Don Sachs Owners Thread

Here is the note that came with mine, from Don:

"The left side pair is the main tube with all the gain, and the pair in the middle of the deck are the buffers, which are unity gain. Front tube in each pair is left ch, and rear tube is right channel. Just think right = rear." 

Hi Andy, left right. Disagreements on tubes are to be expected. Two Ken Rads, Raytheons, etc. from the same batch may sound different as most were largely man made. Worse, Mr. X has amp A, while Mr. Z has amp B. Hot tubes offset crap coupling caps in amp X, but sound horrid in a system with a neutral amp. Same for speakers, sources, etc. Then there are hearing issues. An acquaintance of mine has very damaged high frequency hearing. He loves a Japanese girl band that would send most people running with their shrill music, he loves them. There are too many variables to know that if you buy musical heaven shall be reached. If you have a Schitt Yggdrasil, a very decent midfi DAC, some, a very few, songs may make your ears bleed if the rest of the system is neutral. Some might blame a certain tube in that system because the prior tube had slightly muted highs, and certainly it isn't the Yggdrasil, though it actually is.... People love 2CE Vandersteens, they sound like my speakers with a several layer blanket over them. To them my speakers are hot, and they don't really do much above 15KHz, virtually nothing goes that high unless you do electronic music, yet a Yggdrasil playing Kokomo can drive you nuts with them, or the Thiel CS7's, or B&W 801Ms that preceeded them. So, look for general information and don't necessarily expect even that to apply in your system. The 1964 and before Soviet tubes, by far, sound better in my system, but I have a highly modified Lampizator, a Levinson 27.5, and no crossover to dumb down the music. Oh, my DS2 has the VHAudio caps Don uses bypassed by Chris' best Teflon V-Caps in addition to the great V-Caps Don uses for more accurate highs. The coupling caps in the Lampizator are also double bypassed with CuFT's and the ODAM V-Caps. I love Chris' wire as well as his caps. Anyway, my system is as neutral as I could get it. Still, if you had my system, you may still prefer different tubes than I prefer. Personal biases, like taste in music, is going to vary.

Thanks for this, so next question... which side are the power tubes and which side are the buffer tubes?

I have a pretty extensive collection of matched pairs of 6SN7's due to having been a Schiit Freya owner.

There have been different configurations, but I believe that the buffers are on the right.

There have been different configurations, but I believe that the buffers are on the right.