Don Sachs Owners Thread

I did not buy it from Don. Since I can solder he told me what to buy from VH Audio and I did that.

My Linlai's are very noisy so I cannot use them. They are noisy at my seat and noisier than the music! That was a wasted purchase.

@bugredmachine sorry to hear there's a problem with the Linlai tubes. Can you get replacements in warranty? Mine don't have any audible noise 10 feet away. Have you tried just two in the left position to see if half are good? It is unlikely, but did you try cleaning the pins? Hope you get them working for you. 

Seem to remember something about VDH taking over the sales of certain caps. Greaf that Don refered you to them, and told you what to buy. 

Thanks for the info,

aldnorab

Just chiming in on the Linlai tubes.  I run four of these in my DS2 and they are very quiet.  They sound absolutely fantastic.  To my taste they are better than the recent offerings from Shuguang and Psvane.  With LinLais in place, I have no desire to explore further.  

@whitestix - How is that KT88 power amp?  I have enjoyed the DS2 for a few months and given how nice it sounds, I have been wondering if the matching amp should be on my wish list.

Cheers, Soren 

I only bought 2 tubes for the left sockets. Of course, no time on these, but out of the box they are not better than the shunguang Treasures CV181-Z's to me. I'll switch back to those tonight as I expect my Stealth Indra's to show today.

Soren,

The Kootenai amp is really outstanding, far better than the HK Citation II and V amps that Don earlier fully modified for me.  Its 60-wpc drives a lot speakers just fine with remarkably solid base response, a warm liquid mid-range and extended high end.  It has none of the sluggishness as several my former CJ tube amps had;   it is as quick as any excellent SS amp.  The true magic of the amp is its outstanding soundstage, front to back, side to side, and up and down.  The amp provides a glimpse of "being there" with the music, which is additive to the sound of his preamp.  While it might not be exactly as quiet as the better SS amps, to my ears, it is very close, pretty much dead silent.  

When Don first told about his idea to create his Kootenai amp, I was at that point annoyed with tube amps because of the PITA biasing of my HK amps, but the Kootenai is self-biasing/auto-biasing (I don't understand the difference, honestly) and when a pal brought his Kootenai by for an audition, both of our jaws dropped driving my Spatial Audio speakers when compared to my Platinum-upgraded Modwright DNA .05 SS amp.  I currently run the Kootenai in the cool months here in Northern CA and a Wells Audio SS amp the rest of the year.  The Wells Audio amp is a SS amp masquerading as a tube amp and is as fine as the Kootenai, but at a dramatically higher cost.

I have a pair of Dynaudio Confidence C-1's in transit to me -- a relatively constant 4 ohm load, and Don assures me that the Kootenai will drive them just fine.

Back to the DS2 preamp.  Roger Modjeski of Music Reference fame, told me at a Burning Amp gathering in San Francisco that 6SN7 tubes were more appropriate for old TV's than for preamp circuits, inherently too noisy for audio.  Modwright and Supratek employ them to excellent advantage, perhaps others too.   Don's preamp is a fully-developed iteration of Roy Mottram's of Tubes4Hifi SP14 preamp, which employs the same tube configuration, the development of which has been fully sanctioned and applauded by Roy.  I had Roy's stock SP14 for a while and it not nearly the equal of Don's version, but it definitely will give one a strong sense of the magic of a 6SN7 tube preamps for a very economical price and if you have the skills, cap upgrades are pretty easy to do and very beneficial.  Tubes4Hifi make very well-made power cords and speakers for very reasonable price, as well.

As Don has always said, "there is magic in 6SN7 tubes."   My ears tell me that he is exactly right. 

...