I hate to say it, but now I think maybe I like my amp in ultralinear mode versus triode

Yesterday afternoon going into the evening I put five more hours in in the UL mode.  I note a "fuller" presence in UL that I was getting in triode mode.

I won't go  blow by blow into yesterdays session, but I'll mention a couple of things that stood out (from yesterday).  I have been planning (for some time) on listening to to a couple of SACDs (Jacintha Goes To Hollywood and Patricia Barber/Modern Cool) but I never made it past digging out red book CDs that caught my eye and then my ear.  I saw a movie a few nights ago on TV that reminded me I owned Chris Isaac/Heart Shaped World which I bought in 1990 but never listened to all the way through.  Probably over produced for my usual tastes, but the sound was was room filling and it sounded quite good.  I bought Brandy Carlile/The Story quite a few years ago because I heard her sing The Story on my car radio, and I thought that I would like to hear the choruses in which she was literally screaming on my system, which, in theory should sound way better than  the AM/FM radio in whichever vehicle I was motoring about in at the time.  But the playback on that one never met my expectations.  I put in that CD (The Story) yesterday specifically to hear her sing The Story, and I can honestly say that I was struck by the visceral impact of the choruses more in UL than I had been in triode.  I actually wound up listening to the whole CD, and it does have a nice sound.  (It was one of the CDs that kept me from getting to those two SACDs by Jacintha and Patricia Barber, but I am leading off with them tonight.)

However, with all that typed, I will also say that my initial reactions could be the "new toy syndrome"; I am admittedly prone to that infection.  Also, as noted before, my hearing is changing and not for the better, I have introduced different speakers to my system, my system now resides in a different room than it did when I first set it up, and the way I listen has changed significantly over the years..

@immatthewj Not exactly. But its likely that one tube type in that list will perform better than others. That’s a bit different from saying that it will ’work’; sure it will play but the output transformer should be optimized for a particular tube.

@atmasphere , although I do not understand circuit topology what you write does make sense. I’ve often found that tools that are advertised as fulfilling multiple functions do not work as well as a tool that is designed to perform one specific task. And hand tools are much simpler to understand and work with than circuits are.

As far as rolling tubes, I am not trying to speak for Dennis Had, but from reading the writeups he provides for several of his products (including the V12, from which I sort of recently quoted the manual), I sort of get the impression that he likes tube rolling. I remember reading one of the blurbs he wrote for one of his fairly recent SET amps, and he described it as (I belive the words he used were) ’a tube roller’s dream.’ Anyway, as far as the V12, after reading through the recent posts I am going to assume that it was "voiced" (I’ve read that term elsewhere) for the EL34 and after reading the recent responses on this thread, I am not going to mess around with other tubes. (Although I do have three different quads of 6550s for another amp that I am not using right now, and if worst came to worse, I could drop one of those quades in and bias the amp for two tubes per side). I’d also note that in the manual, Mr. Had writes about the virtues of the triode circuit toplology, and from what he writes about the V12, I am assuming that he includes the V12 in pushpull. Meaning that I guess he probably "voiced" the V12 in triode, but for at least the present moment, I am preferring UL.

@xenolith , I was going to jokingly type thgat you are a buzz-kill, but a lot of jokes are not taken as such. In reality, I wouldn’t be surprised if you are correct. I don’t have much of a grasp on the subject of circuit topology and back when I was setting up my system (the ’90s), I didn’t have a computer and didn’t know about A’gon, and what I learned was from reading Stereophile, what dealers told me, trial and error, and what manufacturers and their tech guys told me when I called them to ask questions about their products.

Anyway, if I NOW had the wherewith all to start completely over from the ground up, I would do a lot of things differently. However, I retired early and I made a few bad life choices before Idid, so I am probably going to find a way to try to be as happy as I can with what I have. But I will add that before the V12 I had a couple of strictly UL products, including a pair of ARC VTM120s which I have referred to previously in this thread, and if they were more relaible than they turned out to be, I’d still own them, and although aural memories (at least mine) are often flawed, going from the ARCs to the V12 was, at best, a lateral move. As far as the sonic presentation, that is. But when I flip the switches to turn the Cary on, I do not have to cross my fingers, and that is worth something.

@decooney , I really liked the sound of my V12 with the Ruby branded EL34s it came with, and I am assuming that those were the same as the Chinese tubes you just referred to.  I don't think that I will be rolling any tube types other than the EL34s.  In an emergency I guess I might try rebiasing to two tubes perside, and trying those old NOS Tung Sol 6550s I got from Andy way back when.  Maybe.

I also remember a couple of conversations we had about biasing that amp.  I di try backing it way down, and I didn't think I liked it at the time.  But maybe that was a preconceived notion I had that low bias couln't be good.  At the moment I have both sides set at just under 270.  As long as I am experimenting with different things, I'll back it off tonight.  I was thinking about 240 mA aside and going from there.  Also, when I last experimented with backing the bias off, I was listening in triode, and triode was another of my preconceived notions that I turned out being open to rethinking.

Thanks for taking the time to replay, you always offer a lot of insight when answering my V12 questions.

@mulveling

@gs5556

@atmasphere

Enjoyed reading all your comments to explain this technical area. Very difficult to understand things without a diagram and that’s what’s needed here.

I think the term ultra linear is marketing in nature and I dare say most people have no clue what they’re buying when they do. I remember loudness controls on a receiver I had a while back and was curious at times and clearly pushed more power through the circuits. It’s all about compromise which can be understood without getting terribly technical and my decision was to do biamping of a solid state and tube amplifier. At least the harmonics are more favorably affected and I do really like isolation of tubes in the upper area and let solid state handle the heavy duty stuff below. It seems to be working pretty well so far.

But again it would be kind of nice to see a diagram of all this to better understand the differences between modes of operation which on this amplifier tend to be switchable so easily which always raises skepticism in my tiny mind. But ultra linear does drift more toward solid state and isn’t that what we’re really saying overall after all

@immatthewj Also, when I last experimented with backing the bias off, I was listening in triode, and triode was another of my preconceived notions that I turned out being open to rethinking.

Thanks for taking the time to replay, you always offer a lot of insight when answering my V12 questions.

Does your V12 still have the original Audio1 coupling caps installed in it?

Worth flipping it over when you remove the tubes, pull the cover and check. Installing really good caps in that amp brings it to another level of enjoyment.