Monday Monologue: Why Work on Junky Audio Gear?

Today's video is born out of my frustration with trying to put lipstick on the pig that is the Nobsound 6P1. The fact this thing sounds as good as it does is a testament to tube gear more than anything else. Can it be turned into something really sweet? That is the question we answer today.

Here is my Patreon, as well as the donation page at my site, if you feel so inclined to help fund some of the future projects for the channel!

Here is the long awaited Wilsenton R8 BOM!

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[vintageradios]

There is nothing like vintage push-pull audio equipment. Very well designed and when biased properly they last forever.

[danrussell]

Always enjoy the Monday monologue, glad it is back -

[warp]

Even Dolly expressed her feelings about this 6P1 project in no uncertain terms. I loved the way she appeared center stage and lay down almost saying "Guys, I give up." 🙂

[TheodoreBreaux]

Lackluster designs provide fertile grounds for experimentation, but alas, not all can be salvaged into something useful. On the subject of pentodes however, what is absent in the modern scene is an audio amp driven by an EF86 preamp - a classic hot rod with a beautiful sound.

[cobar]

I appreciate your frustrations but the value is the challenge that works out - like the Willsenton.
From scratch DIY is also appealing. Which ever way you go, it sure beats sitting around with nothing to do!

[abxaudiophiles]

Loving all the coverage of the Chifi tube amps!!! After watching your series on the W-R8 I am glad I went with that one. She’s a great amp for the money. 😁😁😉😉

[RomiPetrut]

Hi Skunkie, you're absolutely right.Don't waste your time with these junks.The Willsenton R8 project was fabulous.I loved it.Maybe sometime you will have the opportunity to make a Willsenton 300 b project.I will follow all your projects anyway.All you say is well argumented.I like the way you think.
All the good

[roberttaylor]

I took this amp and ripped out all the wiring, kept the power and output transformers as well as the tube sockets and rewired it using a design from the Mullard book of audio amplifiers and added a buck transformer to take care of the 110 volt power transformer problem. I kept the rectifier tube but used 2 UF86 for the input and 4 UCL82 tubes for the outputs. Got 6 watts per channel with very low distortion and it sounds very good. I got the amp from a friend that had given up on it and I had all the other tubes so the cost was negligible.

[joesapereira]

Glad you got over your cold. I agree with you on how to invest your time. In order to improve an amp like this it would require almost a total redesign. For that amount of time and effort, I would enjoy more seeing what you can come up with on your own versus redesigning an existing amp like this. I really enjoyed the R8 mods. Will there be a final overview or did I miss that? Looking forward to your next adventure.

[TheCobraShop]

Glad you're feeling better. always enjoy your Monday Monologue

[mattheweurich]

I'd like to see how you would address the heater wiring so i don't have to use a bucking transformer. I have a nobsound amp with el34s and 6sl7s and it sounds very nice. I think a lot of the other parts are the same. I had the same two 150uf caps in the power supply which I fixed thanks to you.

[mddawson]

My FU50 kit that I just finished seems to share many of the components of the 6P1. Same chassis (although the FU50 only has the five tubes), same transformers, same VU meters and a similar component layout including the incorrect 150uf cap after the rectifier tube.

[el_arte]

Skip it, that’s a lot of work to salvage $100 worth of chassis.

[markmc]

The Willsenton 300B amp would be very interesting. I really like your ground up designs and a 2A3 build would be nice. Tubes would be more affordable than a 300B and they are similar sounding yes? Leave the lesser quality amps for others to mess with. They're a waste of your talent.

[anthonyarmstrong]

I have the Willsenton R300 - use it exclusively rather than my Prima Luna EVO400 integrated. Willsenton seem to make really good products - hope you do get a look at one. I'm busy going through all your videos ( slowly I'm old !! ). Really enjoying them though I don't know if I'll be picking up the soldering iron soon !!

[briand]

I’m a little sad that the 6p1 isn’t working out, I have on the I’ve done your earlier mods to and I really like it. But to be honest the looks of it are a big part of the appeal. It makes no sense to spend another 300-400 bucks on it to just get to mediocre performance. A ground up diy amp is kind of intimidating though, everything I’ve built has been mods or a kit.

As it stands the amp is part of my bedroom system with a WiiM Pro and Sony sscs5 speakers, and that’s where it will stay for now. When something better comes along at a reasonable price then spending the money will make sense, but unless the push-pull scheme really yields grand results then I’m done with the mods on the 6p1. Thanks for being so honest about what is going on.

[ptg]

The challenge is the amp is built to a selling price (sub $500?) so a lot of corners have to be cut ! Sadly, one can think of these amps as almost disposable...

[flyingmattyboy]

Skunkie if those are se 5k edcores they would make a cracking el84 amp. I used the RH84 circuit for mine and it sounds cracking, possible 6w too, from 2 x el84's, with careful purchasing a full set of tubes on ebay is £50. It would be a very simple design to for beginers watching the channel to build. I have also started to get curious about low voltage tube amps, I wonder if they can sound any good and produce enough power in hi fi, I even saw a person on youtube who managed to make one without output transformers too he only played it through a very small speaker but it sounded fine. The r8 build was great I was itching to see how it turned out. The speaker build was good too and they turned out nice.

[mddawson]

Do you tinker with solid state amps? If so, find a cheap Sunbuck amp (around $50) that claim to have 2000 watts! 🤣 I had a look inside the Sunbuck and it seems to be a regular class AB amp that uses transistors usually found in amps in the 50-75 watt range. I got it purely for initial checking out used speakers as I don't want to risk blowing my good amps. I reckon a Sunbuck would rival the distortion levels of the 6P1.

[alaingingras]

Why do you think that there are NO amplifiers using 2 tubes in parallel in Class A? Tube imbalance.They may exist but they get old fast!