After years of hardly listening to my venerable PL 7s"10 yrs" and Pl Premium Pre"about 3 years old" i decided to swap out all the tubes to try them out. Hearing that a new pwr tube was out Kt 150, i was excited to try it but alas checked PL website and it was a no go. So i went with a matched octet of tung sol kt 120. These sounded terrible to me and was hard to wait for them to settle in often turning them way down as i could not think with them in the background at the office. 2weeks and 24/7 of leaving them on they started to smooth out. They replaced a set of goldlion kt 88 that i really liked and was starting to regret my decision. As all i got was a tighter bass, softer mids and thinner highs.
So now that im stuck with the 120s, how do i go about rollin the signal tubes? I read that all the signal tubes in the Pre make a big difference not just the front 2 in the v1 position, and that only the front 2 12ax7 in the pwr amps would help , with the rear 12au7 making not much change. I want more 3d larger than life soundstage, with airy highs and more prominent silky smooth warmer midrange. I am willing to mix and match all the tubes and i am open to all suggestions.
Currently i dont play the records no more, cause i got too lazy to change them constantly, and now have gone digital 100% I use a PS audio perfectwave DAC with bridge ii, and an old idecco for iphone listening as well for the all tube effect. Speakers currently are Opera seconda ii, or SF Liuto or Wharfedale Jade 7s, all these are great tube players IMO. All wires and pwr cables are good enough.
The tubes i have are sylvania "baldwin" 12au7 on the pre, philips rectifier which adds a tad of warmth, IMO should have stuck with the PL rectifier. on the pwr 7s mono, reissue goldlion 12ax7 b??? and RCA cleartops. I could borrow some Mullards 12au7 from my Ayon setup in my living room, but they look so old im afraid they would just break off. Everytime i turn that on the getter flashing scares me.
After reading many posts and not working in my office, i have concluded that some tubes cost way too much and do not want to go there. So these are on the shopping list to try, Amperex 7316 , Telefunken 6211, Brimars 4034, Ei 12ax7, siemens E83CC, Slyvania 5751 or RCA BLACKPLATES. So if anyone can best help me not buy all and try, my child may go to private school for another month.
thanks in advance.
Sorry for hijacking the post , as mine is a question for suggestions and help.
