|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
i bought a cary v12 off audiogon it had kt-88s from the first owner, two of which broke in transit. (it was packed pretty well, no reflection on seller) after i bought ruby el34s from cary. now, a year or so later my first tube has died. i replaced the pair and every thing is fine. if another goes (no more spares at home) should i call cary for another matched pair or replace all 12? is there another brand or tube type that will make my amp sound its best?thanks a lot, AA rules
Follow Ups:
If you like the Rubys, then order a spare pair from Cary and enjoy. Depending on how much listening you do you could get a couple years of use (or more) out of the ouput tubes and not have to spend for an entire new set unless you want to.If you want to experiment a bit then try some other tubes and see if they sound better to you. I've tried most of the available EL34's that are in production and find the Svetlana EL34's produce the best sound in my system. I stopped swapping tubes when I tried the Svets and have yet to try a set of KT88's that I bought for it.
I and some others like Electro Harmonix EL34s. They are very dynamic.
I really enjoy my V12i with the Svetlana EL34's. But, I have thought about trying kt-88's or kt-90's. My question is, since it is often difficult, or nearly impossible, to find 12 matched tubes...can I buy three matched quads from different sellers? If I do this, how do I put in the matched quads - are the pairs aside of each other or do you put the similar tubes back through the row?
Just spoke to Greg at Cary about this today as I am trying out Valve Art KT88's in my V12. Greg says the tubes don't really have to be matched at all and they only recommend a matched dozen so they wear evenly. Just the same, I used 3 matched quads, with two of each quad per channel. Am about only about 2 hours of play into the tubes and they are sounding better and better. Definitely different from the Svetlana EL34's they replaced. The EL34's seem to have more air and delicacy, but mezzo-soprano's sound more like mezzo's rather than soprano's with the KT88's. The detail and layering seem pretty good with the VA KT88's so far...
You can use two matched sextets, you don't need 12 matched tubes.I recently retubed a guy's Cary with EH KT-88s. I "torture test" these since some go into Citation II amps where they are run quite hard. Bottom line, he was just thrilled with them.
If you buy KT-90s, be careful. Current production stuff has been poor quality, and not all vendors catch the bad ones. They are great tubes when they are right though.
I have two sources for matched output tubes everyone on this forum is familiar with: Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio can supply matched, tested and burned in tubes in sextets and octets. I've also purchased output tubes in these kinds of quantities on sale at thetubestore.com. You just have to specify that you want them matched on your order. If there is a supply problem they'll inform you. In the past, I have bought octets just in case there's an early life failure, but I haven't had this problem.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: