Totally Tubular: The Tube Thread

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I figured we could carry over our tube thread, because it's become one of my favorites. So share your love for those little glowing glass cylinders.

Share your gear. Share your input. Amps, Pre-amps, headphone amps, phono pre-amps, gear you have, gear you lust after. Let's see ALL the tubes!

Ask about tube rolling, where to source tubes, maintenance, compatibility, whatever you want. Go crazy.

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All I've got, tube-wise, is a Valhalla 2. It has a pair of NOS, no-name 6N1P for its preamp and a pair of Сделано (I think--the rubber stamp is pretty faded on one and totally gone on the other) 6N6P for headphone power. I haven't tried to roll them yet; I think it sounds pretty good with the factory tubes, although an examination of my system may reveal less-than-audiophile tendencies.
Wait. I just fired up Google translate, and it looks like "СДЕЛАНО В СССР" just means, "MADE IN USSR." So much for finding a brand name.
 
I'm breaking in an octet of Tung-Sol 7581A output tubes. I definitely prefer these in triode mode- these have extremely strong bass and are too much in ultralinear mode. Less power than an EL-34 but with Zus, it doesn't matter.

I'd read these had a blue glow. Damn if they don't. I'm not sure why or how this happens. I've seen it once before on an amp that set the idle current at 10x normal, but a PL won't/can't do that. Makes for a cool pic though.

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apholden said:
All I've got, tube-wise, is a Valhalla 2. It has a pair of NOS, no-name 6N1P for its preamp and a pair of Сделано (I think--the rubber stamp is pretty faded on one and totally gone on the other) 6N6P for headphone power. I haven't tried to roll them yet; I think it sounds pretty good with the factory tubes, although an examination of my system may reveal less-than-audiophile tendencies.
Wait. I just fired up Google translate, and it looks like "СДЕЛАНО В СССР" just means, "MADE IN USSR." So much for finding a brand name.
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Probably Soviet military tubes- not a bad thing. If you like them, go with the flow.
 
AnthonyI said:
I have about 60ish more hours to run on these bad boys to hit that mystical 100 hour mark, but the progress has been glorious :)
View attachment 1696
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The "I love this amp" moment is 100 hours. The "you can have this amp when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" moment happens at 8 months. I'm thinking it takes that long to break in the output transformers.
 
I almost died and went to heaven. A music forum I love and a thread dedicated to surfing (tubes)

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Chucktshoes said:
The Genelax Gold Lions sounds really good in there. Just saying.
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Replacement Gold Lion has arrived! Reinstalled them and am currently burning through some music to get them broken in. So far my previous impressions hold up: wider soundfield, leaner bass. Noticeably less thump for dance and pop, but the overall character is cleaner.
 
So I've always been very interested in going the tube route, especially perpetuated by the Primaluna thread on the old site and the few times I've had a chance to hear some in action. I think it might be time to start this journey, perhaps oddly because I want/need to get different speakers. My Polk LSiM 705's are great, but they're massive (for my small apartment) and at 4 feet tall and 80 pounds each, I get anxiety thinking about when I'll have to move them and keeping them pristine. Had to get rid of the original packing materials because they were trashed in shipment and really no room to store them anyway. The boxes were almost as big as I am! Good enough excuse to revamp things, yeah?

The engineering dork in me has been geeking out on high efficiency speakers, SET amps, minimalist signal paths and the like, so I've been formulating a plan to kill two birds with one stone by fixing my speaker "problem" and going down the tube rabbit hole. The first step is to go the Zu speaker route, maybe with the next Dirty Weekend run in July, or perhaps jump up to Souls a la @HiFi Guy? Really love the simple design and the company's philosophies in general. Their cables alone impressed me enough to want to support the company more. Anyway, with these super high efficiency speakers in tow, then really keen on putting the ridiculously well-reviewed (for its price) APPJ Mini up against my Parasound for a bit while I figure out the next move. If results are promising, maybe step up to another SET amp, something like Decware, or perhaps save up a bit to Primaluna or similar. So that's the plan for now, I think. It should keep my sound-tinkering desire at bay by giving me a long period upgrade path to follow and all the rolling possibilities.
 
wooha said:
So I've always been very interested in going the tube route, especially perpetuated by the Primaluna thread on the old site and the few times I've had a chance to hear some in action. I think it might be time to start this journey, perhaps oddly because I want/need to get different speakers. My Polk LSiM 705's are great, but they're massive (for my small apartment) and at 4 feet tall and 80 pounds each, I get anxiety thinking about when I'll have to move them and keeping them pristine. Had to get rid of the original packing materials because they were trashed in shipment and really no room to store them anyway. The boxes were almost as big as I am! Good enough excuse to revamp things, yeah?

