I Feel Overwhelmed....Please Help

Well, Dave ol’ buddy, it’s your choice of words mostly, and the notion user/owners don’t have the acumen to make positive changes to a certain topology which gets me.

I think what irks me here is how critical, undermining and simply misused, the term “half baked”, truly remains in your context…. As a pertinent definition for it is as follows….

“lacking mature judgment or experience; unrealistic.”

I neither lack experience, nor do I possess unsound judgement. I doubt those who do employ the use of tubes other than those offered by the makers find themselves at a loss there either. Perhaps we should ask them, huh? Or better still do it as you did here, just tell them they are all severely lacking mature judgment or experience; and they are unrealistic. Yep. That’ll go over quite well indeed.

Supplanting one tube for another, whose values are the same is not poor judgment. It is nothing more or less than using caps or resistors of varying labels, given their values are alike.

Going down that road a bit further, one should also say the OEM power cord shouldn't be changed, or one cable is as good as another... and why don't we just ask which speakers the desitgner used and buy them! the designer does know best. Right? How absurd.

Transistors, MOSFETS, chipsets, etc…. haven’t always been around? Designers even make changes there too! Well the cat's out of the bag now for sure.

I’m near certain that Dave has been granted the province of ‘speaker’ for the whole of the community too… or was it the overwhelming majority? It’s narrow minded to cast about suggestions such as the ones pertaining to changes of a designers efforts by end users as negative or unsubstantiated, and then follow them up by quoting some aftermarket modders (eg., Schultz)changes to the aforementioned designers effort, as vastly superior to the original product! Yed I’m sure I heard that somewhere … and recently too.

So which is it? Mod or not? It’s pretty obvious Dave hasn’t done much by way of tube rolling/experimenting.

Overwhelming majority my eye! If anything here is half baked, it’s that singularly offered sentiment Dave issued previously on tube rolling. It’s about as hard as changing out a light bulb… with about as many consequences.
Not once when auditioning a tube component have I said to myself, “Well, I’ll just change out the tubes ‘cause this sucks!” if it doesn’t sound good to begin with, or what I’m after I just pass on it. In fact I don’t eye the prospect of swapping out fresh, brand new tubes at all. Eventually though, like light bulbs, tubes lose their initial luster and down the way, do go out. I could too become desirous of a change and not have the entry fee to buy a whole new component. Then and there is a great opportunity for investigating other avenues. others do in fact take out the OEM tubes immediately! Supplanting their own preffered tubes instead!

No matter how you shake it, tube gear offers additional advantages over solid state merely by their nature. Don’t confuse that with performance though. That’s a whole other realm.

Chap_cat
If G. Carroll says you can preview a thing in your home, then that’s the ticket. I’d say he wants your business if so… and if there is no strings (restocking, depreciation, fees, etc.) aside from the norm… take advantage of it.

One last note on CDPs I’ll offer is the Cambridge 840c… One after market upgrader (modder) I spoke with of note, and directed me onto the Oppo, said this was a stunning CD player for the $$$... as he gave me those two for optional upgrades. BTW he wasn’t selling either one then.

It usually takes a good piece to make Robert Harley gush over it and he did with the 840c… the TAS reviews now online. Do read it.

I too thought well about the Jolita 1501 as a secondary unit some time ago. Did some looking around… asked some people I trusted but ultimately passed on it for a new HT system instead. In the doing however, I found others which for the price of a new jolita offered better build and Sonics... on paper. I’m sure it’s a solid choice though. I understand their support is good too.

This is the last thing I’ll add… call whomever you wish to buy’s product support team and see what’s up there before you lay out the long green. Nothing’s perfect, and things do happen. Knowing is far better than supposing with regard to support. That’s a biggie for me. Support. If G. Carrolls place will do whatever work is needed down the road for you, that’s all the better. IMO

this thing is all about what you like. Not necesarily what another likes. Tjhere's tons of paths to follow. Loads of gizmos to try out. numerous additive tweaks you can either make or buy.... and the bottom line always for me is like the optometrist says, "is this worse, the same, or is it better now?".. he'll never answer that one for you.

HAVE A GOOD TIME! Do let us know what you picked out too!

Blindjim, I didn't say that you're "half baked" I was speaking of tube rolling audiophiles, in general, not being anywhere near as qualified as the designers of their equipment to make decisions about the best tubes for the equipment. In hobbiests vs. professional designers, the designers win most of the time.

If a designer wants to put a pre-amp, for instance, and then says to his customers something like, "If you want even better sound, then I recommend that you spend another $1500 on these tubes and it'll be an easy upgrade that you can do yourself" then I think that's useful. OTOH, the hobbiest that buys an $15000 Conrad Johnson and immediately says to himself, "I bet that I can make it better by swapping the tubes out for some NOS" is fooling himself.

My main point is, tube rolling is NOT an advantage to tube equipment UNLESS the owner just likes to tube roll. Anyone that enjoys tube rolling should obviously seek out tube equipment. However, IMHO, equipment designers are generally in the best position to decide which parts will sound the best in their equipment. Lots of us would rather buy from a designer that's put together his best effort and stick with that.

Dave

Blindjim said:

"No matter how you shake it, tube gear offers additional advantages over solid state merely by their nature. Don’t confuse that with performance though. That’s a whole other realm."

So tubes have some mystical advantage over SS, but it's not performance??? Please tell us what "realm" these so called advantages lie in.

I sometimes enjoy turning the lights off and watching the tubes glow on my great little Woo Audio WA6 headphone amp. Is that of what you speak???

Dave

Dcstep says:

I'm assuming that you're a hobbiest. If so, then anything that you do will be half baked vs. a designer that's spent his whole career designing the best circuits that he knows how to make.

I say:

Jeff Rowland is still a hobbyist and nothing he does is half-baked. He's a designer who has obviously won your heart.
But when I first met him he was a doing Hafler mods. Most of our "designers" were just guys who liked to experiment. Very few have a lengthy academic resume.

Dcstep says:

Once again I'll say, some people like to play around and experiment with tubes to see if they prefer different tubes over what the designer chose. I think that's fine for those people that enjoy that, but I'm in the very substantial camp that would rather pay a designer to do his best work and buy accordingly.

My response:

Many different tubes might be a realistic option in a given tube design. The manufacturer normally supplies tubes with his product. What he supplies may or may not be optimum. And it may or may not be the customer's preference. No designer, however, can or will supply all options. That's up to the owner. Additionally, NOS tubes, by definition, are found, not merely sourced like a currently available, currently produced item. There are specialists who deal in NOS tubes but they too must find them. They can't just email the factory and have a new batch sent over.
Consequently, manufacturers don't generally have the tubes on hand to make all options available. Some, like VAC and Music Reference, have stock available but they too may have gaps while they strive to locate the next pool.

When you buy a new car it has tires on it. They are the ones that were chosen by the designer. Are they the only tires you will ever use? Or will you try some half-baked option from Michelin or Pirelli or Bridgestone instead of the factory supplied, designer specified originals?

My guess is that, once you graduate from the Rod Tompson School, and get into tube world yourself, you will be among it's loudest proponents. Until that happens, you should stick to what you know.