Just received a pair of the Linlai E-6SN7 tubes and have had them installed in a Dennis Had Inspire headphone amp playing a cd on repeat for 10 hours, settled in and listened to 5 albums. These are really good already and am looking forward to getting them burnt in. These are replacing Shuguang WE 6SN7 replicas that I had 2 pairs of, here's where this gets interesting, 1 pair sourced through Grant fidelity and 1 pair sourced from a Chinese seller on e bay that I have delt with before to purchase Psvane and Shuguang tubes and I could not tell the difference after both pair were played in, WTS both pair showed fault around 350 hours as they would arc around the base and really buzz for about 8 to 10 seconds when turned on (1 tube from each pair) after the initial 10 seconds buzz went away they sound fine, just afraid to use them any more. Also the Grant Fidelity tube is a few MM taller.
Linlai E 6sn7 tubes
I just placed an order for a pair of these for my Aric Audio Motherlode II. I’ve been chatting with a fellow that runs the E 6sn7 in his Don Sachs pre. He loves them, He says they make his NOS tubes sound thin and lifeless.
It will be a couple weeks until I receive them,and I was curious if anyone out in Agon land has tried these,and what are your impressions?
Thanks in advance,
Ray
The arcing is definitely concerning. Do you have another amp to verify that problem so you can say it is the amp or the tube? Regardless, I would contact Dennis Had (or however you purchased) for advice. Assuming it has a soft start feature, the current behaviour seems contrary to intended design. I hope you can get this resolved easilly!
Thank you for your impressions on the two suppliers. With a complete lack of stated selection parameters it is difficult to decide what/if there are differences. Even if there are differences, we have no credible research data that those differences correlate to sound quality, reliability, length of time in which sound quality is comparable to the 100 hr mark, and so on. Tubes are gonna fail when they want to, NOS included. I had 1 fail at @150 hours, Viva Tubes had a matched replacement at my door in 4 days, cross country. Dealing with out of country can be more complicated and expensive. I don't think there is anything wrong with deciding what kind of buying experience we want to have. Recently I bought a oem replacement light for my car from Latvia as those things are tough. Tubes are fragile, for me Im fine paying for Stateside screening and rapid replacement. YMMV!
I have a full set of 6 Linlai HiFi black plates on my Cary SLP-05. Enjoying them a lot, but will do impressions and comparison later when I buy a full 6 of the E-6SN7s. |
@tooblue there is a post in this thread closer to the beginning where the person had a buzzy tube on startup. The advice relayed was from Brent Jessen who has a procedure to try to resolve a similar problem. Orient a certain way, tap the tube gently on a hard surface 3 times, try in amp again. Food for thought... |
@khloebo yes I have 2 Canary amps that play in my main system and a preamp that also uses the 6SN7 tubes but am afraid to use these arcing/buzzing tubes, feel I might of got away with something so far so have decided to abandon the Shugs all together. The headphone amp is fine and has shown no issues with any NOS or new issues that I have run in it for the 3,000 to 3,500 hours since purchasing the amp new. I will go back and read the post from the beginning looking for the Brent Jessen fix. @invalid I have used several of the suppliers from China and have had great results also have used Viva tubes as well. Thanks all |