my musical listening of late...well I think it's an issue for me...where I have a noticeable reluctance for casual, background music listening. Damm you StereoCoffee...I've seen the light! The LDR light! It's almost akin to a religious conversion...I need to make myself worthy of receiving such musical gifts...I need to prepare...make the Golden Ear receptive for such divine sounds...Hallelujah brothers and sisters I have both seen and heard the light! 

I think the Chanson 300B SET has been a good investment...plenty of listening to come! :) 

 

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On 21/10/2020 at 3:48 PM, BLAH BLAH said:

Chanson 300B SET 12W valver! with a pair of 12W Silk Transformers with a 274B Mesh Rec Valve plus two Genalex PX300B Valves and two 6EM7's. How does it sound?!?

Silk Transformers hay? they are said to be quite nice!

 

Does it use interstage transformers in this one?

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12 minutes ago, muon* said:

Silk Transformers hay? they are said to be quite nice!

 

Does it use interstage transformers in this one?

Hi Ian those Silk Transformers are supposed to be good value for money...from memory I think Eric's going that way when he runs out of his other trannies...I had the choice but ended up going Silk. It do use interstage transformer tucked away under the bonnet....not much room on top!

It also has a big fat cap under there as well for the use of the 274B Rectifier...that cap's name escapes me now but it co$t close to $70+...

Very silent no discernible hums from the speaker even with the ear placed up close...very happy with the sound...

It stunned me with it's noticeable spaciousness on first play...from my reading on Professor Google it is one of the hall marks of the 300B SET's and it did not fail to produce that quality without strain...Guess it really helps if you have a good set of efficient speakers...I would love to hear it paired up with some efficient horn speakers...but to go there I would expect to be totally blown away with the resulting sound and then i would be chasing a set for the SET :) resulting in more problems!

Am totally happy to stick with my Wharfedale E90's...

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58 minutes ago, BLAH BLAH said:

Hi Ian those Silk Transformers are supposed to be good value for money...from memory I think Eric's going that way when he runs out of his other trannies...I had the choice but ended up going Silk. It do use interstage transformer tucked away under the bonnet....not much room on top!

It also has a big fat cap under there as well for the use of the 274B Rectifier...that cap's name escapes me now but it co$t close to $70+...

Very silent no discernible hums from the speaker even with the ear placed up close...very happy with the sound...

It stunned me with it's noticeable spaciousness on first play...from my reading on Professor Google it is one of the hall marks of the 300B SET's and it did not fail to produce that quality without strain...Guess it really helps if you have a good set of efficient speakers...I would love to hear it paired up with some efficient horn speakers...but to go there I would expect to be totally blown away with the resulting sound and then i would be chasing a set for the SET :) resulting in more problems!

Am totally happy to stick with my Wharfedale E90's...

Sounds like a very nice amp :thumb:

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9 hours ago, BLAH BLAH said:

Exciting times for you then...lots of loverly valvers out there...what did you have in mind?!?

I’ve got a used Earle Weston Trinity which should be enough to wet my feet with !

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  • 3 weeks later...
14 minutes ago, BLAH BLAH said:

Nothing beats a wet cool Melbourne night for listening to the bottles...sighhhhh...

 

Geez, I haven't heard valves referred to as "bottles" since I was a kid. My old man used to always call them bottles.

 

I loath and detest the word tubes... LOL

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13 minutes ago, bob_m_54 said:

 

Geez, I haven't heard valves referred to as "bottles" since I was a kid. My old man used to always call them bottles.

 

I loath and detest the word tubes... LOL

Same here...good upon your old man...?

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What does bottle mean in slang?noun - uncountable

Courage, daring. "Got a lot of bottle" - brave or audacious; "To bottle out" - to abandon something timidly. From rhyming slang "Bottle and glass = arse" implying good control of the anal sphincter, or ="class", with the same meaning in the boxing world
My lil 12W PP Triode Valve Amp has a lot of bottle(s)... ??
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5 hours ago, aussievintage said:

I first ran into the term "bottles" when talking to an old PMG Telecom technician who used to fix guitar amps for us teenage rock idols :) .  That might be where it stems from.  Most old ham radio guys seemed to call them valves.

My old man was a Pomme. Ex Navy and a Radio Tech. I can remember him talking to a mate, after fixing a homemade amp, and saying something like... "yeah it's good now.. it just needed a couple of new bottles" That would have been around the early to mid 60's.

 

I also remember all the dud, and maybe not so dud, valves we used to line up on the brick BBQ, and use them for target practice with our sling shots. LOL.

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6 hours ago, bob_m_54 said:

I also remember all the dud, and maybe not so dud, valves we used to line up on the brick BBQ, and use them for target practice with our sling shots. LOL.

 

Hopefully you missed some and they're still buried in the backyard. I'm ready to come over with the shovel. ???

Edited by xlr8or
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