[Frihed91]

The sweep tubes he uses for output tubes have narrow pins (a noval base), but he shipped mine with pin sockets that are close to noval, but wider, not exactly noval.  He had bent the pins on the tubes before-hand to get a tighter fit.  But mine has static coming from the right channel and efforts to fix it over the phone have not succeeded.

Does this sound familiar?  I suspect the problem is that the tubes are not making a good connection with the metal collars in the sockets, because of the mismatch between the tube bases and the socket type.  If you faced this problem, what was the real problem and how did the two of you fix it?  Email me if you want.

In the times when the static clears, the amp sounds great.  I just want to get this problem fixed and enjoy the music.

[Frihed91]

The ongoing saga of the pins.  The sockets are Noval.  They should have been Novar.  I have already broken two tubes trying to fix this - one broke when I broke a pin off trying to follow Peter's direction.  The other burnt up when it failed to make good contacts.  Peter is sending some sleeves to put around the pins. A local tech will install and rewire the right sockets (that i got from Jim McShane) and says it will take at least 4 hours at 650 DKK per hour ($100), but Peter does not want me to do that as he says it could ruin the amp.  However, it would cost that much to ship it back and forth to Canada. 
Has anyone looked inside one of his PP amps?  And compared it, say, to a Quicksilver or other small shop?

Also, this amp is super sensitive.  I have had to attenuate the gain.  I use it with a new PL-12 preamp of his and a Single Power MPX-3 Slam SE as preamps.  I had heard that his preamps are meant to sound pretty good, but after a few hours of comparisons, I far prefer the Single Power because it has a range of different "voices", that actually do sound differently through the PP-130.  The sound using KenRad VT-231s as preamp output tubes is very different from that using, say, the RCA VT-231s as preamp outputs.  It is also a lot smoother and has a lower noise floor, no ground loop hum, and is dual mono.  The PL-12 sounded quite good with the PP-150.  The Single Power makes it sound even better.

Anyone get any other ideas about how to get this pin problem resolved?

The amp does sound fabulous! 

I have had a couple of other minor problems - loose RCA connectors, case bolts installed improperly, bent balance knob, ground loop hum, crooked transformer covers, etc., and i am working my way through them.  There seem to be a few more of these than i would have expected.

But I really don't care what it looks like, just how it sounds.  And, like i said, the amp sounds simply fabulous.  I can see why he raised his prices.