Audio Research vt100mkll question


I wonder if someone has experince of this ??

Two questions really.

I've just bought a vt100 mkll and am running it with single ended input from the source , with-out the pins in the balanced input. It seems to work ok just wondered if there was any down side to this ?? Should it work at all ??

Also My amp has been re-valved with 6h30's instead of the original 6922s. Is this a good thing as the 6922's are a lot less current hungry than the 6h30's ?? Will it work properly ??

Over-all the amp is proving harsher than I expected on leading edge vocals and sounding a touch bright. (could the valve be causing this ??) I'm driving proac 3.8s . Bass is good and some things sound very, very good.

Any opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks for your time.
borg7x9
Thanks again guys. I tried to talk to Leornard this morning but he's not in untill Tues. :-) I'll give him a call tonight.

Any thougts on the single ended operation without the balanced jumper pins ?? Should I perhaps be thinking that connections have beed internally modded as the single ended inputs work without the jumpers in place ??

I really hope its not been internally modified and that everything is as it should be.

Thanks agian,
Myron.
I am currently using an ARC VT100 mkII in my system. The 6H30 tubes are used in the VT100 mkIII amp. As mentioned previously, you need a set (8) 6922 tubes. Upscale audio sells the 6H23 (NOS 6922) with the required tolerance/balance that are necessary for the VT100 MKII. Poorly selected input tubes will cause your 6550C output tubes to arc and take out the bias resistor.

The above article by Collins is excellent in providing guidance in setting the bias of your amp correctly.
Hi Guys,
I managed to talk to Leonard who advised that there could be some perminant damage due to the use of the wrong valves, so weeping, with a screwdriver in hand I took the cover off the VT100 and found that the valves were in-fact 6922's not the 6h30's as i'd been advised by the previous owner. So kind of good news there. I suspect that the valves in situ are the original factory supplied valves and hence 5 years or so old and that the previous owner was trying to "up sell" this amp by claiming a recent upgrade etc.(not so good).

I've just bought a matched octet of jj electronics ECC88 so I'm going to replace these and bias up the amp this weekend. Looking forward to it.

After that I'm going to replace the 6550's with a matched octet of jj electronic KT88's which leonard has confirmed will work fine.

I'll let you know how I go.

i really like this amp and have heard it sound great in a well balanced system...

btw, you might find the jj e88's a little lacking in resolution....