Tubes for X-can V3

[marcm09]

I've ordered a pair of the 6H23n-EB valves from robert farnell, Im waiting for them to arrive, I live in New Zealand so by it may take a few days for him to recieve the cheque and post the valves to me, while I've been waiting i have replaced the caps etc in my new xcan, nice improvement should be the icing on the cake when the russian twins arrive.

[manic]

Hi Malky

Like Fergus I would recommend you stick with the 6H23N-EBs or any other NOS which I would suggest are miles better than modern produced tubes. If you wish to spend £28 on tubes go for a an early 1960's manufactured brand like Mullard (Old Label) or Amperex (Dutch manufactured ECC88 tubes are generally cheaper than the US 6922 made versions). There are plenty on ebay. Check the 'vintage electronics' category and type Mullard ECC88 into the search pane, or follow the pathway - Audio, Valve, Retro. Try the GB based seller vintagetubesuk. I have bought from this guy and his products are relaible and the real thing.
This at least will enable you to recognise a NOS tube and perhaps pick up a bargain.
Good hunting.

[manic]

Hi Again

You may be interested in the following link which provides photos of real NOS Amperex tubes.

spazioinwind.libero.it/themagicsound/_private/le_valv_amperex_eng.htm

[divad68]

malky said:

www.watfordvalves.com/product_detail.asp?id=1427
Anyone tried these in the V3 expesive £28 each Im tempted but 6922 from Hotrox are only £9 each and are highly regarded. Any advice

I've just fitted a pair of these, which are the non-CRYO treated version of the ones you mention...

www.watfordvalves.com/product_detail.asp?id=1310

....and I must say that they are really great . The bass appears to be deeper, the top end a bit smoother and the mid tones are so sweet. Now, if I only had the nerve to perform a capacitor upgrade.....

[thegreatroberto]

The cap upgrade is easy !And arguably gives a much greater improvement.OK, so changing the valves is easier.
Go on, get that soldering iron out !

[divad68]

thegreatroberto said:

The cap upgrade is easy !And arguably gives a much greater improvement.OK, so changing the valves is easier.
Go on, get that soldering iron out !

Believe me, I want to! I've already bought the bits (as per shopping lists on this forum), but I don't trust my soldering. I bought a small kit amplifier from Maplins a few days ago to practice on - managed to put it together and the led comes on, but that's all...everything else is dead..can't risk my X-can going the same way!

[Stormy]

Did you use a heat-shunt on the legs of the transistors when soldering them? My first thought was that you may have overheated them, as pretty much every other component in a transistor amp is resilient enough to survive the most cack-handed solderer! Trannys were the only thing we were taught to be careful with at school (apart from ESD discharge into chips of course!).

[marcm09]

Honestly you cant go too far wrong soldering if you have the right tools, a stready hand and good vision.

Even if you do make a mistake which is pretty hard on the xcan as there is in my opion quite alot of space between each component.

Even if you did 'bridge' a blob of solder with two circuit boards components its easily fixed witha solder sucker and some goot solder braid for mopping up the solder.

You would ahve to hold the iron on the cap when your soldering it for a considerable time to heat up other components enough to damage them and even if you did really mess up , and I mean you would really have to do some silly them you can easily rep[lace a component for bugger all, most components on the board arnt worth much- except a fancy pair of valves which will be tucked away somewhere when yourve got your xcan apart anyway !!!

My advice is buy a good iron with a medium tip, I use a 40 watt and it works nice, I also have a finer tipped one thats 18 watts, but find the med tipped 40 quicker to use on the xcan.

I need to find more things to mod now, all my projects are finished !

[Stormy]

I agree that a lot of the confidence comes from having the right tools. I used to use a very cheap 15W iron from a DIY shop which had a tip fitted into a sleeve on the iron with a set screw. Soldering was extremely annoying and stressful, to the point of not wanting to do it at all unless absolutely necessary.

I went out and bought a £15, 18W Antex XS soldering iron (which has hollow tips fitted OVER the heating element - much more efficient than normal irons for the power rating), a stand with a sponge, some tip-cleaner and a desoldering pump (eventually) and haven't looked back since! It's powerful enough to solder wires directly on to the casings of potentiometers (for guitar work etc.), which is traditionally a challenge for small irons. Antex also make a wide range of bit sizes and shapes for their irons, and a lot of schools in the UK use them in their technology departments because they're fairly indestructible, even in the hands of teenagers.

[divad68]

Okay, I've been practicing and it doesn't seem so difficult now. I used to find it took ages for the solder to melt and now it seems to liquify in a few seconds....not sure what I'm doing different though! I do find it much harder removing solder, however, which I'll obviously need to do to fit the new caps.

Anyway, I'll go for it on the weekend with the board fully removed and tubes safely put to one side. First I'll have to study the 2 articles again and work out exactly what I want to 'upgrade' first. I've bought a whole load of parts (that were listed in another post), but I'll probably do this in stages

Btw..thanks to Stormy amd marcm09 for your advice & encouragement

[Stormy]

What are you using to remove the solder with? A lot of us (but not all, I know...) agree that copper solder braid/wick is useless - if you haven't tried a desoldering pump yet, I'd suggest having a go with one. They're only about £10 for a good one, and they work so much better than I had hoped before I got mine. Well worth the money.

[thegreatroberto]

Vote me in for the "solder wick is useless".It could of course be that it's me ! However a pump is great.How else do you get out solder when it has melted and gone down the hole that the componant leg is in ?

[szoze]

Has anyone tried Sovtek 6922 valves with X-Can v3? They appear to be of similar construction to the Russian ones.

[manic]

Hi Szoze

The Sovtek 6922 are very soft sounding with the V3, a bit lifeless with a warm rolled off bass and a less than dynamic mid range. On the plus side it is very quite and reliable.

