Guide to amplifiers on EL84 lamps

oh el84 …. 🙂 loveAudio Note HereorP1SE. The Lebeny CS-300 on this lamp were excellent, the strong vintag Braun CSV-13 by Dieter Rams (it’s probably the 1960s) or the British synergistic lac with vintage Tannoys sounded phenomenal. I have friends who have American Scotty or Fishery on this lamp.

Damn, I don’t know anyone who would complain about the amplifier with this power lamp. Whether it’s push-pull or single ended.

Unfortunately, there are currently not many designs based on this lamp. The industry has gone towards high power, power-hungry drivers and this excellent pentode finds only the most persistent seekers. It’s a pity, because when properly set up, it can embarrass really very expensive amplifiers such as ASR Emitter, Leema Tucan 2 or even Pass Labs Int-30a. In my sets, for example, more than once it turned out to be more pleasant to listen to than the Cirlce Audio Labs A200, and even my reference for the Audion Silver Night 300B at the moment.

EL84 pentode sound

So what is the phenomenon of this lamp?

First of all, its sound is incredibly complete. Amplifiers based on it always have a lot of energy, but at the same time color, space and dynamics.

Braun CSV-13, driving Snell E3 at my colleague from Krakow – Cuba was easily filled with a high sound, I think it is close to 40-50m living room. with a really high quality sound … I had my own thenjadis da30which we listened to briefly. We agreed that the golden dandysek has a more weighted and pampered diameter …

… but the dynamics, energy, freedom of playing and space were on the side of the German amplifier. Kuba tried to sell it after a complete renovation for about 4500 PLN.

So far, I can’t believe that a good year has not even appeared with him, anyone interested in listening to him! In the meantime, a dozen or so much more expensive amplifiers, even not approaching the quality of its taste, have disappeared from the secondary market.

The world will not be repaired, but it is simply unbelievable how much people listen to the equipment through the prism of what is fashionable and advertised, not with their own ear.

This Braun was really very good and modernized with a great phono preamplifier on a lamp, which could not be replaced even with 3000-4000PLN to be released.

Okay, but to the point – how the EL84 lamp generally plays.

• In PP very dynamic, with a good stage, very nice color. Pretty neutral. It has a really great kick and a very good first watt.
• In PSE (P1, here) I like the diameter more than the 845 lamp. It is damn close to the triode in terms of the amount of microdetails and smacking, but it is more greasy, fleshy, energetic.

El84 in PSE is only half a step for a really good 300B. Sweetness, energy is a bit like EL34, but 34 is more technical, hard, has looser bass and it is difficult to achieve such speed.

EL34 is of course stronger, which may have, as you can guess, a lot of positive implications.

Disadvantages of the EL84 pentode

• I don’t cook dinners
• He won’t throw out the garbage for you
• does not mow the grass

I could take so long. Not funny? ok. It’s seriously:

I have the impression that apart from the power that deters people from thinking about the amplifier on this lamp at all … it’s hard for me to point out anything else.

I also have the impression that it may be difficult to sell it, because there is no clear feature that the listener will focus on. It is not very analytical or linear. It is not very strong, it is not the most ethereal, clear or expressive.

For a listener used to spectacular devices that are supposed to work like drugs for poorly combined systems: ‘I have the mountain you need’ or ‘Look how I hold the bass’ I think it’s hard to fully appreciate such an amplifier.

It’s too normal, too correct, too complete. He plays music, and at the same time it is not a structural end of the world.

Too weak for an advanced audiophile, too good for a person who could play it all his life?

I know that there are a lot of people in Poland and around the world who play the Audio Note P1 / here in both SE and PP versions.

The original is hard to catch up with, because there are powerful transformers put in there, on which you can make a really good class 300B amplifier.

Zalety EL84

So, as you can guess, the advantages will be much easier to list for me than the disadvantages.

• Great balance, complete sound
• does not expose the recordings, shows their good side
• Insanely universal lamp – from jazz to techno it plays surprisingly well
• Perfect first watts of power. It sounds great to the average volume
• It will be great even in large, poorly adapted rooms with reverberation – it does not stretch the mountains too much
• It will pull most of the columns that theoretically cannot pull – ATC, KEF? no problem
• Very cheap operation (a set of power lamps up to PLN 1000)

Summation

The audiophile has such a stupid ailment (and beautiful at the same time) that he always tries to be smarter than himself smarter than himself and reinvent the wheel. A new block, a new combination, something better than a brick that is told he is awesome.

And if this block is more expensive than it can, the crank turns on at all. I don’t judge because I had it myself – and more than once 🙂

So I recommend EL84 if:

• you can appreciate playing well balanced
• you are looking for an amplifier for speakers from the UK
• who will play everything at a very good level
• You have the impression that your system or what you listen to in the store sounds dispassionate
• You value various ‘flavors’ in sound, ie color, dynamics, space, weighting

I believe thatel84This is a great start to your adventure with lamps, I recommend it as an amplifier around which we will build a nice system and go from it in the target direction. For many, it may be the target in itself.