That would do it. What is it... besides cool as shit.

Mercury vapor rectifier?

Have one. Prefer my original mesh plate, though. The Acqua is fine, but maybe because of the rigid plate it does not quite sound as good as the original mesh plate. Maybe is just a matter of requiring more settling time? This is so subjective!

Finally got both the KT77 and KT66 tubes from Gold Lion burned in. Neither one has the tonal density of something like the RCA 6L6-GA, but the GL's do have their strengths. Clarity, focus, detail. And rhythm/pace. They really do boogie!

I've got a pair of Penta Labs KT88's and Gold Lion KT88's burning in right now (using a 2nd system) and they should be fully cooked in the next 3 days. I like to run in every tube for at least 200 hours before doing any serious listening. Some might even go for 300 (like the black treasure carbon coated tubes or the teflon coated Psvane tubes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/866A#/...k_environ.jpeg


It's an 866 half wave mercury rectifier.

Good news - it'll handle up to 5000V and it looks cool as $hit.

Bad news - needs 5 amps of 2.5 filament voltage and you need two for full wave rectification.

I recently stashed away a pair of 816s for my next amp build, which are a smaller mercury half wave rectifier.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YgqnxO0dbo...s1600/main.jpg

It has the advantage of only needing 2A of filament voltage at 2.5V and can handle 7500V.

Size comparison...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ahzyeT5g0q...comparison.jpg

Thanks. I have some TJ 274A mesh/perforated plates that work well in my rig.

Yep, that's equivalent to my Sophia Electric mesh plate (only with a different socket configuration). Except for the 5Z4 with my KT88's, the SE 274B(A) is such a fine rectifier I use it with the rest of my output tubes with great results. I personally prefer the 5Z4 when playing KT88's just because I find the synergies among them quite unique. I still need to give the Acqua more burnin time though.

And people thought we were nuts running mercury vapor diffusion pumps in our research vacuum rigs. Keep some flowers of sulphur around for the occasional dropped tube.

The 274B mesh-plate really is a nice sounding tube.

While there is no question that Mercury vapor rectifier tubes look really cool when they are running, I mean probably nothing cooler, the Mercury plasma makes a huge amount of RFI and EMI that is very hard to filter out. It starts at low 100’s of kHz and goes up to 10 MHz.

Maybe it is euphonic?

The 6L6G and GA tubes are sweet in my triode Inspire. I have the same GL KT66 & 77 tubes and they do boogie. I have and like the Shuguang Treasure KT66. They have more tonal density than the GL's. I kinda prefer the 6L6 G and GA's. The input tube used makes a big difference.