TADAC owners - which best 12au7 tubes?

Myraj,

Great choice of DACs. I bought a used TADAC about a year ago and loved it so much I bought a new one from Paul for a second system (Cambridge 840A and Focal 807Vs). After a number of tubes (Tong-Sol, Radiotechnique, RCA, and Siemens) I chose Tele smooth plates due to their ability to create "air" around the music (the Tong-Sol and Siemens were close seconds due to their clarity, nice midrange, and tight non-boomey bass). However, the Teles also took the edge off female vocals without rolling off the highs and have solid bass as well. My main system is a Prima Luna Dialogue 2 with Dali MS5s. Both my systems can be bright on the top end with the wrong electronics and the TADAC is detailed without being bright (especially with the Telefunkens).

I found their was a big difference in digital cables with the TADAC. I started with Monster (crap - dull and rolled off), Audioquest (cheaper model - good detail but a little shallow sounding), Acoustic Zen Silver Byte (nice balanced cable top to bottom and could have easily been my final cable), finally chose Audioquest Eagle Eye due to a level of detail that was hard to find in other cables. It was a hard choice because I am not an Audioquest fan and really did not want to pick the Eagle Eye due to past experiences with Audioquest. However, in the end to my ears it just made the TADAC sing.

One big plus with the TADAC is that Paul is a class act.

Bud

I bought a TADAC from a fellow gonner and he had an extra set of Electro Harmonics as well as the stock tubes. Both sounded OK, but I figured things could sound better. I just put in a pair of the French Mazda tubes and I am very impressed (scratch that- extremely impressed) with what they have done for this DAC. Everything has improved after putting in the Mazda tubes- soundstage, macro and micro dynamics as well as being more musical.

Before I was getting some distortion in the vocals on certain recordings I believe the term is called microphony.Please forgive me if I got the term wrong this is my first go at tube gear. Anyway the distortion is now eliminated after putting in the Mazdas.

I bought 1962 Same Dated telefunken smooth here on Audiogon. What I noticed immediately was more pronounced and nuanced bass response. Everything sounds great but without going back and forth between tubes I can't describe the differences beyond the obvious improvement in bass in the initial listening. It's so good now, I no longer long for tube-rolling.... but when I get bored later, I imagine I may give another tube a chance - just for fun.

I have some RCA blackplates that have made a big improvement over the stock chinese. Another very nice tweak is the Herbie Audio Lab dampners. I now have a much cleaner top end! The preamp ultrasonic 9's. You have to cut them in half though so they can sit on top of the tubes.

Mazda (RT/RTC) are all incredible, across all types. It's uncanny really. I have some square getter wing plate 12AU7s I can't wait to roll into my new DAC.