mulveling
Responses from mulveling
| Phono preamp tube rolling. @lowrider57 I have a very good friend, younger and with better ears than mine - he says the exact same things about that Soviet 1578 tube. Yes the vintage/make is supposedly very specific and very important. Something abut round plate holes too, e... | |
| Phono preamp tube rolling. It’s been a long time since I played with lots of vintage 6SN7, in a crazy headphone amp (and briefly later on in a Rogue 99 Magnum preamp). I do remember the Tung Sol BGRP sounded the most unique out of all, and the best to my ears. An extremely ... | |
| Phono preamp tube rolling. Chelmers would be relabeled tubes from a large maker - could be USA or China. Probably USA if small signal. I had an old Hagerman Trumpet (wood tower type) that was supplied with Chelmer 6072 (12AY7) which looked like they were either old-stock Sy... | |
| amp pre amp matching 250 ohms into 22K is perfectly fine, on paper. The < 100pF recommendation is odd. A lot of audiophile interconnects will exceed that. And by a LOT, if your doing a long run to the amps. | |
| Phono preamp tube rolling. gakertyMullards have never lasted too long in a phono stage or any other application here, for the reason you colorfully cite :)The Zestos looks lovely and its use of an asymmetric dual-triode is very interesting! Use of output transformers is coo... | |
| Phono preamp tube rolling. @surfmuz The 12 ax7/ ay7 / at7 aren’t really the same thing with different gain. They have very different plate resistances and drive capabilities, for starters. The Ares’ 12au7 slots are mu followers with a lot of flexibility - one element per tu... | |
| Phono preamp tube rolling. I’ve done a ton of tube Rolling over the years on the Ares Magnum. The 12ax7 slots make a huge difference. My 3 favorites, from most favorite to less favorite:1. Mazda silver plates - These have a little extra energy on top, so maybe not the best ... | |
| Calling all Sota fans. Yes, the latest SOTA series Nova VI / Cosmos V / Millenia Eclipse have upgraded a LOT on the tech and materials. And of course, the vintage SOTA tables were built to be incredibly reliable and sound awesome for the money - plus there are a LOT out... | |
| Do small preamp tubes 12ax7 need to be matched? Some circuit slots are going to be more tolerant of ax7 / at7 / au7 / ay7 type swaps than others. Just depends on the circuit. Cathode followers and mu followers tend to be pretty tolerant, though 12ax7 probably aren’t the best choice for driving ... | |
| Premature gear defenestrations I’ve sold and regretted quite a lot over the years. There are many instances when I’ve sold and rebought later. There even are a few instances where I’ve sold and rebought a piece 2 or 3 times! But as time marches on and the system has evolved upw... | |
| Do small preamp tubes 12ax7 need to be matched? Ideally yes but you don’t need to be too OCD - with small triodes, often you’re trying to match 4 elements (2 triodes per tube) so it can be frustrating to try to find 4 within 10% of each other on the major parameters (mu, transconductance) - esp... | |
| First tube preamp recommendations (under $5k) ARC 5SE seems like a solid choice. And good on your wife to get the ball rolling, though you were also right to bump it up to the SE! Sometimes we audiophiles truly torture ourselves with endless internal debates & second guessing, resulting i... | |
| Benz Micro Glider SL or Acoustical Systems Fidelis Cartridge I started out with a Glider L2, 15 years ago. It was wonderful, and I didn’t upgrade for 2 years. The current SL model will be even better. All Benz cartridges have a great sound - more leaning towards "musical, natural" than "analytical, technica... | |
| Rogue Audio Sphinx V3 IMO Rogue Audio’s best value proposition lies in its all-tube power amps (at every price point), and the Cronus integrated. Their class-D based amplifiers are using outdated Hypex UcD modules, except for the Dragon which steps up to the nCore. In ... | |
| First tube preamp recommendations (under $5k) As a tube lover I would advise you to avoid preamps with 12ax7 or 12au7. Too much gain on the 12ax7 for a preamp, and 12au7 isn’t a great sounding tube in any role (but tends to be used a LOT in audio, unfortunately). 6SN7, 6922/6DJ8, 6H30 - these... |