A good summertime project
Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2024 8:00 pm
I'm seriously considering going thru my Concert Grand like I did the Imperial this summer. The CG puts out enough heat that I don't run it much in the summer anyways. Even my wife commented on the difference in how the Imperial sounds. She typically could care less as long as it makes noise when she wants it to. I don't see how the CG would offer a greater challenge than the Imperial did. Now I have an idea of what to look for. I am convinced, absolutely sure, that the issue I had with the Imperial was due to out-of-tolerance parts, even though most of the ones I replaced were within factory tolerances. I'll save up for four matched quads of matched output tubes, which will cost almost $400 by themselves. I'll keep the original Magnavox-branded, RCA-sourced 6V6's in case I should sell the CG and the new buyer would want the original output tubes. If I can make as much difference in the CG that I did in the Imperial, the result should be amazing. A 15% tolerance may work well in a radio. But my experience tells me that if you are working with a high fidelity, high gain audio device, you need to run the tolerances tighter than that. I used 5% in the Imperial, most of the resistors were way less than 1%. I also matched component values channel to channel. The CG has an inoperative eye tube and an habitually-dirty function switch. And the strangled-fidelity issue that plagued the Imperial....