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In the Forum: Melquiades Amplifier
In the Thread: Valve Preamplifier for Macondo/DSET
Post Subject: Sometime less is more...Posted by Romy the Cat on: 4/26/2019
Anthony, I am not so thrill that you are unlashing your into this direction. Not that it is my business and you can do whatever you want. Still, I feel that methodologically it is not right way to build a playback. What I mean is that to evaluate a quality of preamp is very hard job if you do not have a well performing playback to the sound of which you well accustomed. If I was you I would make $5 op-based gain stage, of buy/borrow a cheap preamp driving it into Placette and then I would finish the entire sound in my room. As everything is done and calibrated THEN, ONLY THEN, I would go for good gain stage. 
 
As everything is done you will have a few options. Again, I do not know what frond end you use. Some of the frond-ends have powerful output stages and can drive line level transformer against Placette. Some of the frond-ends have output stages that might be easily tweaked to get extra dozen dBs. I you do insist to have a separate gain stage then you need to decide if you will be driving it into Placette or you will substitute the Placette. If you will be driving the gain stage into Placette then you do not have any concern with output impedance and the array of the available topologies is wide open, this is the direction that I would go. If you are willing to make a preamp that will replace Placette then I feel it will be VERY hard to. Regarding the tubes if you insist to do it on tubes. I love the 10Y but I have no idea how it doe as preamp and with the transformer that you will be using (wish in my view will be the definitive element of you preamp). The tripod strapped 2P29L might be interesting, you can even drop the impedance with cross screen feedback. I never heard 2P29L, they are from the family of tube that Germans made for Russians after WW2 and the tubes were mostly military targeted. There was many of them with odd voltage, the 4P1L might be the one that you also might consider. There is a cult in Russia of those tube follower but those people do not impress me with other then audio- soldering skill, so I have no ideas what to think about those type of tubes. 
 
Anthony, I am serious, do not west you energy on fighting the gain stage war. Make you playback to sound well as is. Buy for $50 on eBay a CD played that can swing 3.5V and focus on the rest of you system. You will return to your gain problems after you finished. I wonder why you demonstrate so much loyalty to your frond-end. You know, it is much ease to find a good front-end then to fine a good line level buffer.

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