Constant noisy tubes maybe go solid state?

@decooney  2 emails and 2 voicemail. 
It’s fine. Things are running and I’ll be moving on the QS next year anyway. 

Personally speaking, even after visiting a high end dealer listening to $50k  to $100k speakers (Wilson) run by ARC or Naim gear, I think my system sounds better than it has any right to considering it’s all mid-fi stuff.

@rodman99999  I will try that after thanksgiving. We have many turkeys to buy this year.

@yogiboy  well it’s not anything to make people gasp. But it makes me happy when I actually get to spin a few sides. No piece over $1700 other than the speakers which I did get 1/3 off. So still a good deal. Looking forward to upgrading my phono stage (Lounge LCR MKIII) to takes things up a notch. 

@jackd  I will definitely look to the W4S preamp. Semi OT, but have you any experience with their phono stage?

@yogiboy 

The ones with solid disc getters?

@yogiboy  are you still using a QS phono stage?

@millercarbon thanks I will look into the JJ’s. I believe the QS came with them and while they did sound good overall they seemed to have a bump in the midrange that my speakers also seem to have. Might be too much but will look.

@noromance  thanks I’ll look
At upscale. Are there certain places that check these things rather than just machines? Is Upscale your go-to?

@jperry  Brent Jesse, VivaTubes and Tubemonger. The first tubes I rolled in were front Brent Jesse, the now dead set of RCA’s and a set of Phillips 7062 which is all I have that don’t make me want to commit murder. 
Viva took their tubes back and tubemonger blamed it on me so they can sit and spin.

brent is helping me now but this is so maddening. I get like 3 hours on Saturday to relax and spin a few records and this is where I’m at.

I’m sending one tube back to him. He will make it right no doubt.  The nice thing about the Philips is that it rolls a little top
end off so there’s less hiss hahaha (my speakers are 99db). I do like the aphillips but the RCA are still my faves. I’m looking into others mentioned in this thread as well.

@jjss49  the Phillips in there now are completely quiet. I would add the QS and the Odyssey Candela tube preamp have nearly identical specs according to the website. @yogiboy  and testimonials from others persuaded me to go QS over Odyssey. The gain is very hot and I did ask Mike if it could be knocked down and he said his design is not to be messed with. I didn’t press it further. While I like the QS pre, the Sachs SP14 has adjustable gain and asks for input of the amp it will be mated to so I fee like if I go that route at 2x the money then it should match better. I tried attenuators but feel like they quell dynamics a touch (could be placebo). I have a Schiit Sys and pondered putting it between the QS and Odyssey to pull the gain down.

The RCA’s front Brent a year or so ago were also perfect and run daily since then. The Brimars (Tubemonger) we’re noisy out of the gate. I may put them back in after reading that sometimes 100 hours can remedy noise. The replacement RCA. From Viva were awful from the start. The newest RCA from Brent has 1 tube that’s fine and the other sounds like a 1000ft wave is going to crash through the wall and sweep me out to sea. It drowns out the music. 
Maybe bad luck? Brent has been very good, Viva took theirs back no questions asked and like I said before, I’ll never do business with Tubemonger again. I sent Brent a video clip (was trying to upload to paste a link here but I guess they are having issues). 
I often criticize people who gripe about the Care and effort that vinyl requires so now I’m wondering if I’m not cut out for tube gear. Especially as I’m looking to
order a PH16 (Don Sachs) to replace my Lounge phono.

@sounds_real_audio  already asked him about it. He said his design is good and not to mess with it. I may add my Schiit Sys in between the QS and the Odyssey to pull gain down and quell the start up POP when the QS comes on (Odyssey recommends leaving the amplifier on 24/7). Not sure if the SYS will be any better than putting rothwell attenuators in after the QS which I have done and seemed to reduce the hiss but also the dynamics a little
bit.

As far as the QS is concerned, my
previous was a Schiit SYS. So while I think the QS sounds good I don’t have any frame of reference. The high gain of the Odyssey made the Sys seem logical (though it was a stop gap). The SYS. Worked well and sounded fine. In the Odyssey forums it seems most pair with tube preamps and I wanted to get into tubes (the QS is my first piece of tube gear) so I guess I’ve been lucky until now. I would like to make my next purchase a tube phono stage and maybe even add a tube amplifier as an alternate. But maybe I’m not ready or have enough electronics knowledge.
I suffer from anxiety while also working 1 full time and 2 part time jobs. So when I can’t just take a couple hours and spin a few sides I get nuts. I’ve been lucky up to this point so I’ve leaned a lot. 
As an aside, anyone who upgraded from Quicksilver line stage I’d be curious as to what you upgraded to. 

