The bias meters also show what happens when the amp is at full power by dropping to
a lower figure. For example, when the amplifier is at it’s maximum clean power (just
before clipping) you will see the meters move in response to the music. They will
dance between the bias point and 1/2 the bias point which is typically between 40 mills
and 20 mills. It’s a nice visual indicator that lets you know if your amp is clipping.
Decware amplifiers clip so gracefully it can be sometimes hard to notice when you
have it turned up too loud. Seeing the meters plunge down below 20 mills is a certain
indication that your amp is clipping or near clipping.
Bias meters set up like this can also tell you at a glance if a tube has shorted or failed
unexpectedly by suddenly reading abnormally high or low on one channel relative to
the other channel. They can also reveal faults in a tube that may not show up until
several minutes or hours after the amp has warmed up. In this case you would notice
one channel consistently clips sooner than the other. This condition can not be
discovered by the vast majority of tube testers, as the faulty tube will test perfectly fine,
so the meters are the only way to discover this problem - which of course you would
also hear - but if you ONLY heard it and did not have the meters, you would have no
idea what is causing the problem.
CLIPPING
With 6N1P input tubes and a standard 2 volt souce such as a CD player, the volume
control can typically reach 2/3rds before the amp runs out of steam (clips). With a
6N2P the volume control will typically reach 1/2 way up before clipping. Of course if
you have a source with higher than 2 volts of output, the SE34I.3 will clip sooner.
SPEAKER BINDING POSTS
The SE34I.3 features heavy duty (almost bomb-proof) connectors for the speaker
wires. They are the standard 5-way posts with standard spacing. They accept banana
jacks, large spades, or bare wire up to 10 AWG in thickness. The are color coded with
a RED and BLACK base. Black is the NEGATIVE speaker connection and RED is the
positive speaker connection. In this amplifier (like most) the two black speaker jacks
are connected together and tied to ground.
BRIDGING INTO MONO
You can bridge both channels into one by simply connecting the two positive speaker
binding posts together. The negative posts are already connected together internally.
O W N E R S M A N U A L
Decware High Fidelity Engineering Co., East Peoria IL, USA www.decware.com
