Colossal wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2017 1:40 amAfter giving it some time, however, I just found it to be too flat and a bit dull/dark and lacking presence.
That livened things up a lot and it was much more balanced and chimey.
OK, My experience
exactly. I had pretty much the Jones set up, sounded fine but a bit generic and cheap. This is more dynamic and bright and clear, less compression and more snap, much more sustain. locked into focus like happens with a nice SLR camera. Not 110% sure which is better, but this has more vim and life and that's always better. I used metal films, vintage '80s Holcos, as I didn't have the values in cc - must be that and not Martin's math
These are my values - Ebb 253V (got pulled down a lot) Ra 47K / 137V, Rg2 220K / 91.5V, Rk 820 2.6V
If I want to measure Ra & Rg2 current do I do it across the resistors or to ground? I know, ohm's law, but I want to see it.
So, same experience setting up my 5C8, tubes suck, they work fine even when they are off, even way off, hard to figure out to a dilettante. Reminds me of a high-end hifi mag long ago that had a cover showing two state of the art multi kilo dollar power amps, something like a solid state Krell beast the size of a steamer trunk versus some a little pure silver wound OT SE 2A3 amp like a Wavelength or Audio Note with the headline, "If one of these is right, the other must be wrong."
Again, beats me, glad people here are around to work it out for me. But can I ask, why does this sound better? Is it that my first set up was on far edge of the curve? Below the knee? Not centred, not enough swing, not enough current? Were all the others set up wrong? Leaving asides ears and tastes, and quirks like cold/starved conditions, doesn't everyone read the curves the same way - as Martin and Colossal just did? How about the original Fender grid leak set up, Fender had great engineers, did the grid leak bias change Ra and Rg2 conditons so much that just matching the voltages w/ cathode bias didn't work as well?
Lesson: people that know what they are doing build better amps then does that don't.