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Cornwall III with 45 set amp


Ritchie

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I recently purchased a pair of Cornwall III's.

I am in the process of building a set amp. My choice is between a 45 or 300b. Was hoping someone here could tell me if a 45 at 2W will work with the Cornwalls especially power wise. Can it get to average listening levels and control the large woofer. I am presently using a pp el34 diy amp at about 35W. Works fine but have the bug to do a set amp. One of the reasons I chose the speakers. Thanks

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Welcome to the forums!

 

https://community.kl...attach_id=69980

 

I'd actually recommend a push-pull design instead with at least 8 W/channel--with 18 W/channel being much better. 

 

You don't really want to clip on transients when playing back anything approaching concert volume - even acoustic-only instrumentation.  Of course, you could bi-amp and still use your lower power SET.

Edited by Chris A
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I used to use a 8.5 watt 300B amp for my K-horns. Plenty of power, but K-horns are more efficient than Cornwalls. Only 2 watts seems kind of under powered to push that 15 inch woofer, I would think you give up a fair amount of bass.  My Chorus, which is similar to a Cornwall, liked a more powerful amp to get the bass really going.

Edited by tromprof
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I recently purchased a pair of Cornwall III's. I am in the process of building a set amp. My choice is between a 45 or 300b. Was hoping someone here could tell me if a 45 at 2W will work with the Cornwalls especially power wise. Can it get to average listening levels and control the large woofer. I am presently using a pp el34 diy amp at about 35W. Works fine but have the bug to do a set amp. One of the reasons I chose the speakers. Thanks

 

Ritchie, what amps are you contemplating building? B)

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An alternate tube to try may be the 6c33c-b...a bit less expense for the tubes, can make a 12-15 watt single ended amp with them which should get the corns singing.  (I found out about that tube right here, including full schematics from the pages of Glass Audio, but that thread is buried deep in the archives so use the search function.)  

Edited by Ski Bum
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you can do 12 watts Se with an 6CA7 (EL34). I don't see why you would not want to build a 45 amp I hear they are stunning and a single watt can play a CW quite loud. If you decided that you wanted more jam then you could use the 45 to run the horns and almost anything else to run the woofer. No problems with that so long and you can adjust the gain of the two amplifiers you use to match up. One of the powerful sounding amplifiers I have ever hear was a SE 2A3 so low watts has nothing to do with bass response or impact but you will be limited as to hoe loud you can play. Build your 45 amp and see what you think. Perhaps you can borrow one locally for a listen before you build any 3/4 to 1 watt amp will tell you what you want to know. Having a 2A3 amp and having run sub one watt amplifiers in the past I can say you will be very surprised with what a watt can do but 10 - 12 really does give you a whole lot more range. Best regards Moray James.

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The amp I am looking at building is the tubelab se. I have the tubelab sse and eiclone mono blocks and prefer the eiclones right now, mostly in the bass.

I am using Edcor outputs on the sse and no feedback. Would use better outputs and I'm assuming a true dht will be better.

Appreciate the help.

 

Ritchie

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The amp I am looking at building is the tubelab se. I have the tubelab sse and eiclone mono blocks and prefer the eiclones right now, mostly in the bass.

I am using Edcor outputs on the sse and no feedback. Would use better outputs and I'm assuming a true dht will be better.

Appreciate the help.

 

Ritchie

 

Awesome!

 

My son and I are gathering parts to build the same amp. :emotion-21::emotion-22:

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I recently purchased a pair of Cornwall III's. I am in the process of building a set amp. My choice is between a 45 or 300b. Was hoping someone here could tell me if a 45 at 2W will work with the Cornwalls especially power wise. Can it get to average listening levels and control the large woofer. I am presently using a pp el34 diy amp at about 35W. Works fine but have the bug to do a set amp. One of the reasons I chose the speakers. Thanks

 

A 45 SET amplifier will work with Cornwalls, and will get average listening levels...but that all depends on the size of the room.

If it is large to huge listening room, then the 1.5 watt 45 could be a bit on the light side for power.

 

If the room is small, and if one listens primarily below 85 decibels, then a single-ended 45, 2A3, or even a SEP 6BQ5 would give moderate to loud levels. You won't ever get a continuous 105-115 decibels, but I doubt you are interested in SPL numbers when you want to build a SE 45 amplifier. 