@tvad  I had a Freya + Vidar combo and was super not impressed. The Freya was untouchably hot and the tubes included were junk. I tried to make it all work but ultimately sent it all back. Seems like they have gotten it figured out but but I don’t know. As stated earlier I am strongly considering a Don Sachs PH14 but that wouldn’t be until end of next year at the soonest.
As for the QS, I didn’t really know about gain until I got it so my ignorance is my fault. Like I said though it specs out almost exactly the same as the Candela which was the original goal. Sometimes I think I made a mistake, but then I’m using a high gain amp with high sensitivity speakers (speakers were not what I originally was going to get but o feel I made the right choice with what I have).

@jjss49  I’ve heard that about Don. Mike is the same way. If I were to add a tubed power amp it would probably be one of Don’s although Mike’s are also highly regarded.

@yogiboy  I reached out to Mike to verify I can run a lower power tube. Hopefully gear back soon.

@tvad I’ve looked at the MZ2 but I need 2 sets of outputs. The MZ3 is about triple so it’s not in reach. Plus both have speaker jacks, headphone jacks and junk I dont need Inflating the price.
If I move on from the QS, $2k would be my budget. Which is a bummer. Overall I like the sound, wish I could crank down the gain. As a stop gap I resuscitated the Schiit SYS from my closet and looped it in between the QS and Odyssey. I gave the volume knob a light twist counter clockwise to bring the gain down. And now when we power down the QS we click off the subs and select unused inputs on the SYS, now no sound happens when powering up the QS.

@noromance  I swear I read they may not be interchangeable due to plate voltages and heaters and what not.

I’ll definitely roll in some AU7’s and SY7’s then. See where I end up.

@yogiboy  I saw a post of you saying how good the WS phono is and I remember thinking “why 47db for mm?” I guess if I can drop down the gain via tubes I should reconsider it.

@oldhvymec the Schiit silenced the BOOM when the preamp comes off mute on startup. Also reduced gain.

as for breathing fields, I live in the center of the 5th largest city in the country. So no...

@invalid I wish Mike from Quicksilver would have replied to me. I’d be really curious to know if I could swap in 12AU7 or AY7 to lower the gain. I’d have some in the mail already.

oh well.

@rodman99999  you are correct. The speakers I ended up with were not what I was originally aiming for. So yes the high  gain amp and high sensitivity speakers are a mismatch. Add in high gain preamp and here we are. 
But that said I’m very happy with the sound. I’ve had people over who came to hear “a car wreck of a system” and were impressed by it. 
It shouldn’t sound as good as it does for what it is but yet it does. 
Originally, 4 years ago when I started I was looking at Odyssey Liquids, used Pulsars and Cantons. I heard Heresy IV’s on an all Pass slabs system and that was it. 

@yogiboy the purpose of the thread was bad tubes. Gain is a design issue. For now good tubes are the answer until I can search more into other varieties.

@aj523 the newest pair I got the noise was so bad the neighbors can hear it. Its not subtle. I thought speakers were going to blow. Volume position makes no difference.
I sent the bad tube to Brent Jessee, along with a return paid label to ship back on my dime. In the meantime I swallowed it and ordered a set of "Kevin’s stash" Mullard 6201. More than I wanted to spen but f*ck it. We will see what we will see (or hear) I guess.

@jackd  agreed. I have a Schiit SYS now in the chain between the QS and the Odyssey. A slight drop on the SYS’ volume knob helps as well as switching the input at startup. Not sexy but it works.

As for attenuators, I have a pair of 12db one (I forget the brand but not Rothwell) and I’ll dig those out and try them again. I did use them briefly after getting these speakers and felt they degraded the sound but I’ll try them again. 
Thanks

@yogiboy  Upscale suggested it. It’ll be high gain obviously but I’ll give it a shot. I’ll also look into AY and AU as well. Spent more than I planned but it’ll be a test to see how good the betting is I suppose.

@decooney  with my mostly quiet but slightly microphonic Phillips tubes in its mostly back to business. 

