Bottlehead for Cornwall III

[Thuper]

Hi!

I'm considering to buy a Bottlehead amp for my CW III's.

Which Bottlehead will give the best sound on my CW III. The S.E.X amp or the Foreplay III/ Paramour II 2A3 combo? Does anyone here have experience with a Bottlehead/ CW set up?

Don't think of the price! I'm looking for the amp that will give the best sound!

Frode

[seti]

I plan on building the S.E.X. amp for my khorns as a way to get into diy. If I was going to pick one of theres for Cornwalls it would be at least the Paramounts with 300B tubes for more power. I'd also want to build the Foreplay III later. Those0D3 tubes look great lit up.

[oldtimer]

The best will give the best sound. Assuming that bottleheads are priced linearly according to sound quality, buy the most expensive you can afford. You will not be disappointed.

[Wardsweb]

I have built the Paramour 2A3 and the S.E.X. 6DN7 amps. While the 6DN7 is one of the sweetest amps I own, the speakers it pushes must be very efficient, as its only putting out about 1 maybe 1.5 watts. The 2A3 is around 3.5 watts and the 300B's push about 8. Now all of these are in single output tube SET confirguration. Push-Pull is another beast.

Let me add, at the last Klipsch meet in Grapevine the guys were amazed at what 1.5 watts can do with a KHorn. I would opt for a little more power for the Cornwalls to get the added bottom end.

[seti]

Wardsweb,

I want to say thanks for the amazing website you made featuring the build of the S.E.X. I read it all and plan on using it as a reference when I get my bottlehead kit. It really help me understand what was involved before I purchased the kit.

[G.Kennedy]

I have built two Bottlehead kits .... the community over there is top notch, the documentation for the kits is outstanding.

I have a S.E.X. running 6DN7's (2w) and a pair of Paramounts in 300B configuration(8.5w). I have La Scalas in a large 15x30 room with a bunch of furniture.

I built the S.E.X. first .... I could fill the room nicely ... but certainly not rock out.

The Paramounts on the other hand absolutely raise the roof. The S.E.X. is now used mostly as a headphone amp using Senn 600's.

If you read through the Bottlehead site and forum archives.... the vibe is that the Paramounts are a real step up in circuit design.

I say Paramounts in 300B .... you can convert to 2A3 if yo don't use all the power very easily. Maybe build a S.E.X. first as practice ... and keep as a phone amp.

[Daddy Dee]

I think you've gotten pretty good advice here. I ran Paramours with LaScala and Khorn with pleasing results. With CW's, I'd also recommend the 300B.

[bliss53]

What is the link to Wardsweb's sex site?

[seti]

http://wardsweb.org/audio/sexamp.html

[bliss53]

Thanks seti.

[leok]

If you can configure whatever amp you decide upon to a 4 Ohm output, I suggest you give it a try. It provides more current for low impedance regions of the speaker's frequency response and is less likely to peak in the high impedance regions: smoother frequency response and lower distortion.

Leo

[mark1101]

Forum member Paully brought his SEX amp over to my home last year and we used it on my heresys, cornwalls, lascalas, and Khorns. That amp could not get out of its own way. If everyone shut up and sat down and didn't make a sound you could hear that it plays pretty clearly. Otherwise it was useless in every aspect because of its lack of power. My dehumidifier would drown it out. I had to unplug everything that made any noise at all. I could never consider such an amp......but that is just me.