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In the Forum: Melquiades Amplifier
In the Thread: Macondo – Super Melquiades: few months later.
Post Subject: A half-ass cure for bad electricity?Posted by Romy the Cat on: 3/12/2006

Hm, I made today a very interesting observation. When electricity is good then the plate currents that I indicated at the picture above work very nice (LF in the left, upperbass in the middle and the HF on the right). When the electricity is bad then Sound  is not good (noises, compression, discolorations and etc…) However, what I discover today that it is possible hugely to improve (or perhaps to mask out) Sound when electricity is bad by increasing the plate currents.

Today in Boston is bad electricity and nothing beside the flimsy jazz could be played today.  But is it Sunday and I pulled Mozart Clarinet, Flute and Bassoon concertos by Bohm and they were completely unlistenable. The Wiener orchestra sounded like the all play one single note during the duration of the entire movements – just horrible. I do not know what motivated me but I decided to raise the plate current at HF channels. To my surprise the result got much better – clarity, articulation, nose in harmonics, colors and so on.

I recalibrate all channels and after some experiments I surmised that at my 230V the currents of 220mA-180mA and 180mA (L-M-F) sound much better, almost good. This still keep plates at reasonable dissipation of 50W for a full 6C33Cand 41W for a half 6C33C. What is VERY interesting that when I experimented with the same plate currents while the electricity was good then the sound was too aggressive, too bubbly, overly colored and more remind an appearance of a gipsy skirt then actual music, good for the "Boston Pops" but not for anything else. Also, it is interesting the note that further increase of plate current “burn out” the detals in the HF channel.

So, could the increase of plate current be a sort of a half-ass remedy for week electricity. I wonder why it happens… Nevertheless, I am very much welcome this discovery, despite that I feel that musically the increase pf the plate currents during the bad electricity bring some minute degradation, However, sonically there are some major benefits, that make playback during those “bad electricity days” more or less digestible.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

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