Called quicksilver and no one answered. Left message again. The replacement tube from Brent Jessee showed up though so we are back in business. Interestingly enough, the slight gain reduction from the Sys is as good on the RCA’s as it was in the Philips. So it’s a momentary fix. The Millard will be here Friday so that will be fun. I have a few preorders that finally showed up after months of delay. 

@leemaze I had that issue too when the RCA's were on their last legs. Intermittent super high pitch whine. Seems to come on more often the longer they were burning in a single session. Might be tubes going bad.

@slaw  mentioned up thread. Emails and voicemails unreturned. Sh*t service.

@donvito I researched the hell out of it. You should read a thread before commenting in it. Go ahead and search. Let me know what you come up with: TLDR zero.

never said anything was wrong with it and in the original post I noted that I realized about the gain. 

@leemazei got Mullards and they are, after 60 or so hours now making noise. I’m going to try to return them to upscale and switch back to the RCA’s.
Unless this is somehow electrical
noise then this preamp is a tube destroyer, although I went a year with the same set and had no issues. Go figure.
Pretty fed up. All I want to do is play music, not spend and-into fortunes shipping tubes.

Went and threw on the 12db attenuators I had and now everything is dead silent. All the tube noise I have been getting (which didn’t get louder with the volume pot) now gone below the threshold of the attenuators. I’m pondering snagging a 6db pair just to see what that does.

So by this, if I theoretically could lower the gain of the QS to say <8 FB gain then I should have no issues. Right? Or is it non linear and I’m over simplifying?

@jackd  yeah the original speakers I was looking at were 90db I think. That went out the window when I heard the Klipsch Heresy. It’s a terrible mismatch (lol). 

@jackd  I’m so overloaded right now that I’m just leaving it so I can have a few minutes of peace and gear music. But to your point part of me agrees and part of me is disappointed that I’m selling this piece of gear short by using them. 
I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Early next year I’m hoping to replace my trusty Lounge phono with something better but that brings me to tunes again. Or maybe dump the QS and go solid state and save the new phono for 2022. 
Just trying to survive the world right now

@leemaze The Mullards from Upscale were quiet after I put the attenuators on. I have so much gain in my system that I really don't know what anything means anymore other than the first set of RCA's I got early last year must have been perfect because they were 100% noise free without any attenuation.
So for now I'm just going to try to acquire the next piece which is a phono stage and although I'd like to go tube, I'm admittedly hesitant.
What is you set up?

@rodman99999 I got the Aperex from him originally and they were really good. Still quiet though getting microphonic now. I like their sound but wish they had the Mullard’s top end. For whatever reason the Amperex seem to have like an extra 1/2 octave of lower bass than any of the tubes I have heard (which isn’t many).
I will look  into the 6211

So for the first time in months I had several hours to spin this weekend. Relaxing is so rare.
Anyway, I was in evaluation mode for a lot of the time and it seems to me that with either the RCA’s or the expensive Mullards the sound is very solid state sounding. I guess. I have a little Class A preamp I got on eBay and I will hook that up and compare them. I guess I feel like its better to have solid state that sounds solid state vs tubes that sound solid state. That said, I was listening to see what I would want to change overall and really, for all my bitching, my system sounds better than it should I think.
So question: I slightly prefer these https://upscaleaudio.com/collections/preamp-tubes/products/mullard-6201-vintage-british-new-old-stoc...over the RCA’s from Brent Jessee. A little more relaxed but still forward, but I absolutely love the bass I get from a pair of Amperex 7062, its like bottomless.
So is there a tube with the overall sound of the 6201 but with the low end of the 7062? I essentially want a touch more overall body and "tonal saturation"and some of that bass magic from the Amperex (or maybe the mullard highs for the 7062 which is a touch rolled off).

@bluorion I think I lucked out off the bat with zero noise tubes running in my crazy high gain system. Clearly an aberration.

im debating throwing down on AVA’s Vision SLR (solid state) preamp and seeing what the difference is. 
Upscale sent a follow up email and said my system as it sat (no attenuators) would have some noise.  That I didn’t have any off the bat was luck. Which is the conclusion I had already come to. I still may go with a 6db pair and see how much noise comes though. The 13db pair in now makes the system dead quiet.

im curious to know, just for my knowledge, if an 18db gain preamp with a 12db attenuators makes it a 6db gain preamp or if it’s non linear or there’s other electrical things at play.