Don Sachs Owners Thread

I have 2 outputs of different levels. The Mytek output which I prefer is rated higher for a broader range of amps and is for >30k amps. The Mundorf Silver cap output is for SS amps around 10k. My DAC Cherry 2 is 20k. Either output has the same hiss and it does not matter if the gains for each channel are at zero or pegged. Still the same.

Anyway, the Miflex caps sound wayyyy better so I am going to stay with that.

I also changed out some tubes today. Good sound, same hiss. But again, it is putting your ear at 12 to 15 inches away at idle. Not something you can detect at the chair and certainly out of the scene during playback.

I may pick up a SS pre just for experimentation. I'm not excited about trying to find another amp. I am intrigued by Atma Sphere or Arion Class D's however.

Keep in mind the ground tab on the preamp is the same as the ground on your IEC inlet and all the outer shells of every audio connector on the unit. Essentially they are all chassis ground and the electrical ground. So be careful to not create a ground loop from the IEC inlet back out to some other ground point on the electrical grid of your house.

I have my ground tab to a dead-ended EMI absorber (DIY) which is basically a galvanic (opposite a battery) cell. I have photos in another thread here somewhere. I don't really hear any benefit. My money was better spent on the purple fuse and the 2 ADD-Power Wizards.

I did not buy it from Don. Since I can solder he told me what to buy from VH Audio and I did that.

My Linlai's are very noisy so I cannot use them. They are noisy at my seat and noisier than the music! That was a wasted purchase.

I only bought 2 tubes for the left sockets. Of course, no time on these, but out of the box they are not better than the shunguang Treasures CV181-Z's to me. I'll switch back to those tonight as I expect my Stealth Indra's to show today.

Okay. The music is sensational. I just want to have a blacker background. I've read elsewhere that the low level hiss is normal for the Wilsons but with my Pass pre I had almost no hiss. Probably half as much.

Question for D2 owners; do you have tube rush at zero throttle? My Wilson's aren't overly sensitive at 91 db and the amp is a Cherry 2. I enjoy the sound but what keeps coming back to me is the Pass XP12 was almost dead quiet as a solid state unit. It wasn't nearly as musical as the tube set I have in the Sachs.

I'm going to try cleaning my tube pins and pulling out some tube dampers to try and see if they help. This is 15 inches from the tweeter, a small hisssss.

I reduced the hiss to 6 inches or less when I replaced the rectifier tube. Don has also informed me of new caps to put into the outputs which are on order. They should be even smoother and perhaps a little quieter.

I also have ordered the Linlai tubes. I just out in some 'treasures' tubes and they are nice versus the Shunguang I had in there.

Tubes pulled out, and they may have many hours on them:

Psvane CV181-T's on the left-most sockets

Sylvania 6SN7GTB's in the middles sockets

Philco 6BY5 rectifier

The tubes I had in my stores placed into service:

shunguang Treasures CV181-Z's

Full Music 6SN7's

Raytheon 6BY5GA rectifier

Much quieter and as much, slightly more, musical than the replaced.

I have a new solid state amp and some new IC's to try as well. This set of tubes is really sweet sounding, but I also have new Lin Lai's that just arrived yesterday.

The Coda 8 amplifier is fantastic, but it is slightly hissier than the Cherry. This amp is probably the best of the 30+ amps I have tried in the last 13 years.

Cables I usually run are Silnote Morpheus 3's in balanced config. In reserve I have a Jade and a Gabriel Gold. New to me I have a Silent Source, Acoustic Zen Silver Reference, and coming soon a Stealth Metacarbon. So far the SS is fantastic. I have high hopes for the Metacarbon.

More updates. Don emailed me about a change to the output caps he had made after the production of my unit. It took 5 weeks to get the caps from Chris as he was away on vacation. They are VH Audio V-Caps ODAM 400VDC 1.5 uf - Matched 1% pairs. These replace the Mundorfs which were fairly meek in their performance compared to the Miflex (Dueland clones) on the other output set.

I installed them yesterday and right from the jump they sound fantastic. As good as the Miflex and with time we'll see how they flesh out.

I also have a set of Stealth Indra's showing tomorrow. I had a pair a year ago and was sorry I let them go. I am not sure if they will recreate the magic they once brought and in the pre to amp slot I will have to see what cables in the DAC to pre slot mate best.  Right now I have the Silent Source there and the MetaCarbons going to the amp. 

I preferred the Gabriel Golds to the Silent Source there but the Meta's were the best of the bunch. I've pushed the Acoustic Zens to the sell pile and may keep the Jade Moontails in the rotation pile. We'll see if a full Stealth chain will be the ticket.

I tend to changes things in 3's and not one at a time. So between the Coda, Cables, and now caps I am headed to higher levels of performance and cause myself more complex thinking by changing multiple items at once.

I constantly think about upgrading my Wilson's to newer designs but every time I make these kinds of changes they keep wringing out more performance from the system. I guess that's  good thing!

The Wells is nice and quiet but more laid back and not aggressive in any way. It does not "take control" like my present Coda does. Wells is well-built and very elegant.

Here are the Mundorfs I removed:

Here are the physically smaller ODAM’s installed in the spaces previously occupied by the Mundorfs:

I threw out this question on the Linlai thread. Has anyone tried the non-Elite versions? I ordered set anyways to "have". 😎

Jumping the shark to a new topic, I did add a Purple fuse in the spring and it made a very nice improvement. Even more so when I added the contact treatment from High Fidelity.

I keep squeezing this preamp and it keeps giving me more. 

Forgot to mention; running a 5852 tube is okay IF you have the proper resistor in place. My PCB has the old 1 ohm resistor and that is too high for the higher current 5852. You need a .1 to .22 ohm, 1 or 2 watt to be able to run both 6X5 and 5852 tubes.

I may have damaged my 1 ohm with the 5852 so I am replacing it this week. That resistor protects the transformer and rectifier per Don.

I plan ahead in case of an oops or if I want to stagger, or...

I did replace my rectifier resistor tonight. The previous one was, in fact, blown, and open. The new resistor is a 0.22 ohm.

It does not make noisy tubes quieter btw.

It uses a one amp slow blow or 2 amp fast blow. Does not pull much.  FYI, the most I ever measured a total system draw at full tilt Class A amps as well for ALL components was under 5 amps. SOmetimes components make a large draw on turn-on, but once running you would be surprised how little current you are running.