I’ve had this great little amp for about 6 months now and I think I’m ready to start tube rolling.
The problem is I can’t seem to find the specified tubes that fit this amp and worst still I’ve tried pulling the tubes and they don’t come out.
I haven’t tried to pull the tubes out with too much force but I’m afraid to break the amp and as far as looking for tubes I’ve tried looking on Amazon, but I’ve only seen Chinese tubes that the one review on it says are the same as the ones that come with the Loxjie lol and tried tube depot, but they don’t seem to carry it, unless I’m looking for the wrong type (6N3P).
Any help with pulling the tubes and finding different ones would be really helpful thanks in advanced.
Not sure what type of budget you wanna spend but when I had this amp i had two types of tubes I used: GE Jan 5670 and Western Electric 396a. The GE’s gave a more forward midrange and crystal clear highs. The WE’s, while a lot more expensive(if you can find them), are honestly the best tube I’ve ever heard. They have a fantastic low end, forward mids, and clear highs. The GE’s run like $9 a tube and the WE’s used to be $50-100 a set but I recently paid $54 for a single JW model(military spec) so YMMV.
For the tubes getting stuck, I found it good to rock them around in a circle until they unseated themselves or I could get a better grip. They make socket saves that can be had pretty cheap if you plan on rolling tons of sets.
You can just google tube equivalents. The 6N3P is an equivalent to the 5670, 396a, 2c51 and I’m sure there are others. Some tubes can be swapped in using adapters like 6922 and e88cc
I ordered this set today. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J671QV3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
A few good reviews with the Loxjie P20. Very curious to try the Western Electric 396a ‘lol’ mentioned. I only just got this little amp and like it a lot. It compliments the Monolith THX Amp nicely. I have a Topping D70 DAC on the way, bought used from Ebay. Looking forward to trying the amp fully balanced, both input and output.
In your personal, subjective opinion, are the WE 396a tubes worth it for this amp? I see some on ebay range from 60-70 for a used pair to around $120+ for a new-looking pair matched. That’s basically more than I paid for the amp, which I got used for $70. Lol. But I wouldn’t mind buying the tubes if they are worth it.
The tubes themselves are definitely one of the best, if not the best, tube that can go in the P20. I just feel the P20 does not need them, it would be amp limited instead of tube limited. If you can get lucky and find them for ~$50 for a matched set I would pick them up, mainly because you can keep them after the amp if you decide to upgrade to a higher end tube amp. I’ve owned 4 pairs of them and they get even better the better the tube amp that they are put in.
Cool, thanks for the reply. =) I ended up finding a matched pair for $55 on Ebay and went with it. Thanks again for taking the time and answering my question.
That’s a good price. If you sell the P20 keep them if you plan on upgrading to a 6922 based tube amp. I’m currently looking at getting their 403b equivalent for my eddie current ZDT jr
Just ordered 6N3P-DR tubes, but they won’t be here for a few weeks. The stock tubes sound sweet, but they’re not the same height and the plates are wonky. I want to look at something that looks as good as it sounds. Haha
I ended up returning the P20 in the end. I liked it plenty, but I think I’d prefer to go for full on tube, rather than hybrid. The higher quality the tube, the closer it just ended up sounding to a solid state amp, IMO. There were definitely qualities to the stock chinese tubes that were a bit more enjoyable to me. I still have the tubes i bought though, so maybe those will come in handy down the line.
How did the tube rolling end up here? I went with GE JAN-5670W (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T86S6HP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and preffered them to the stock tubes. However, arguably a bigger positive difference came by upgrading the power supply. The stock power brick is a 12V-1.6A unit that is not enough for this amp. With the GE tubes and stock power, this amp would start to distort noticeably in the midrange on my 6XX once the volume got to about -35. The more I pushed the volume, the more it distorted and lost timbre in the midrange. I realize that some level of distortion is the point of tubes, but I’m talking about the mids going from sounding mildly tubey to losing tonality. On Amazon’s site someone had asked if it was safe to upgrade to a higher current power supply and the manufacturer said it was. So I grabbed a 12V-3.0A brick (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NR6FPN9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and what a difference! The midrange on the 6XX is much more “stable” as the volume increased.
So, I highly recommend a tube roll to the GE tubes linked above and upgrading the power cord/brick from the stock. At current prices that makes the P20 more of a $135 amp, but it’s still a great way to get into balanced amplification and slight tubiness for the price. (Currently listenign to Led Zeppelin’s In Through The Outdoor album at ~70dB on my 6XX’s, the volume on the P20 says -20, it just sounds tubey, no excess distortion).
Old thread, I know. But I had to just come in and mention that I never knew about the power supply deficiency for the amp. Had already been pretty pleased with this inexpensive little hybrid with and extra $30 or so for some JAN 5670Ws. Just found an old 12VDC with just 2a out and its already an improvement. The “new” one is LPS, though, so maybe that’s the improvement. Thought other p20 tweakers out there might want to check your junk drawers. Who woulda thunk it. And THANKS!