Ramblings

[Darren D]

Having just spent a couple of hours in front of my current set-up (which I spose I ought to re-cap as things have a habit of changing around here rather suddenly. Please see the end) It ocured to me just how happy I am with what I'm listening to at the moment.

Thinking about it in the order of current components residence time spans I'll take the amplifiers first. In this case it's a pair of exceedingly simple PX4 SE mono's driven by the little used MH41 IDHT. I cobbled this circuit together around 5 years ago and little has changed since. Oh I've battled with hum, blamed this, or that, and swapped components is sheer desperation. Finally the culprit was discovered more by chance than anything. No it wasn't the AC heaters, they're just dandy. It was simply a faulty heater balance pot. Once evicted and replaced all is now well. Only change I may, or may not, make is to replace the noisy mains transformers. They're a little low on HT and only give around 2.5W per channel so it just might happen one day.

My point is as many of you may know, is that I have a vast collection of valves at my disposal. I have built with many, and always intended to try many more. But I discovered the PX4s and it has all come to a halt for the last 5 years. I did re-build the 6EM7 in a nice compact case recently, and in many ways it betters the PX4 but the 1 watter just aint enough. So it sits neglected in the shadows constantly tormented by the big boys. If you can call PX4s big that is?
Nope, despite 211s, 212s, 813s the PX4s with a measly 2.5W still hold the prised position between the source and speakers.

Talking of source..................tbc if I haven't bored you all yet?