6H30 replacement

http://www.lampizator.eu/UPGRADE/upgrade%20noval%20tubes%20to%206H6P.html

our good friend ficus lampizator has strong opinions on this. 6N6P - Not a western replacement, but a far easier to get and less costly (no spin) Russian one. 60‘s stock with the square getters are da bomb. I haven’t use them to replace 6H30’s personally and can not comment, but have used them in my own scratch builds and can vouch that they are great tubes judged on their own merits

In the ARC Reference 6, they sound neither exactly like traditional tubes nor solid-state, but actually sound more "right" than either (including excellent tubes like 6SN7 and 6922).

As I said, I think AR have found a way of voicing their amps to sound fine without resorting to megabuck NOS variants of the 6H30. It would be marketing suicide if they produced amps which sounded like cr** unless the supplied tubes were replaced with vintage candy.

It might suit Victor’s business interests to do the opposite. Who knows ?

The 12ax7 is used for input/gain and wonder if the 6h30 is somehow used as a driver for the SS amp section,

you are spot on, the X7 has a max gain of around 100 , runs at low current, (us around 1mA) and therefore has very poor driving ability, the 6H30 has a theoretical gain of around 16 and runs at a much higher current (us 15+mA), conferring excellent driving ability. It may even be configured in a cathode follower configuration, which sacrifices gain (only 0.9) for even greater grunt.. The max power dissipation of the 6H30 and 6N6P is 8watts both plates driven for both tubes, so I wouldn‘t be concerned about catastrophic failure if you made a substitution. The plate curves are somewhat different though, and the biasing would not be optimal, although the outcome might sound fine (you might still be in a fairly linear area of the plate curves).

A schematic would be great, and I would really pressure the manufacturer to get one.

If you must go western, the 5687 is far closer to the 6H30 than the 6DJ8 family of tubes and would be my personal preference. J8‘s will burn up in no time at anything like the bias h30‘s generally run at. Again I have used these in my builds, and in the right application they are a fine tube.

From the jacmusic site:

It is found in many amplifiers, such as: Audio Note M3, Manley Jumbo Shrimp,Ayon CD player, Audio Note DAC 5 Signature and Audio Note amp kits, M5 preamp, M9, KR Enterprise 32BSI integrated SET amp, Modwright 9.0 and Modwright Sony and Denon modded CD players, Modwright Sony NS999ES CD player, Opera Audio Consonance Cyber 800, Zanden, Manley amps, LUX 300B amp,Kondo M1000, Artemis Labs linestage, Emotive Audio Sira, Ray Samuels B52 and Raptor, Audio Tekne TFM-9412, Sonic Frontiers Power 2 Amps, Audio Experience BALANCED A2 preamp (YS-AUDIO, HONG KONG), Ongaku, Audio Note, New Audio Frontiers Legend II preamp, Loth X JI300,Audio Thrills, Mastersound, Sophia Electric KT88 Tube Amplifier, Icon Audio PS3 phono power supply, Almarro.

actually you don‘t replace sockets at all. You just re-wire them. Which is entirely reversible, if you employ a good tech who knows how to solder/desolder neatly and quickly.

love those finger slicers - tres chic

and so much more elegant than a cage..

Pesky, while the specs look close, the 5687 is not pin compatible with tbe 6H30

I‘m pretty sure you can get adapters though. I know there were ones that let you use 6N6Ps in 5687 apps. If not, it‘s pretty easy to make yr own. I never let pinouts stand in the way of subbing - it‘s too limiting: if it works and I‘m happy I just re-wire the socket. Easy.

As an aside, AR seem to have voiced their latest amps to sound pretty decent with readily available examples of the 6H30. I don‘t think they would have made a commitment to this tube if their amps only sounded good when fettled with very costly unobtainium variants.

Victor Supertubed the thing up so much (after he cornered he market) it went stratospheric very quickly.

why does the‘79 have the old Reflector logo?