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Over Tubing it?

I am pretty sure this has come up before, but I am wondering folks opinions on whether one can "over tube it" with integrated amp and DAC.  I have a tube integrated amp (Black Ice Fusion F35 with KT-150s) which I quite like and wish to keep.  I am now auditioning the Denafrips Ares 2 DAC and my Black Ice DAC which has tubes.  

Anyone have thoughts on whether staying with the Black Ice tube F35 amp, and tube DAC, versus replacing the tube DAC with R2R (e.g. Ares or Pontus) or other for maximum quality, paired with my tube integrated amp? (Quality meaning 3d holographic soundstage, transparency, detail and other buzz words), etc...

Put another way, what do you all think the best placement of tubes in the chain yield the best results, and is it possible to "over tube"?

I stream via roon server and Optical Rendu exclusively.

Would love to hear the community's thoughts and experiences with this.

Thanks a lot.

 

bogbeat

Showing 2 responses by larryi

larryi
3,757 posts
 

Hm, let's see--nine in the amp, seven in the linestage, six in the phono stage, and four in the headphone amp.  It is not the count that is scary, but the price of the individual tubes.  Ten of the tubes are in the $1,500-$2,000 each range, and the rest are not cheap either.  Fortunately, my tubes are run gently and do not need frequent replacement (haven't changed ANY in more than a dozen years).

larryi
3,757 posts
 

I am running old, but testing good, Western Electric 348's (six of them) and Western Electric 349s.  I also run four Western Electric 310s.  In my phono stage, I run Telefunken ECC 803S.  The phono stage is particularly odd because it runs two 300b tubes as rectifiers.  The electrostatic headphone amp runs four EL34s (I use Telefunkens).

True NOS engraved base 300bs would be WAY above any price I can even imagine.  Who knows what 300a's go for these days?  A local dealer has an amp that runs meshplate Western Electric 252s; he was offered something like $20,000, plus replacement non-meshplate 252s and a trip to Korea for a pair of these tubes.  That is the most that I can think of for tubes.  

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