Tube rolling in Cayin A-88T

Sorry for the late response....The stock tubes are actually not too bad. The Tung-Sol are great in the bass also, I would say better than the stock tubes, but it's a toss-up. Yes, we are talking about the C-winged Svets. My tubes are Upscale Audio labelled on the box.

I keep the stock tubes installed for my occasional 2-3 tracks at a time during the week and for FM listening during dinner ( Cayin tuner, nice. ). Come Firday night, I might put in the Svets, keeping the Tungs in almost unused condition in their box. But if I have a hard-edged or badly recorded, bright cd I wish to listen at length, they come into action...ah, the beauty of tubes.

These last two quads sets (Svets and Tungs) have limited usage.

Hope you like your Cayin A 88-T, nice machine isn't it ?

Thanks Mike! Yes indeed. Been around many amps over the years and always seem to find that well designed modest power tube integrateds offer the nicest sound. My other favorite was the Manley Stingray, which does well by the music with a punchy mid bass and smooth highs. The A-88T is much better in resolution and has better image and soundstage abilities, as well as deeper bass with the Kt-88's. The level of refinement of the sound is amazing, especially concidering its sub 2K price.. Seamless and coherent driving my Usher 6371's.

I took your advice and scored both quads of the Tung-Sol and Svet Winged "C" Kt-88's..It should keep me tuned in for awhile. The Cayin 17A CD is also another nice piece. Highly resolving and dynamic without glare or artificial edge, which I distain about digital. Only the Rega Apollo did this as good, but doesn't have quite the Dynamics of the 17A. Im trying some 1972 vintage orig. Tesla Mil. Spec. E88CC in the player which should out do the stock Russian 6922 EH.

Overall, Cayin is highly musical and complete in its portrayal of the music, which suits me very well!....Ken

I also love the Cayin A88T which I have owned for the last 7-8 months now. I am using the stock tubes and have been thinking of upgrading to the PentaLabs or the TungSol re-issues. This thread was just what I wanted.

I hope you guys are biasing the amp after tube rolling as this is not an auto biasing amp as some mistakenly believe.

I found one of my tubes having zero bias and I changed it immediately. The amp sounds much better now.

Kag,

I got the biasing info from Steve at Vas Audio in NJ. Seems relatively simple. Bias point of 0.4V (40mV) per tube. Clark at Acoustic Sounds was nice enough to have Vas Audio send the info to me. I will definately check bias and make sure the Tung Sols are set properly.

Ive had new tubes show 0 readings too. I have had more trouble with Ei tubes than others. The KT-90 TypeIII are notoriously bad for QC issues.

From what Clark says..he hears that the new re-issue Tung-Sols are wondeful in this amp, but take a bit of time to open up. Ill get back to this thread after they are in for awhile//Ken

Have you'll tried rolling the preamp tubes? I changed the stock 6sn7s to RCA 6sn7 GTBs and the sound improved a notch. Better soundstage, mellower and richer mids, surprisingly more detail in the mids and bass.

I did find trumpets on some recordings to be bright/hard on the stock tubes... for example, the trumpet on the track 'Papa a boo boo' on the German pressed CD of Harry Belafonte live at CG Hall was quite bright and hard sounding. This reduced considerably on the RCAs but it is still there. I wonder why? Could be due to the stock output tubes. I heard the Primare drive my speakers (Dyn 82s) and there was no hardness at all. My CDP is the Rega Planet which is known to be smooth. Interconnects are Transparent which is also mellow. So I guess the amp is the culprit.