I have tubed rolled with a # of nos tubes in my ph5 currently have seimens in. the phono pre responds to nos tubes more then many tube pre amps. I am using a ZYX airy 3s which I feel is one of the sweet sounding cartridge's
Dennis
Dennis
Audio Research PH5 Cartridge reccomendations
I'm seeking the opinions of others who have the PH5 or, perhaps, other tube phono stages. I recently got a PH5 to mate to my new VTL 6.5. I got it as a barely used demo. Even with lots of warm up, I felt distressed that the sound coming from My Linn LP12 and Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridge was a bit too rolled off and not impressively dynamic at all.Yes, I did do the proper cartridge impedance matching.
After stretching my already stretched budget, I decided to replace the original ARC-supplied 6922 tubes (Sov Tech it seems with a set of NOS Mullard/British made 6922s from the early '60s. Wow! the difference was amazing and non subtle. After a day or two of break-in my phono section has a beautiful warm balance and dynamics up the wazoo.
My question is if anyone else has had a similar experience with tube rolling in the PH5. Also, among my concerns at first was that my Clearaudio cartridge may have been a poor match. With the original tubes, there was way too much gain in the PH5. I thought maybe the cartridge had too much output for that preamp. With the new tubes, the gain seems to be about 20% less and the music really blooms. All comments welcome.
After stretching my already stretched budget, I decided to replace the original ARC-supplied 6922 tubes (Sov Tech it seems with a set of NOS Mullard/British made 6922s from the early '60s. Wow! the difference was amazing and non subtle. After a day or two of break-in my phono section has a beautiful warm balance and dynamics up the wazoo.
My question is if anyone else has had a similar experience with tube rolling in the PH5. Also, among my concerns at first was that my Clearaudio cartridge may have been a poor match. With the original tubes, there was way too much gain in the PH5. I thought maybe the cartridge had too much output for that preamp. With the new tubes, the gain seems to be about 20% less and the music really blooms. All comments welcome.