mulveling
Responses from mulveling
| Mixed Brand Pre-Amp Power Amp Pairings that Work I've done a lot of mixing between phono / preamp / power components of the brands Rogue / ARC / VAC. Assuming you've eliminated egregious electrical mismatches, the sonic pairings can work out great or be mediocre. It's incredibly system dependent... | |
| Disappointing short life of NOS preamp tube I get most of my tubes from Brent Jesse, and trust his listings. If he say’s their NOS, I rely on that. I actually wonder that. Not sure there’s a guarantee of being "NOS", or whether that would even matter except for power tubes. That said, I’... | |
| Why are people paying these stupid tube prices? I guess nobody else has noticed the tube MANUFACTURER, New Sensor / EH, is setting even higher prices than Viva tubes on their own web store. But I guess it’s just fun to bash Viva tubes for some reason? They’re doing you a favor, if you really ne... | |
| Disappointing short life of NOS preamp tube 7 years / 5,000 hours is OK. Where’d you get the tube from? Any chance it wasn’t really NOS? To be fair, 12AU7's get a lot hotter than say 12AX7. | |
| Why are people paying these stupid tube prices? Perhaps it would be best if we just prevented anyone that wasn’t part of your elite group from purchasing any tubes at all. That way, the people that deserve all the best in life, like YOU, will keep the best things in life for yourselves. I... | |
| Why are people paying these stupid tube prices? Yes, it is a prevalent pattern to see folks rolling rare vintage tubes into cheap chi-fi or even cheap Schiit amps, especially headphone gear. Especially 6SN7 and 6922. It always rubbed me the wrong way too. What a waste. On the upside you can buy... | |
| Why are people paying these stupid tube prices? The manufacturer New Sensor / Electro Harmonix sells the tubes on their own online store. Their prices have increased drastically in the past month or 2. Take a gander - KT120 for $150 each. Gold Lion KT88 $170 each. You can imagine the KT150 and ... | |
| Has anyone compared Rogue RP-7 to Cary SLP05 and / or Audio Research Ref 5se? I thought that the reason that Cary sent them out with EHs was because they were readily available & affordable. They WERE cheap and abundantly available, before the recent events of this year. They were also a fun example of "wow these ar... | |
| Has anyone compared Rogue RP-7 to Cary SLP05 and / or Audio Research Ref 5se? The Electro Harmonix 6SN7, like many EH tubes, have a brash & rockin sound. A bit of extra zing on top, with great bass impact and decent mids. They’re really not a bad tube at all, any way you slice it. And they typically measure at a good de... | |
| Excessive gain with a Belles preamp Older tube preamps with tube power amp is a tough combination because the tube preamps often have gobs of gain - this is from when analog sources dominated, and the extra gain was of benefit (especially when trying to push an MM phono stage into M... | |
| Many higher end preamps are dated and ugly, why is this? Nothing Schiit makes can be considered pretty. They’re inoffensive at best. Not really a great example to drop as your standard of aesthetic, unless you’re saying you like a minimal & simple visual footprint. Any others you like? And when you... | |
| How does the VPI Aries II stand up to current mid priced tables? The Aries tables are gorgeous. II probably being the best looking of all - congrats! If I had the room, a nice used deal on one would be hard to turn down. Agree with others you should explore the SOTA/Phoenix upgrades. The VPI tables since Aries/... | |
| Is an unbalanced preamp a bad thing? Like everything it depends - in this case, especially on the downstream component and how it handles SE vs. balanced input signals. Sometimes there is an extra stage for SE vs. XLR (or vice versa) that the signal has to pass through. It can be an ... | |
| Balanced Line Stage Tube Preamps I would avoid it for the use of 6 (six!!) 12AU7’s alone. 6SN7 is a better sounding tube. I would however expect it to sound more "tubey" than the Rogue RP7, because of the latter’s MOSFET output stage. The older Rogue high-end 6H30 preamps Athena... | |
| Has anyone compared Rogue RP-7 to Cary SLP05 and / or Audio Research Ref 5se? I had an RP-9 and it has no bloom - more SS like in its presentation. ARC Ref 6 has just a *little* bloom, is technically amazing; nicely positioned between tubes and SS, sonically. VAC preamps have bloom, a romantic sound, and gorgeous mids with ... |