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Tube rectification

This may have been chewed on before but I'm at a loss here. I recently went back to tubes and acquired a SoundStage Two pre that uses two 6dj8/6922 tubes. By the way while doing some rolling I found the Mullards to sound the best thus far. Anyway I have seen other preamps having a tube for rectification(5y3 etc). My question is what does a pre with this tube do in reference to one like mine that does not have this feature. Am I missing something in terms of sonics. The SoundStage sounds really good and can be modded as mine has been. Thanks for any info and enjoy the music.
south43
bdgregory
1,715 posts
 
the rectifier is the key to converting AC line voltage to DC to supply the circuit. This can be done with a Tube, or with a solid state.

I'm not sure if Tube rectifiers sound better, or more "tubey" than solid state, though I do know that swapping rectifier tubes can make a very big difference.
tigerclose
8 posts
 
I think it will better to have tube rectifier because it allows you to have an extra avenue to tweak the sound to your liking by trying out different brands of tubes.
south43 OP
386 posts
 
Thanks to Bdgregory and Tigerclose for there replies. I agree that swapping tubes does tweak the sound. Thus far I have tried three sets of nos tubes. A pair of gold pin siemans,a pair of rcas made in west germany,and a pair of mullards. All have a signature of there own of course but as I said before I have to give a thumbs up to the mullards. I will go back and forth to fine tune the sonics and tell you what I hear from all three sets. The pre came with a pair of philips jan.
phd
1,320 posts
 
Tube rectification is more desirable in terms of sound quality and usually adds more cost to the tube preamp. Every tube preamp I have owned that was tube rectified was better sounding than one using solid state rectification, although there are a few exceptions.
paulfolbrecht
603 posts
 
2nd Phd.

I believe the issue is that all forms of SS rectification introduce some type of high-freq noise. A tube does not do this. After owning 10 or so tubed pres, some with tube rectification and some not, tube rectification became a must-have feature for me in a pre. About the only must-have, FWIW.
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