Beauty in a Vacuum: Tube pics and close-ups

Yes. It's the second of three that I've made over the years. I'm currently working on it's much larger brother that will use the 100TH.
 
I don't want to thread-jack too much, but since you started the thread I guess I won't feel quite as badly about it. The first one I built about nine years ago, and the original post can be found here:

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=tubediy&m=158660

I ran into a schematic the year before that provided a convincing demonstration of directly coupling a cathode follower to a power-grid triode's grid to provide the low impedance drive required to make all of this work. I ended up modifying the original design a bit, adjusting the overall feedback and output transformer specs, as well as optimizing the loading of the first amplification stage with a CCS.

The second two amps were built much more recently, as I missed the sound of that original amp and wanted to fix the bugs that I had with the first one. I ended up building a pair, with one going to a good friend, and the other one not leaving my possession any time in the near future. I actually just ordered parts for a third, since I'm messing around with an active 2-way crossover.

I don't see any rules here for manufacturers or industry professionals, but I will mention that these are not Bottlehead products and certainly won't end up that way. 3C24 Twins.jpg
 
I don't generally like to recycle old pictures, but I just can't seem to take a better one than this one from about 10 years ago, or so. My TAD-60 with the quad of SED "Winged C" 6550-C's that it came with when I bought it in 2007.
100_2275.JPG
 
Those SED 6550s were great tubes! I can remember replacing many Chinese KT88s and 6550s in the 90s with the rock solid SED.
 
Those SED 6550s were great tubes! I can remember replacing many Chinese KT88s and 6550s in the 90s with the rock solid SED.
I really liked them. I was heartbroken to find them not being produced when it came time to replace them. I had tried JJE34Ls (had pin problems), 6CA7EHs (Paul Grzybek's specified original tubes - they were "okay", imo), JJ/Tesla KT-77's (garbage right out of the box), and finally found Tung-Sol 6550's (current production) which I enjoy immensely. So much so that I'm on my second quad from Upscale. :)

Okay, sorry for my thread pirating, back to our regularly scheduled program... ;)
 
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6F8G

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Globe 56 + thoriated VT25
 
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