New Schiit Vali 2 Discussion Thread

So... Vocals and strings sound a bit more...

'More'. They're just there. Moreso than before. Especially noticeable with bass strings, so maybe the bottom end has tightened up a bit and there's less bleed into the mids. It's hard to describe, and A/B'ing is a nightmare that I don't even want to attempt right now, so it could very well be placebo. But I guess I like it regardless. I've wasted $30 on worse stuff before, and this time I'll keep the tube (and the riser!).

One definitely objective benefit is that I don't need to turn my pot up as high to get things to listenable volumes, so maybe my old tube was dying a bit (or just not as efficient). The tube is MUCH quieter as well, I can turn this one to max on high gain and there's 0 noise, compared to the stock tube where high gain made it noisy at all levels. I forget whether I'm supposed to leave the Vali 2 on high or low gain for better performance (as I THINK there were some subjective changes in how it sounded between the two gain settings), so if anyone wants to pitch in there it'd be appreciated.

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase.

 

Moved to separated thread

 

Anyone own/used this and a Bottlehead Crack? Was looking for comparisons but didn't find many.

 

I actually have the Crack on order and it will be shipping out in the next batch sometime this month. I'll be happy to post a comparison between it and my Vali 2 when everything is built and ready.

 

I've given building a Crack much thought, especially since my daily driver (hd600) is purportedly such a good match, but my lack of patience is probably not a good trait for soldering. Using a soldering iron might also be construed as a violation of that pesky court order.

 

I had one pair that was super microphonic and another that wasn't. I got some silicone o-rings off eBay for the bad pair that seemed to help, like this:

http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/5pcs-19mm-...one-for-12AX7-12AU7-12AT7-12BH7-/112196958777

 

Is anyone else other than @jexby listening to Andros from Vali 2?

@jexby what does the Vali bring to Andro compared to other amps you've driven them with?

 

Hi @jexby or anyone else. I'm hoping someone can help me understand this statement:

I searched the thread for these terms: power, volt, voltage, rail, and juice.
I read the measurements thread where @Skyline seemed to have asked something similar to the results of high gain being better.
I also looked in my manual and on schiit's site.
I skimmed the system synergy thread too.

Do the measurement graphs show this increased voltage increased to the tubes some how? Or maybe it is as simple as maybe you've taken a meter to the vali before to find this out?

I always thought a rail is a fixed output, unless there's an issue. The schiit faq says

They don't seem to mention what voltage the rail runs at, but in the case for the lyr2, that runs at 200V for 100V plate. Is there a second rail that isn't mentioned or something? Am I miss understanding?

 

It seems like they've restocked
I think this tube makes a good start for anyone interested in tube rolling. Great price, might not be for everyone's liking but fun, lots of energy and lots of sparks. It's lika a Siemens E88CC Yeyo

 

Is it worth getting a few to make sure you have one that's channel balanced? Or have you not had a problem with the ones you've tried?

 

I bought two, and both were fine. Don't know how tight they're matched, and there's been no voodoo, cryo, standing on one leg thing going on either.

But I have had issues with other Russian tubes; 6N23P that were so microphonic even writing on the keyboard made them zing, for example. It's been interesting to listen to Vali2 with different tubes, but it has the risk of causing tube nervosa. It's very prone to sound signature change with tube roll. I had lots of tubes left over from the Mjolnir2 evaluation but otherwise I could've seen myself going mad...

Having said that the 6N1P is a tube I could live with...but I won't...since I'm the tube whisperer....

 

The stock tube that came with my Vali 2 did that- it was so microphonic that I could hear every damn keystroke- it's why I was so keen to swap it out so soon.

 

@Changeling I forgot to tell you I got the PCC88 2 days ago. Thanks again! Can't really speak to the differences from my other tubes at this time because I made a classic scientific method mistake of having two variables at once - I just got my Hifiberry Pi up and running and I changed out the tube at the same time. So I still need to do some A/Bing of tubes but I'm loving the sound I have at the moment!

 

I believe @Marvey did some testing and there are charts here showing the difference of high gain vs low gain. Graphs def looked better on high gain. I don't believe he did any volume testing. You'll have to search yourself, I don't have time to find his test results.

 

@jexby nice. I do agree, there does seem to be a difference going to high gain. I decided to give the high gain a shot when I read that. I can't tell if it is simply because I'm not matching volumes fully, but the sound does seem slightly "bloomier/fuller*" in a good way, but I haven't analyzed this and I'm not even sure it's needed. I do love the vali2, great little unit with very minor tradeoffs. Thank you for helping me to understand this better jexby.

*Sound impression: Don't read into what I say about audio descriptions.

 

Ah! Happy to hear they arrived safely. Please report back with impressions once you've spent some time with them.

 

Looking at Marv's measurements, harmonic distortion is lower in low gain. Also output impedance is lower and obviously gain is lower. So I would say that low gain adds some negative feedback to the circuit. This would have the effect of linearizing the tube and making it less "tubey".

Also dynamic headphones like plenty of volts for transients so more gain tends to make them sound snappier and punchier.