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Ok. I admit that I am a fan of Herbies Audio and have raved on occassion of the great improvements many of his products have made in my system. Still, there have been some products I've tried that didn't work out. One of the products that have both worked and not worked have been the Herbies tube dampers, the Hal-Os. I have been using his tube dampers throughout most of my system for some time. In some applications, the use of the dampers was immediately noticeable. In other cases, the improvement wasn't noticeable until the dampers were actually removed. In one application, a single rectifier tube on the separate power supply of my preamp, I really don't hear anything.In my system, there were only two tubes I didn't try the Hal-Os on. Those were the tubes used in the phonostage of my preamp, the 12sc7. Since the tube casings on those tubes are metal, not glass, I ignorantly thought that they didn't need dampers. It was pitiful non-sensical logic, but I just figured that since they had a metal casing, they would be sturdy and not microphonic. Then, after Jim McShane informed how microphonic those 12sc7s can be, I ordred two Hal-Os for them. Once I put them on, it was not only an affirmation of why I like these tube dampers so much, but also I have never gotten such a dramatic improvement from using dampers on tubes before. Those RCA 12sc7 tubes I'm using must be pretty noisy becasue after putting on the Hal-Os, it was as if I both cleaned a really dirty record and a really dirty stylus when I put on the first record and heard it through the tube phonostage. I really cannot express how much cleaner and clearer the sound was with these simple rings in place. Though I feel like a bit of an idiot for wasting all this time thinking that my phonostage didn't need some damping to sound better, I am still glad I finally woke up.
Sometimes you just don't know how much noise you can actually be getting from tubes or how much better your system will sound with some simple solutions to minimize that noise. No doubt that other products may work as well as Herbies, but Herbies is what I used and with a 90 day money back guarantee, you don't have much to lose by trying them. Moreover, the customer service from Steve is as good as it gets--great advice, fast delivery, and no hassle returns. Just thought I'd share in case my experience helps anyone else.
Follow Ups:
I have tried some tube dampers on my pre-amp 6SN7s and found that they made the sound worse. They were NOT Herbies Audio Lab. Does the quality of the dampers vary much between vendors? Would HAL 0s work better?
than most other dampers. Most dampers damp the entire circumference of the tube while Herbies damp only three small spots. This may be cause for the differences heard between dampers. IME most dampers tend to overdamp and rob the music of life. Herbies are just perfect for me, cleaning up the sound w/o robbing the music of its life. I have them on the preamp tubes 12AX7 and amp input tubes 12AT7. I will be trying them on the output tubes soon.
I could not tell you if brands matter as my personal experience is limited to the Herbies tube dampers and I have not tried any others. I can say I have not had a bad experience with the Herbies dampers, only that in one application the damper did not do much of anything that I could hear. I can also say that I have read other posts indicating that other brand dampers have made the sound worse in some applications, but I have not read any negative posts regarding the Herbies. Every post I've read regarding the Herbies as been favorable. That is not to say that everyone using Herbies dampers experience has been favorable, just that I have not read about those experiences. Additionally, some say that the materials used for the dampers do matter and different materials will have different damping effects which may cause the sound to change for the worse or for the better depending on your system, room and tastes. But, again, I have no first hand experience with other products other than Herbies. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful in answering your question.
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