The engineering dork in me has been geeking out on high efficiency speakers, SET amps, minimalist signal paths and the like, so I've been formulating a plan to kill two birds with one stone by fixing my speaker "problem" and going down the tube rabbit hole. The first step is to go the Zu speaker route, maybe with the next Dirty Weekend run in July, or perhaps jump up to Souls a la @HiFi Guy? Really love the simple design and the company's philosophies in general. Their cables alone impressed me enough to want to support the company more. Anyway, with these super high efficiency speakers in tow, then really keen on putting the ridiculously well-reviewed (for its price) APPJ Mini up against my Parasound for a bit while I figure out the next move. If results are promising, maybe step up to another SET amp, something like Decware, or perhaps save up a bit to Primaluna or similar. So that's the plan for now, I think. It should keep my sound-tinkering desire at bay by giving me a long period upgrade path to follow and all the rolling possibilities.
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This concept is coming up before I've completed my full review of the Souls, so you'll want to look out for that. It'll be delayed for a couple of weeks because @AnthonyI is coming by while on vacation and I'd like him to post his impressions as well. He's the best to do this as our systems are nearly identical.

Zus (at least the Souls bit I expect the entire line) are a completely different listening experience. Whether or not you get it is up to you. I'm totally on board- they are a game changer. It's no longer about "hi fi"- it's about tone. I don't expect anyone to understand this unless they've heard them. As I told @AnthonyI in a DM, these make every other speaker I've heard sound broken. I've heard hundreds of speakers.

For amplification, I'd not look at your choice. I'd look at a Musical Paradise MP-301 amp. No experience but I'd spend my own money on it (and nearly have). Get Tung Sol 7581A output tubes and upgrade the input tubes- I can't find the right ones right now but they are RCA military spec tubes encased on red. I'll follow up on this. In any case, about $120 total. I can vouch for the 7581A. Damn near as close to perfect as I've heard.

The downside to your idea? The constant half off Polk sale kills your resale value.
 
wooha said:
So I've always been very interested in going the tube route, especially perpetuated by the Primaluna thread on the old site and the few times I've had a chance to hear some in action. I think it might be time to start this journey, perhaps oddly because I want/need to get different speakers. My Polk LSiM 705's are great, but they're massive (for my small apartment) and at 4 feet tall and 80 pounds each, I get anxiety thinking about when I'll have to move them and keeping them pristine. Had to get rid of the original packing materials because they were trashed in shipment and really no room to store them anyway. The boxes were almost as big as I am! Good enough excuse to revamp things, yeah?

The engineering dork in me has been geeking out on high efficiency speakers, SET amps, minimalist signal paths and the like, so I've been formulating a plan to kill two birds with one stone by fixing my speaker "problem" and going down the tube rabbit hole. The first step is to go the Zu speaker route, maybe with the next Dirty Weekend run in July, or perhaps jump up to Souls a la @HiFi Guy? Really love the simple design and the company's philosophies in general. Their cables alone impressed me enough to want to support the company more. Anyway, with these super high efficiency speakers in tow, then really keen on putting the ridiculously well-reviewed (for its price) APPJ Mini up against my Parasound for a bit while I figure out the next move. If results are promising, maybe step up to another SET amp, something like Decware, or perhaps save up a bit to Primaluna or similar. So that's the plan for now, I think. It should keep my sound-tinkering desire at bay by giving me a long period upgrade path to follow and all the rolling possibilities.
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I really like my Polk LSiM 703's, and I've been kind of pushing the speaker upgrade off until a listening room comes along, but once @HiFi Guy posted pics of the Souls I kind of sat there going, wait a tick, those don't stand any higher or take up a bigger footprint that my Polk's on their current stands, lol. Like you, after picking up the Zu cables I took more interest in the company and everything I've read about the Soul's is a bit hard to break down, and is followed by a "If your looking for XYZ sound, you'll really like them" which doesn't help at all.

Luckily as @HiFi Guy mentioned, I'll have a chance to hear them first hand and in a pretty much identical system.........of course the Grado Woody will probably be running at that point so there will be that to contend with, lol. I'm looking forward to it, very curious about how they sound with their unique design. I can't help but look at them and think, how can they sound THAT good............we'll see :)
 
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