 

The 2.5 watt 2A3 will net a extra watt of power, but I never noticed much differences (slight) in power between 45 and 2A3...just tonality the most.

A single ended pentode connected 6BQ5/EL-84 amplifier can sound very nice with Cornwalls, at least to me with mine.

 

I've plowed a many single-ended 6BQ5 amplifier and amplifier circuits through my Cornwalls...Motorola, RCA, Magnavox console pulls, and the RH84 circuit. (which was eventually a completed amp) They can sound really good.

 

If it is a large to huge room, then a push-pull 6BQ5 amp with about 7-8 watts per side would work pretty good.(like Chris A mentions) My Scott LK-48B has plenty of boogie factor with good sound.

 

Mike

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I recently purchased a pair of Cornwall III's. I am in the process of building a set amp. My choice is between a 45 or 300b. Was hoping someone here could tell me if a 45 at 2W will work with the Cornwalls especially power wise. Can it get to average listening levels and control the large woofer. I am presently using a pp el34 diy amp at about 35W. Works fine but have the bug to do a set amp. One of the reasons I chose the speakers. Thanks

 

A 45 SET amplifier will work with Cornwalls, and will get average listening levels...but that all depends on the size of the room.

If it is large to huge listening room, then the 1.5 watt 45 could be a bit on the light side for power.

 

If the room is small, and if one listens primarily below 85 decibels, then a single-ended 45, 2A3, or even a SEP 6BQ5 would give moderate to loud levels. You won't ever get a continuous 105-115 decibels, but I doubt you are interested in SPL numbers when you want to build a SE 45 amplifier. 

 

The 2.5 watt 2A3 will net a extra watt of power, but I never noticed much differences (slight) in power between 45 and 2A3...just tonality the most.

A single ended pentode connected 6BQ5/EL-84 amplifier can sound very nice with Cornwalls, at least to me with mine.

 

I've plowed a many single-ended 6BQ5 amplifier and amplifier circuits through my Cornwalls...Motorola, RCA, Magnavox console pulls, and the RH84 circuit. (which was eventually a completed amp) They can sound really good.

 

If it is a large to huge room, then a push-pull 6BQ5 amp with about 7-8 watts per side would work pretty good.(like Chris A mentions) My Scott LK-48B has plenty of boogie factor with good sound.

 

Mike

 

My room is 26'x17'x8'.  Thanks for the info. that gives me some ideas. Very helpful forum.

 

Ritchie

Edited by Ritchie
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The amp I am looking at building is the tubelab se. I have the tubelab sse and eiclone mono blocks and prefer the eiclones right now, mostly in the bass.

I am using Edcor outputs on the sse and no feedback. Would use better outputs and I'm assuming a true dht will be better.

Appreciate the help.

 

Ritchie

 

Awesome!

 

My son and I are gathering parts to build the same amp. :emotion-21::emotion-22:

 

Cool, have you decided on output transformers yet?

 

Ritchie

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The amp I am looking at building is the tubelab se. I have the tubelab sse and eiclone mono blocks and prefer the eiclones right now, mostly in the bass.

I am using Edcor outputs on the sse and no feedback. Would use better outputs and I'm assuming a true dht will be better.

Appreciate the help.

 

Ritchie

 

Awesome!

 

My son and I are gathering parts to build the same amp. :emotion-21::emotion-22:

 

Cool, have you decided on output transformers yet?

 

Ritchie

 

 

Yes, the Edcor units that  George recommends. I figure if anyone knows, its him. :)

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Hi - I have CW IIIs and for several years have run them with Bottlehead Paramount SET monoblock amps running 300Bs at ~8 W. This is in a pretty large room. Plenty of power.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Yeah, unless you're wanting to go deaf you should be able to rock the Casaba with 8 watts through most Klipsch speakers.

 

My RF-82 II's will play louder than I need with 2 watts. :)

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Yeah, unless you're wanting to go deaf you should be able to rock the Casaba with 8 watts through most Klipsch speakers.

 

My RF-82 II's will play louder than I need with 2 watts. :)

 

You would be amazed if you heard some of the demos that I periodically do with CWs and a 1/3 wpc SET!!!  No one believes me when I tell them what the maximum power is!

 

Maynard

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