The 6H23N has better bass, better dynamics and more life to the mid range - generally a better sounding tube. The earlier the production date the better the sound.

[szoze]

I have been thinking about ordering a pair of Russian tubes from robert farnell who is mentioned on this site. Has anyone tested his tubes? How do they sound? What is the production date of his tubes?

[marcm09]

just fitted roberts tubes tonight and had a quick listen I will have to let them run in before passing judgement, however they seem to be the tubes to have judging on the response on this forum. Not sure what batch or date mine were made but will study the boxes further but I dont think it has anything that refers to batch numbers or dates ??

divad68 - good luck , yes get the pump also grab the goot wick braid, I ude the pump first and the the braid to get the last bit of solder, hey also buy the 2-4% silver solder it better for audio use, you'll be laughting when your done how easy it really is !!!

The xcan is so much fun to work on, probably had morre fun rebuilding it that listening to it !!! Quite keen on the buffer x10 v2 if I came across one on trademe (equiv to ebay in NZ)... I'm gonna add some polysterene caps to the input and output caps as well as change the 470uf 250v green cap on the top board for a polyprop 250v that poss bigger if I can find one.

[robert]

Hi, I am rob farnell who has some of the valves that you refer to.
The valves that I have were purchased directly from russia. I don't know the exact batch numbers but they were made approx 1983. As for their sound - I don't have any other of these valves to compare to but they seem very good to me. I sent a couple of them to mike from Rock grotto who also thought that they were of good quality and I am sure he will comment if requested. Marcm09 in NZ has just received some and hopefully he will be able to pass comment once they have burnt in.
I, like many of you, found it difficult to find these valves for myself but I was fortunatle to find some in russia. Unfortunatley I had to buy a minimum of 24 valves before they would ship them which meant that I had a few to spare! I have been very please with the valves and as I have some remaining I thought that it would be helpful if I offered them to others who wanted the valves, but like me, found them difficult to source.
I hope that this helps those who are looking for these valves. I am not trying to make a big profit, mearly clawing back some of the outlay I had to make to get some valves for myself! I only have a few valves left so if anyone would like them I would suggest that you do not delay too long.
With best wishes
Rob

[szoze]

marcm09 said:

just fitted roberts tubes tonight and had a quick listen I will have to let them run in before passing judgement, however they seem to be the tubes to have judging on the response on this forum.

Thanks. Do you have an X-can V3 or V2?

[marcm09]

I have the xcan v2, the v3 is very simular sounding to my v2 which has upgraded panasonic FC's 1800uf PSU caps, New NP input and output caps with bypassed polycaps, drilled and heatsinked circuit boards, external power supply and of course the new Reflector Corp Russian valves which I like but will post a better judgement of once I've run them in a little.

Robert Farnell is very trustworthy, Im very impressed with his service and he packed them very well for the trip all the way to New Zealand. All in all a pleasure dealing with him.

Watch out for my posts soon or feel free to PM me anytime, Xcans are my fav subject...

[szoze]

stormy said:

I think it's well suited to rock/alternative, and I've just tried it with Prokofiev's "Dance of The Knights" from Romeo and Juliet and a Britten's "Playful Pizzicato" amongst others. It's probably a bit "hollow" in the midrange for a proper classical performance, but it's great if you like to hear timpanis and basses as if you're stood next to them.

Stormy, are you talking about the x-can alone (with the russian tubes) or are you talking about x-can with the equalizer?
I am listening mostly to classical music and I certainly don't want a hollow midrange

[Stormy]

Good question. I've had another listen, and I'd still be inclined to say that it's not voiced in quite the way I would choose for classical. It's by no means a bad sound, and I don't want to put you off trying anything, but it definitely lacks something in the middle-midrange. Lower and upper mids are fine, but I think certain instruments, particularly woodwinds, lose out a bit. Conventional EQ-ing wisdom would state that what I'm saying is the opposite of the norm - classical EQ shapes actually have less midrange and more lower mid than rock anyway - it might just be me wishing for something else.

I've got to do something about my source - my iPod has decided never to spin its hard drive down, so it's always clicking and whistling through the line out now, and it's understandably driving me nuts.

[szoze]

Stormy: are you using only iPod as a source?

[Stormy]

Unfortunately, yes, but I've discovered what was causing the hard drive to keep spinning now.
I'm not listening to MP3s - don't worry! I'm using the Apple Lossless codec, and the output is acceptable provided the disk is not spinning. Once it has cached a song it's fine really. I intend to build a dedicated fanless computer based on a VIA or Pentium M processor with a Creative Labs soundcard for DVD-Audio playback as well as lossless or WAV/AIFF music from a big hard drive. The quality of the lossless files is obviously great, but the iPod's line out is not the quietest thing around...

[szoze]

Have you ever tried a seperate iPod player. Advance Acoustic make one with tubes inside

[Stormy]

www.advance-acoustic.com/en-product.php?id=12

Thanks for that - I wasn't aware of those. 350 Euros sounds reasonable, but it must still use the same line out electronics as a standard dock. It looks like it's basically a glorified dock with a tube preamp and remote control. I could buy myself the new remote-control-enabled Apple dock and an X-10D V3 for the same sort of money, and it would do the same job. Still wouldn't cure the electrical noises on the line out though! I'm also not sure whether it means 3G iPods and later or 4G iPods and later when it says "later than 3G" - mine is a 3rd generation. A computer based on the VIA EPIA processor would be cheap (£80 for the motherboard and processor, plus the usual case, PSU, HDD, RAM and optical drive) and would almost certainly sound cleaner than the iPod if I use a good soundcard. I've had my iPod for 2 1/2 years now, and it's starting to show its age. I'd rather relegate it to portable music or my car and get something dedicated for home use with the X-Can.