My question is largely academic and I'm trying to see what other players prefer in general and if there is a significant difference in tone between the two circuits. It makes sense that there would be for several reasons.Alexo wrote:I strongly recommend just setting up a rig that lets you switch between the choke and resistor and seeing which comes closer to what you're looking for.
...personally, I like the sound of a champ with the screen tied to the plate supply as in the 5E1, more cluck and bite...
The big difference (aside from the choke vs. RC supply) is that there are two distinct PT secondary voltages used in these amps; 250-0-250 and 330-0-330. My guess is that the 250VAC PT was used in the earlier 5E1 circuits from '55-'56 and changed to 330VAC for the later 5F1. The plate voltage is definitely going to make a difference in the apparent headroom and certainly the bias voltage. Both Champs use a 470R bias resistor! One of them has to be dissipating over the 12W limit for a 6V6! My thinking is that the change to the 10k dropping resistor for the screen supply on the 5F1 was both to cut out the cost of the choke but also to compensate for the higher plate voltage by giving a good drop to the screen voltage for safety, while leaving the bias resistor the same.