@vthokie83 Thanks for the heads up. I'd never come across his website before. I'll check it out!
Aric Audio Super 2A3 owners - favorite tubes?
Hello all,
I've been enjoying my new set of Aric Audio amps (the Super 6SN7 linestage + Super 2A3 amp) and have been playing around with different tubes. I am curious what tubes anyone who owns either of these prefers.
I swapped from the stock 5U4GB to some NOS RCA 5U4Gs, but not sure if there's anything better out there that owners may prefer rectifier-wise. Asking Aric, he said GB or G works fine, but beyond that didn't offer any other alternatives as far as compatible tube options.
For my 2A3 tubes, I have a set of NOS Svetlana SV-2A3 (2C4C) and EML 2a3-S Meshplates and prefer the EMLs. The Svetlanas sound nice - they are a little more 'warm' sounding to me - but they lack the detail and wide holographic soundstage that the EMLs produce.
For the 6SN7 tubes on both the pre-amp and the amplifier (3 total), I've tried Sylvania JAN 6SN7GT VT-231 2 Hole Bad Boy, Black Plates an d NOS RCA JAN 5692 6SN7 (red base) tubes and prefer the Sylvania's by a mile. Swapping from the Sylvanias to the RCAs, bass thinned out quite a bit. Detail was great, and mid/highs were nice, but the Sylvanias are overall much nicer.
What have you tried and liked / tried and kept?
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@alexberger said: "NOS 5U4G RCA is not something special. I like Ken-Ran 5u4G. But Linlai 5u4g are on the same level and very cheap. I had a U52 GEC/Brimar brown base. It was really great, better than other stuff I had but it is crazy expensive now. I bought it when it was already used, and after 3 years it died. But to buy one today is too expensive." The GEC u-52 is my preferred rectifier for my Allnic phono stage. I too had a Brimar branded brown base in box, fresh old stock as far as I could tell. Still has some life in it, but I retubed the entire system a few years ago and found an earlier iteration- also a "cup base" but black. I've read various things about these- that they were the industrial version, that they were earlier than the brown bases, that they don't have the finesse of the brown base. My experience has been that the black base is comparable. The tube has far more air in my set up than the Mullard metal base, which is another "grail" rectifier. |
Mmcgill829 and all, I recently received an Aric Audio Motherlode XL preamp, and an Aric Audio Transcend "Push Pull" amp.....they have only recently been installed and are breaking in. The Motherlode takes one 5U4G and two 6SN7s, the Transcend takes three 6SN7s and 4 EL34s. The Motherlode XL preamp came with an RCA 5U4GB Tall bottle black plates, seem to be of nice quality...but obviously Aric likes them, so good with me. Additionally I spoke with Brent Jessee and he recommended the NOS 1943-1945 JAN military spec VT244 (5U4G equivalent) National Union black plates....not at all cheap at $200, but I trust Brent, so I bought it. I had Aric upgrade to pair of NOS Sylvania 6SN7GT two rivet "Bad boy" tubes. For 6SN7s Brent recommended a matched set of the NOS 1950s 5692 JAN military spec CBS-Hytron. Here again they are not cheap at $350 for a matched pair, but I bought those as well. Damn this hobby is expensive! Additionally I did quite a bit of research and bought some Chinese tubes as well: a matching quad PSVane EL34-PH (Philips reproduction) and matching quad of EL34-UK (Mullard reproduction) tubes. I also purchased a matching 3 tube set of Linlai E-6SN7 tubes. I won't get around to tube rolling these in for a month or so, so can't give any impressions....other than the fact that they all seem to be well thought of for their respective categories. |
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