larryi
Responses from larryi
| Replace tubes yearly? Since I’ve settled on my current setup, about fifteen years ago, I’ve only had to replace two tubes and that was because a shelf collapsed and dropped my turntable motor controller on the power supply of my phonostage (it uses two 300b tubes as re... | |
| Adding a tube amp is a good idea? You kinda have to go out and hear some of the candidate amps. Tube amps vary in sound MUCH more than do solid state amps. I am a tube amp fan, but, I find that a lot of high powered tube amps sound brittle and unpleasant on the top end. This ha... | |
| Where do I go from here? A lot can be done with speaker placement and listening chair placement to improve sound such that room treatment need not be extensive and ugly. What you should do may depend on any restrictions you have on such placement. For example, if you ar... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? I have, and like, the Amplitrex tester. It is simple to use, tests at full power so the tubes are measured under stress, and it displays both test measurements and the specified values to compare the results to. But, one still needs experience t... | |
| Favorite Cover Album Another favorite of mine, for awesomely awful covers is the CD called “Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Singoff.” It includes two William Shatner numbers: “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”, Mae West doing “Twist and Shou... | |
| Favorite Cover Album Another good cover album has various artists covering the music of Richard and Karen Carpenter. The album is called "If I were a Carpenter." I particularly like Shonen Knife's version of "top of the World" and Redd Kross' version of "Yesterday O... | |
| Favorite Cover Album I particularly like the French duo who goes by the name Nouvelle Vague. There self-titled album is particularly good. They primarily cover Brit Pop. For the really outrageous, so bad it is interesting, I suggest: Pat Boone (Christian music) do... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? If you use tubes that will eventually need replacement, get a complete set of replacement tubes. You can "test" the old tubes by swapping in tubes from the reserved set; if the sound improves enough so you are willing to replace the old ones, you... | |
| System advice I am not the only person who likes Naim digital gear but not their amplifiers. I would focus on finding a substitute there. If you can get your hands on other interconnects and speaker cables you can try something different. Naim amps are somew... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? Which tester to buy and how to interpret the results is a very complicated subject unless you are just looking for rough results, like avoiding shorted tubes or dead tubes. I had tubes that tested very weak on an Amplitrex (modern, industry stand... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? The primary reason for leaving solid state on all of the time is because transistors will not degrade nearly as quickly as will tubes from constant use and solid state gear takes much longer to warm up than tube gear. The primary downside to leav... | |
| I'm new to Step Up Transformers lewn, I agree with you. The higher the number the LOWER the loading. At low value of resistors (meaning a lot of loading) small numerical changes do matter a lot (like 30 ohms and 50 ohms are quite different), but, once one gets above 150 ohms,... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? If you want really warm, and have deep pockets, I would say look for 5692 tubes. They are drop in substitutions for 6SN7s. My Audio Note Kageki amps came with these tubes, but I fooled around and ended up with Tungsol Roundplates which are not a... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? That they have input tubes that require yearly replacement should be a good reason NOT to buy that gear. Clearly, they don’t know how to implement tubes in their design. | |
| Replace tubes yearly? So, a maker of solid state gear, and only solid state gear, states that if you buy tube gear, you have to make yearly tube replacement. Does anyone think it is a scare tactic? What if I say something completely unsupported like, “you shouldn’t w... |