Ohm Walsh Micro Talls: who's actually heard 'em?

Map, have you looked into ordering a set of new tubes for your ARC? I know there are a lot of folks that tube-roll with that preamp, but even a new set from ARC might just take those pains away!

Also, where did you come across your MIT cables if I might ask? Always wanted to try a set of them, but have been really pleased with my DH Labs cables so far. Tim

Frazeur1,

I decided to first try tubes I could walk into Guitar Center down the road and buy for $20 each first. The Groove Tube Gold 12AX7s I bought solved the problem. Also, surprisingly, I am hard pressed to hear a difference from teh previous ARC stock tubes that came in the SP16. Perhaps a tad more background noise in the phono section, but nothing of any consequence.

So far, I do not feel a need to order tubes from ARC. I could still decide to do that and keep these as an extra set, but I cannot justify it currently.

I picked up the 1m MIT terminator ICs on Ebay several years back for <$50 each, as I recall.

I also bought a pair of .5 m Harmonic Tech ICs from the Essential Audio Tweaks store on ebay for much more along with the DNM Resons, which were comparable to the MITs in price more or less. All of these are good but different with different strengths and weaknesses.

Whoops, sorry.

The correct name of the store on ebay I referenced above is

"essentialhifitweak", not "Essential Audio Tweaks" as I indicated.

http://stores.ebay.com/essentialhifitweak

I have found their stufff to offer good value and their descriptions of how the products I have bought sound to be reasonable and accurate.

Thanks Map, glad the tubes are doing the thing for you. I have also been tempted to try the Harmonic line of cables as well, but really, I have a hard time messing with cables. I guess when you find something that works so well, why change it? Tim

"I guess when you find something that works so well, why change it?"

I tend to agree.

ICs, particularly used ones that can be resold easily without taking a loss, are relatively easy things to tinker with though if one gets the urge to try some different flavors of good sound.