Nolitan, here's they are:
V1, V2 & V4: NOS Telefunken PCC88 <> bottoms
V3: NOS Siemens PCC88 (branded Telefunken)
I handpicked from my collections and matched them closely by myself. The sonic improvements over stock tubes are stunningly great! |
Dan
Thanks for reply. Are the stock tubes of the 88pb EI ?
I feel they sound quite good already.
On the positioning, V1 & V2 seems like those have to be matched. How about V3 and V4 ?
Thanks again. |
Nolitan
I was told by Tim those are NOS Ei (A-frame)using Philips Holland technology. Without comparison to Telefunken/Siemens, yes they sound quite good already.
Q: V1 & V2 seems like those have to be matched. How about V3 and V4 ?
They run in constant current source circuitry in which left & right channels pass thru each tube simultaneously from V1, V2, V3 then V4(the last one).
Brand may vary in the way we want. I usually put the best matched Telefunken in V1 & V2 (the first two positions) and mix with one Siemens/Philips/Ei in either V3 or V4 to fine-tune the sound I want.
VBR
Dan |
Dan
i see, so NOS Ei... any ideas other than Tim were to source them ?
Yes, they sound pretty good actually.
In what ways does the tele better the stock tubes even just the two front tubes ?
Thanks |
Those NOS Ei(A-frame) were no longer produced. Tim didn't tell me where to source them. Look for Amperex Philips PCC88 (A-frame) you may find they looks very similar.
Q: In what ways does the tele better the stock tubes even just the two front tubes ?
A: I am now using Telefunken in V1, V2 & V4, Siemens in V3. Everything becomes more precise. Good recordings become more authentic. Poor recordings are still full of recording defects. Accuracy in VTF, VTA/SRA, alignment become more significant. Differences between carts becomes more apparent. More important, I feel like sitting in a concert hall when playing some really good stereo recordings(mostly from 60's & 70's).
VBR
Dan |
Thanks Dan- I dont think i would like my phono stage to be really revealing as what you have described.
It becomes too x-ray vision defecting the flaws of the recordings & one system flaws.
Thanks again though! |
Thanks for sharing, Nolitan.
In my system, I do prefer the two transducers(cart and speakers)play the major role in establishing the so-called sonic signature(that's why I may keep buying more carts to "refresh" my system). In this case, turntable, tonearm &, hopefully, phono amp have to be as neutral & revealing as possible.
That's why I am confident when we optimize our LP setup, the carts I gave comment upon will perform very close to my descriptions.
I have my bottom line for so-called "neutrality and revealing"(if there are any actually), that is, at least 70% of my favorite records have to sound ënjoyable, musical, full of emotions and authentic.
Each of us may have his different approach. To me, the audio bug grown by top-end carts always bite me harder...
Dan |
Dan
I understand your situation & I've come across with audiophiles and among friends with similar systems like yours.
And its enjoyable & to their lacking- to each his own.
Personally I would prefer a slightly more forgiving system -allowing one to play not so good LP pressing to very good audiophile type pressings...
Again- this hobby is so changing and evolving...
Thanks !! |
Nolitan, actually I agree with you. OK, to make it clear...I have three separate TT/arm setups and any three of my carts ready to play at all time.
Shelter 901 & Denon DL-103SA is mainly responsible for records with poorer surface conditions. (Both are sturdy and stable on old-worn records)
ZYX Omega-S mainly for less ideal recordings or whenever I want a bit smoothness and sweetness. And it's a little bit forgiving for poor recordings.
MY Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent mainly for the best recordings with the best surface conditions. If "set up & step up properly"(it seems not that easy for all inmates, though), the cart & phono combo is just the most "musically authentic" one(comparing to live performance, of course) I have ever heard. IMHO, MY Sonic Lab (including its OEM products for Air Tight)deserves vinylists' serious attention!
This's how I achieve what I want the presentations. Again it's a different approach...;)
Dan |
DAN,
If budget allows, that is a very ideal approach. that way you got the situation covered as the vinyl presses of past and present are very different and different carts reacts differently to each different pressings.
Cool set-up! |
Hi all, I recently acquired an EAR 324 myself, and think it sounds very fine, musically speaking. (My previous phonostage was a PSA GCPH -- obviously not in the same league price-wise, but I insist on mono and polarity switches in addition to externally adjustable loading and balanced output, so my choices are extremely limited.)
