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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 tomcy6

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tomcy6
2,623 posts
 
The people telling you that vintage tubes are a ripoff and that new production tubes are always better are as wrong as the people saying that vintage tubes are always better.

It all depends on your tastes and your system.  There's no one size fits all.  Vintage tubes can provide a little tube magic in the right system. 

You are probably better off starting with new production tubes until you gain a little knowledge about tubes and where to get them.  When you become more familiar with tubes and what you want from them you can venture into vintage tubes.  They can make an important difference in your system.

Maybe zkidd can loan you some of his 800 NOS tubes that he doesn't like or use so that you can learn about them without getting ripped off.  

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