Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

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bancika
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Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

Post by bancika »

Someone sells this preamp where I live...I'm itching to get it, it seems to be well thought of, although has much more features than I'd need for playing at home. I was interested to check what's inside and was surprised by the number of tubes - nine 12AX7! And lead channel consists of 11 triodes cascaded together - more than twice as much as what we typically call a high gain preamp. They seem to be attenuating a lot of signal after every two cascaded stages, so that probably keeps the gain from going insane, but it still seems to be over the top.

Also, I find it odd that they power all 11 triodes from the same power supply node. Wouldn't feedback become a problem?

Here's the official schematic of the tube board http://carvinimages.com/schematics/TUBE%20BOARD.pdf
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shupe13
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Re: Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

Post by shupe13 »

I’m guessing Carvin must be on to something.


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brewdude
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Re: Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

Post by brewdude »

Looks like B+ is 130v.
I don’t see any pots—no volumes or tone controls.
:?:
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bancika
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Re: Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

Post by bancika »

There's pre-EQ and post-EQ and on top of that a graphic EQ. It all happens before and after this tube board.
Check out my site with DIY gutars, amps and pedals http://diy-fever.com
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roberto
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Re: Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

Post by roberto »

I don't like that preamp. I feel the SP77 way better and even more optimisable for everyone's tastes with a few bucks.
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bancika
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Re: Carvin Quad X tube cascade - really smart or really stupid?

Post by bancika »

I'm close to finishing Soldano SLO preamp, so it will cover pretty much all my needs, especially with an overdrive at the front and graphic EQ at the back of the preamp....
but I was just curious about this thing because it features topology I've never seen on other amps.

Cheers
Check out my site with DIY gutars, amps and pedals http://diy-fever.com
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