However, there is a disappointing level of hum when in MC mode (i.e., when the internal step-up transformers are engaged). It's not bothersome at the lowest-gain "40 ohm" transformer ratio, or at moderate listening volumes in general. But at the "15 ohm" and "4 ohm" high-gain settings, although it never interferes with the music, at higher listening volumes it does interfere with the silences.
This is a problem I've never had with my previous phonostages, or with the outboard Bob's CineMag SUT that I auditioned for a while with the GCPH. The hum vanishes when the 324 is in MM mode, with preamp volume increased to compensate for the lower gain. So I'm thinking the hum may be inherent to the 324's internal SUTs. I've tried many combinations of cords and cables, power conditioning or not, ground lift, different cartridges, sources other than my regular turntable, even installed it in my bedroom system as a double check (where it was less audible, due to its not being a full-range system), but can't make the hum drop to an acceptable residual level unless I insert shorting plugs into the MC inputs -- obviously not representative of normal operating conditions.
Any comments or questions would be welcome... |
i did have the opportunity to listen to the 324s with and without a SUT.I cant hear any hum. Its one of the very quiet phono stage i have heard.
There might be some other problem lying around in the chain. |
I used to have the EAR 324. I would not say that the 324 is very quiet. It is somehow quiet, but it is not very quiet. When the 324 was in my system, I could hear some hum if I turned the volume all they way up, without music of course. There was no hum with the volume dial set to normal listening levels, but I didn't feel comfortable with it. I do not hear anything with the volume all the way up from either the Benchmark DAC or the Einstein phono preamp.
The 324 seems to add some distortion, which is easily perceived from the mid-range and up. This distortion helps the bass notes have some more texture though. I think the 324 kind of distortion is what helps this unit to sound real, so it should not be read as negative.
I would certainly not call the 324 sound "tube-like", unless we're talking about 1990's tube units. IMO, today's tube units neither sound like tubes or solid state, they just sound right and free of distortion. Of course, what sounds right to me be not sound like that to others.
Having said that, I'm very happy with the Einstein phono preamp. In my system, it is definitively dead quiet with more dynamic contrast than the 324. It does take quite a while for the Einstein the break in, but once it does it totally gets out of the say to the point you no longer think there is phono preamp in the chain.
I would also add that the 324 would be more system-dependent than the Einstein because of its unique sonic signature.
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Hi Isanchez, thanks for your input. Your experience with hum sounds similar to mine.
I think this finding of hum could be somewhat system-dependent. Not that the 324 only has hum in certain systems (although it's possible that certain 324's have more noticeable hum than others, and cartridge output level will definitely play a part in what is heard at typical listening volumes). But I suspect that perhaps the hum can be more noticeable in higher-powered, multi-way, full-range system contexts than it might in some lower-powered systems using smaller 2-ways or single-driver speakers (dynamic or electrostatic). At least this is what I took from trying my 324 in my single-driver bedroom system: the hum didn't disappear -- in fact I doubt it even diminished. But it became much less noticeable, both because that system isn't as highly resolving or extended at the frequency extremes, and can't be played anywhere near as loud.
About your impression that the 324 adds some benign distortion, I haven't heard this as such. I do find that using the output transformer gain-attenuation switch set to -6dB or -12dB can usefully tweak the harmonic flavor, in the fatness vs. tautness of the bass, tonality of the mids and sharpness of the treble, dependent on choice of cart, which step-up tap is selected, and in combination with the partnering preamp. Noticing this made me wonder that the output transformer ratio setting could likely have an effect on output impedance (and possibly even somewhat on the reflected MC input impedance?).
I haven't heard the Einstein, but I suppose your take that the 324 sounds more like legacy tube gear could have something to do with the amount of coils and iron used in the 324: input and output transformers, with inductors in both the power supply and the amplifier circuit. The 324 does not sound rolled off at the frequency extremes to me or anything like that, but unsurprisingly it does sound most transparent and neutral when used in MM mode, skipping the step-up transformers, though not as forceful or dynamic with my medium-output MC cart. |
>>>I used to have the EAR 324. I would not say that the 324 is very quiet. It is somehow quiet, but it is not very quiet. When the 324 was in my system, I could hear some hum if I turned the volume all they way up, without music of course. There was no hum with the volume dial set to normal listening levels, but I didn't feel comfortable with it. <<<
>>>The 324 does not sound rolled off at the frequency extremes to me or anything like that, but unsurprisingly it does sound most transparent and neutral when used in MM mode, skipping the step-up transformers...<<<
Isanchez & Zaikesman, thanks for sharing. My experience with 324 was consistent with your above comments.
