I tried a variety of Chinese tubes. Shugaung WE6SN7 Plus (large bottles with red base) were far and away the best. Extended, airy, dynamic, sweet mids, sparkling highs. Unfortunately, half of them failed. I’ve had good luck with warranty claims with Chinese tube re-sellers and Don was a prince about replacing stock tubes. So, I have a stable set of the WE6SN7 Plus, for now. They haven’t been available for quite some time, and who knows when Shugaung will be making them again, if ever, given the fire at their factory. In my opinion, they have serious QC problems they need to sort out. I had the same experience with WEKT-88 Plus tubes (I have Don’s amp too): a wonderful sounding tube, but half of them failed. I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole with NOS tubes, having done that once before with 12AU7s with another preamp and trying to steer clear from that expensive obsession. But the preamp no doubt would sound great with the right NOS tubes.
Finally Settled on a Preamp—Don Sachs Model 2 Custom Linestage
I took delivery a couple months ago of Don Sachs’s Model 2 6SN7 custom line stage preamp. It’s his latest iteration with an OLED display and 64 step Khozmo attenuator with input relay switching. There are no channel level attenuators. I had Don put in WE6SN7 tubes, and a pair of Mindoro 2.2 uF silver oil capacitors on the second output for flexibility with a possible SS amp in the future. The pre is simply marvelous. I have tried quite a number of preamps in the last few years. Some of you might remember my original post on the topic: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tube-preamp-recommendations-3?page=2. Don’s pre beats everything I’ve tried. I’m not an audiophile reviewer by any means, but to my ear, it has an enormous soundstage, and is extremely detailed, extended, and dynamic. Sometimes I leave my living room and it just sounds like there are musicians playing in the other room. The level of detail at times can almost be startling.
I paired it with Don’s Kootenay 120 KT88 power amplifier, which I purchased from another Audiogon member. The amp now has Don’s latest caps and WEKT88 tubes. Both pieces have a synergy that creates a very musical sound that I can listen to for hours without fatigue with my ProAc Response Two S speakers.
Some praise for the man is in order. Don is very responsive and has gone out of his way to help me with related and completely unrelated projects to get my system sounding the best it ever has. He’s a nice, genuine guy to boot.
I’d upload some photographs of my system and Don’s pre and amp, but it appears that I can’t do that on a forum post; someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
Cheers,
Rob