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Tubes

I have recently come upon a tube amp a yaqin mc 13-s. I have been reading up a bit on tubes and different things to get better sound. I have asked some questions about speakers on here and received great feedback and its all very much appreciated, you guys who gave me your best input thank you. 

I paired my yaqin with a pro-ject tube box s2. Prior to purchasing the pro-ject preamp I came across a shiit lyr 2 and used it for a short period, unfortunately I'm not into headphones and it didn't pair well in my system the volume just want there because it's not really a preamp it's a headphone amp. Long story short it had ecc88 orange globe amperex tubes and that thing sounded smooooootthhh. 

So I have a few questions?
1. Should I change all the tubes in my main amp to matching tubes? It uses qty 4 (6ca7's or el34b's), qty 2 (12ax7's) and qty 2 (12au7's) for example if I were to use tungsol 12au7's should I use tungsol for the 12ax7's and 6ca7's or could I use gold lions for the 6ca7's? Does it really matter?

2. How big of a difference does it really make changing preamp tubes? like I said earlier the schiit really sounded great and I could only attribute it to those tubes but correct me if I'm wrong? I didn't have any other tubes to try.

Thoughts and opinions are all welcome and appreciated. Once again thank you all for the advice.
gguy767

Showing 1 response by elevick

elevick
2,638 posts
 
Pre-amp tubes like 12au7 and 12ax7 can last 5000-10,000 hours.  You can get different sound from different brands or even models with a brand.  Orange Globe Amperex are very nice and expensive to replace.  Keep them.  You can pick up others if you want to compare.  Also, the 12 series tubes really should be used in "like" pairs since they are running right and left channels.
The output tubes can be expensive if you want 4 matched tubes.  You really should try to have 4 of the same output tubes that are electronically similar as well as same brand.
Like everything else-start reading and looking.  Good tube retailers are tubesandmore.com and thetubestore.  Tube world is pricey but will teach you a lot.  Personally I would say stay away from ebay.  Likewise, buying from craigslist can be a deal but without a tube tester you don't know what you are getting.

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