Best regards
Dan |
I perceived the sound of the 324 as being taut throughout, but with some added noise and distortion. This tautness plus noise/distortion can also be present in live music that's neither played with good quality instruments nor in an uncontrolled acoustic environment.
I have a tendency (good or bad) of associating this kind of harmonic distortion to certain kind of music performances. I personally like the sound taut and clean, which is why I don't enjoy performances at bars or other places where the space was not originally conceived for playing music.
In the end, the 324 is enjoyable for certain time, but after a while in can be fatiguing (at least to my ears).
It is unfortunate that I never tried the MM section of the 324 since it seems to be the better designed half of this unit. I even purchased the Nagaoka MP-50, but I sold the 324 before trying this cart with it.
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The 324's MM facility would certainly seem to have more attention lavished on it than is usually the case with high priced MC-capable phonoamps. This leaves me the possibility of trying a good MM or MI cart, or using an outboard SUT -- disappointing as that may seem after purchasing the 324 with its onboard SUTs. (But if it sounds better...)
As far as characterizing the overall sound goes, given the inevitable big differences among partnering carts and turtable setups, other than saying that, hum aside, this is far and away the most accomplished phonostage I've personally owned (but that's not many), I'll just restrict my comments to the particular issue I'm having with it. Fortunately, my current medium-output MC cart normally works best at the lowest-gain "40 ohm" tap setting, where the hum isn't really a problem in practical terms. But it does rankle me not to be able to utilize the lower-impedance taps if I want without the hum increasing, and I'm reluctant to make archival recordings knowing the hum is there and audible during silences and between cuts if you crank it up.
I'm going to contact Dan Meinwald and see what he has to say, but if the problem does lie in the step-up transformers themselves, or their proximity to the 324's power supply, I don't imagine anything could really be done to fix this. Interestingly, I dug out the 2004 Art Dudley Stereophile review, and although the reviewer doesn't mention anything about hum, in his measurements section John Atkinson does mention a degree of 120Hz hum he couldn't eliminate by playing with the grounding. Furthermore, with the MC step-up taps at their lowest-gain "40 ohm" setting (the only one of the three MC-loading settings he reports on regarding noise), he measured about twice the drop-off in S/N ratio between A-weighted and unweighted figures for MC mode as he found in MM mode -- a differential (of around 6dB) I'm assuming has got to be mostly due to a corresponding increase of LF hum in MC mode, and that might well have worsened if he'd also taken S/N measurements at the "15 ohm" and "4 ohm" tap settings. |
Having own the 324 nearly a year now, I cannot detect any hum in my system unless of course if you place your eyes at the speaker tweeters. And it is hardly audible. It's even quieter than my Pass Xono.
I would love to try out the Einstein one day. |
Hi Shoshis, assuming you're listening to MC mode in the "15 ohm" or "4 ohm" positions through a full-range system, then that sounds like you've probably got a quiet unit there, but I'll add that the hum, if you had any, wouldn't be most apparent through the tweeters -- that's primarily the random noisefloor, which is also quite low in my unit. The LF hum I have however can be very clearly detected, not only audibly, but by placing a fingertip on a woofer cone, where as a defined sinusoidal hum it feels very different from the lower random noisefloor shown in MM mode.
BTW, I noticed in Atkinson's comments in Stereophile he mentioned that he "did not find any interaction between the phono inputs". This doesn't seem to be the case with my unit however -- with a signal present at Input 1 and Input 2 unconnected, I can nevertheless hear the music faintly through the speakers when Input 2 is selected on the front panel. Conversely, when listening to Input 1 with MM mode selected at the rear panel, I can still hear some mild frequency response modification when changing SUT impedance taps at the front panel -- which correlates with the fact that the rotary-control switching transients can also still be heard, so clearly the SUTs aren't totally removed from the circuit by the rear-panel switch.
Also, when I turn my 324 off, after a slight delay I get a dying-quail high-frequency tone though the loudspeakers that lasts for a second or two, at a volume high enough that, if I don't mute or turn down my preamp first, would give me cause for concern for my tweeters. Anybody else notice this? |
I really have to place my ears next to the tweeter of my Thiel 3.7 to detect anything other than dead silence. That said, my First Sound preamp is as dead quiet as well.
To sidetrack a little, does the Ear 324 use a fuse in the unit? |
The EAR 324 and **PB sound completely different from one another. The 324 is leaner and more detailed. The 88PB is richer with much stronger bass. |
