Hello Eli,
Thanks for the advice. I don't plan to do anything hasty. The cathode bypass cap experiment will be just that, and the final arbiter will be my ears. You are of course completely correct about the Black Gates. I've never heard an A/B done against anything else, but the manufacturers who use them in their products is enough of an endorsement for me. I've been trying to read a lot about capacitors and the details of their construction, and I think that generally, properly constructed and implemented film/foil or paper/oil, should outperform any electrolytic. But the proof's in the pudding, so they say, so the only real way to tell is to implement and listen. I would love to conduct such a test(Black Gates/PIO), but the cost of those items, and the fact that I may like the sound better w/o them, keeps that off my wish list.
As far as the gain of the first stage is concerned, I don't necessarily need to increase it. I've changed my tube compliment, and I'm now using a Valve Art 274b rectifier. I did have an issue w/ a few sources and gain, but it's gone now that I'm using that rectifier. Don't know why that should be. I should probably look at the spec sheets and see if maybe the voltage drop across the 274b is less than the Ruby. Maybe I'm juicing the amp a little higher. I know I like the way it sounds with the VA274b WAY BETTER.
I'm doing this project piecemeal so I can listen after each step. I don't want to change the values of any component, so that the changes(if any) that I hear are strictly due to the nature of each component. Its a learning curve for me. I like the way Steve voiced this amp, but the only way I'm going to learn is to play.
Any advice you throw my way is of course much appreciated.
thanks, Bill
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