5E3 w/ LTPI

[Dave H]

hasserl, I have an 18W and an 18W type circuit with 6V6s. The EL84 18W has a bit more gain than the 6V6 18W but it's enough for me. If you dig in it is starting to distort at about half way on the vol pot. The parallel 12AX7 in the 18W has more gain than the single 12AY7 triode of the 5E3 so that makes up a little for the reduced gain of the LTP PI and using 1M tone/vol pots and 470k power tube grid resistors will help too but I only have 200k there. Here's the schematic - www.jaffaelectronics.co.uk/scm/Jaffa20.pdf

[hasserl]

Interesting Dave, so you've built the 18 Watt circuit using 6V6's and it works okay, maybe not as much OD as w/ EL84's. Just as I would expect.

As I'm thinking about this, my thoughts are that I would use a 12AX7 for the first gain stage. Normally with the 5E3 circuit I prefer a 12AY7 there, but in this case I'll likely go with the AX7 (think I'm gonna need the added gain). Also, the two parralel triodes in the 18watt circuit input stage do not really give any additional gain, though since you're runinng both triodes off a 100k plate load, it is in effect like running a single triode with a 200k plate load, and that increases the gain. So, I may experiment with plate loads on the first stage.

Also, as I have a 5E3X2 kit on order, and this is the amp I'm thinking of experimenting with when I get around to assembling it, I'm also thinking of going with two EL84's and two 6V6's, with the cathodes connected to a switch to allow selection of either set of power tubes, or both together.

I realize I'd no longer have a 5E3, but a completely different animal. That's okay, if it doesn't work out as I like it's not too difficult to rearrange it back to a standard 5E3 circuit.