Interesting. That's cool you tried that in your DH KT150 amp. It kinda goes along with what a nearby audiophile friend tells our local audiophile society group about one of his smaller amps. He owns some Audio Note 300B amps, Sun 2A3 amps, and a smaller EL84 amp he says likes a lot and often times comments it offers a type of sound he likes as a close comparison with his 300B and 2A3 amps. Some in this group run original WE300B tubes in their AN amps for comparison. I enjoy having NOS EL84s as part of the input / front-end tube in my big V12R amp, you can really tune the sound with them. It would also be fun to run a quad of EL84s per channel as a higher power amp too just to see what it sounds like. Good fun. :thumbsup:

I believe you are getting about 5 watts with single ended EL84's.

That was my guess, thanks for confirming.

I suspect the sound characteristics are quite different when the EL84 is run as pentode than when run as triode as in most EL84 based amps (I think!).

The LP-3.1 is, according to Dennis, the next step up in the LP-3 line. If you're talkining about the pre-amp in the middle of that picture, I believe that's a prototype preamp using three 0A3 voltage regulator tubes as the second row of tubes. Straitwire can potentially shed more light on this.

You laugh, but my next build is a preamp with a center channel. Dennis was kind enough to show me a scheme for mixing stereo sound back into mono with a dual triode tube.

That's a tough question to answer, partly because I don't ever remember directly comparing the two. But keep this in mind. The 27 or 56 is a single indirectly heated triode, while the 6S*7 is a pair of indirectly heated triodes in the same bottle. The 6S*7 preamp, assuming it uses one 6S*7 per channel, gives the builder a second stage to play with, and it can be used in a number of different ways. I've never asked Dennis about the design/schematic of his LP-3 series of preamps, so I won't venture a guess what he does with that second section. I suppose we should look at having a shootout one of these days....:scratch2:

I’ll bring my lp -27 SE and my upgraded lp-2 to lp-3a with Russian 6h1n. It should be fun.

Well, you should have an opinion.....:yes:

I guess I do. Lp-27 is the best sounding IMHO though the difference b/w that and the lp-3a of mine is subtle. The lp-3a has significant more gain. Maybe necessary if running less efficient speakers. On the other side of same coin is the fact that both the 27a and 3a are not silent. Both generate a very subtle hiss. I recall my lp-2 being absolutely silent. No longer after the upgrade. Now this noise is subtle and not audible with mid-high efficiency speakers unless ear is right up on the driver. Now with high efficiency speakers, said noise becomes significant. Noticeable from across the room with no signal and sometimes noticeable during quiet passages. System synergy necessary as always.

I would say the lp-3a was a significant improvement over my lap-2. Detail was much improved as I recall. It has been a while. But as with Dennis’ amps, the similarities are greater than the differences. All come from the same ‘ear’.

So in the end I do think my lp 27SE has a slight edge over my 6h1n based lp-3a but matching with right speakers is necessary for both.

I would look forward to a shootout since I have yet to hear anything from or about the 3.1 other than of its existence. And any excuse or opportunity to visit the Toy Factory is looked for.