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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: Boy...lotta questions:) posted by Russ57 on April 9, 2007 at 08:53:47:
Thanks for the safety advice. It's really nice to know, also, that I don't have to pay up the ass for good power tubes (very interesting about the regulators/rectifiers -- I'll give it a try sometime).On the rolling front, I'm not a total novice to tubes... it's just that I've never handled anything bigger than a 6DJ8, and the tubes have always been inside a chassis so this is the first time I get to watch them glow.
I'm generally skeptical about any outlandish audio claim, so I wasn't sure how tube rolling would make much sense, given that they're all made to the same specifications. As it turns out, they're pretty loose specifications, but I didn't know that at the time. My eyes were really blasted open when I swapped the tubes in my X-CAN V3 headphone amp and those in my X-10D tube buffer, which hadn't be used in a long while (it was the first valve thingy I had, just to see if I'd like it or not). This swap was a pair of JAN Philips 6922 for a pair of Mullard ECC85s. Holy crap, did the Mullards make everything that much better. If the amp was worth the $300 I paid for it with the stock tubes, the Mullards pushed it up to probably twice that. There was more of everything. I experimented with various other types of ECC83/85/88 (in different applications; I know you can't use a 12AX7 in a 6DJ8 socket). BTW, I highly recommmend giving some 6AQ8/ECC85s a go in the X-CAN. I didn't know that the guy who sold me the X-10D had put a different kind of tube in it than what was intended, but in those two components (made for 6DJ8/6922s), the ECC85s encountered no problems whatsoever over the course of about a year. It's a safe and very effective swap. Can't say anything about that substitution in other equipment, though.
So back on track: naturally, I'm interested in rolling a bit, seeing how revelatory it was with the X-CAN head amp. Paradise was just a tube swap away from the pedestrian stock valves. In that spirit, I think I'm going to buck your advice (sorry) and go at it slowly, one component at a time. First priority is the ASL if it still has its stock Chinese tubes, second is the Ming Da. After that, I dunno. Rolling is going to be a complete barrel of monkeys.
About eBay lots: I had never thought of that before and found that there are numerous lots of absurd numbers of used old tubes (fancy some Telefunken 12AU7s?). I'd get one of them, but some 95% of them would be totally useless to me because I haven't got any equipment that takes it. I downloaded the TDSL program, by the way... maybe that could shed some light on some of the unknown types in these lots. It's a great resource.
Thanks again for the help.
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Follow Ups
- Thanks - Mark Tinordi 15:11:41 04/09/07 (0)
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