Use them all the time and like them very much . They were better than the JAN Philips and Tesla's that I tried. They seeemed to be very consistant and reliable . But I haven't done a lot of tube rolling. |
I can't imagine why the gold pin would sound any better, if you do have to slots that are know to be the most influential on the sound, that might very well be a good place to paly with some NOS, I would recommend Amperex 6dj8, 6922, or 7308s (I think that is the right number). |
The same tube is always going to sound different in a different circuit. It depends on how that tube is implemented within the piece of gear.
I had the EH tubes sound great in a phono stage, but horrible in a DAC.
The best sounding "new production" 6922 tubes that I have tried are the JJ Tesla. These still aren't as good as what a NOS tube can do. |
In my amps/pres the JJ were the best sounding Current Production as well. |
What preamp? If it's the least be "hard" on the tubes, the JJ's will be a nightmare. I will agree that they are the best sounding current production, but they have a horrible failure rate if pushed in the slightest.
The EH 6922's are my current production tube of choice in my Bottlehead phono preamp although I prefer some NOS Tesla's from the 70's with some cartriges. |
Has anyone compared the EH to Sovtek 6922s? i will need to be replacing the 8 6922s in my phonostage at some point, and dont want to go the NOS route. |
I used the JJs in the Ars Sonum integrated where they present no reliability problems. If driving tubes hard is a problem, I would try the Russian 6H23s sold by Upscale Audio, they were recommended for the AI 3A and older CAT preamps which have a reputation for being hard on tubes (don't if that reputation is deserved or not). |
Tom, FWIW I just finished playing with some EH's and Sovteks in my ARC SP10II as well as EH's and Sovteks in two different CDP's. Bottom line - IMHO of course - the Sovteks are more linear than the EH's but have no added warmth. The EH's can sound pretty good if you need some added sparkle and some more bass in an otherwise warmish system.
My re-introduction of my SP10II into my system caused me to change out the EH's from the Raysonic for a warmer tube, a Tesla 6922. And removal of Tesla's from a BAT DK5 and insertion of Sovteks as they were too warm. Two considerations must be made in valuing these comments. Both the ARC and the BAT use(d) Sovteks as OEM. The Raysonic used EH's.
Most folks don't care for the Sovteks that much, and if you don't need their 'ruggedness' as I do in my SP10, they will usually look for some good NOS Seimans or Tele's for clarity, linearity, and tone, or Amperex's if you want some warmth. But they are expensive and not easy to find.
Hope that helps a bit. |
Thanks Newbee, From your description, think I will stick with the sovteks in my BAT phonostage. |
I currently use the std EH 6922's in My Audio Research CA50 where they replaced the original Soveteks. To my ear they are slightly warmer than the Soveteks and still have the rugged reliability required in the ARC & Audible Illusions products. The JJ's sound wonderful but so far have cost me in the neighborhood of $400.00 in repairs after catastrophically failing in both the CA50 and my SP9MKIII. I did try the EH6922's in My SP9 as well but liked the warmer sound of some NOS Valvo 7DJ8's that I had in my stash as the SP9 can be rather sterile sounding with the wrong tubes. Good Luck.
Regards, Jerry |
Tom, FWIW I just finished playing with the SP10 (aqain) today. I tried mixing some Sovteks and EH's in my SP10's line and phono stages. You can try putting some EH's in the critical stage and Sovteks in the non-critical stage of you BAT and see what happens. You might warm it up a tad w/out loosing the the clarity of the Sovteks. If that doesn't work try reversing them. A cheap experiment, especially if it works for you. |
I'm using 4 EH 12AU7A tubes in my CAT preamp. They sound pretty good after break in and are holding up so far. They don't sound as good as NOS Amperex, Brimar, RFT, etc. though, but some of these tubes become noisy quickly. The gold pin EH tubes are cryo treated and are different than the standard ones but I don't know if they sound better. Has anyone tried both types? |
I'm sorry. 6922s, but I just started using 2 EH 12AU7A tubes in my CAT and the 12AU7s are the ones I was Talking about in the post above. The 6922s have been in for a while and sound fine. That's what happens when someone is talking to me when I'm typing. Sorry for the confusion. |
I've gone thru a lot of EH 6922s in my BAT 3iX. They always get noisy after 6 months or so. I've found J/J quieter and perhaps a little better in tone. I've been using a quartet of Amperex orange globes for a couple years. Very nice tone and they are still pretty quiet, though I do worry about sourcing these for a reasonable in the future. |
