Slade01

all I could think of was not tubes but this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIzFg4eEvbQ

@caute Bon Iver is crazy good.

Yay for me. The last couple of months I owned my Line Magnetic LM805ia I ran a pair of the Linlai Elite 6SN7 and prefered them to any NOS pairs I had tried. Very vivid and holographic sounding without being thin

@Inoculator thank you - that is very high praise, I think I will give it a shot then. I was skeptical because I heard the non elite versions of the tube were more of a "meh". @Kernel Kurtz - I like the CV181-T also, one of the very few New Production tubes i like.

Not familiar with their 6SN7, but LinLai is a solid new prod manufacturer.

I remember rolling GEC 6080s (which are nice) and then trying out a random Fivre 6SN7 I purchased. It was one of the most deepest and holographic sound stages I heard. I loved this combination until I burned out the tube by having the amp set to the incorrect voltage. Sad day and sold the amp after since I was too clumsy and burned out several expensive tubes, lol.

Distortion Profiles are a great way to look at it. I'm more or less out of the game, and rolled a ton of tubes (us/eu made) for years. Honest to god, never got into japan tubes at all in this time. Am rolling 12AT7, and tried this Toshiba with triple mica, D getters, and its one of the clearest/holographic tubes I've heard for this variant. Also, realizing, its insanely hard to find. It's insanely good though.

@Phantaminum I would be sad too if I burned a Fivre tube. Those are certainly ones that live up to the hype of holographic sound staging, among the best I've every owned. A secret hack to get that sound (is rare but out there) is to get Sylvania 6J5 tubes that are marked made in Italy. Those are actually Fivre tubes, and could get those for cheap/reasonable prices if one has sharp eyes for those details.

NOS just means the smoothing of the stepwise signal is happening downstream in the amplification, transducers, or air.. instead of digitally inside the DAC. Maybe you have better stuff downstream than others?

@Woland not sure what happened, but all i know is that my ZMF Atticus has suddenly really come alive all of a sudden. I get what you're saying, im no stranger to NOS and R2R dac sounds. This is surprising for me, but the bass is really stronger like a surge in this region now. Going to see if on a SS and Planar will be same or not. Will probably post findings on the Bifrost thread soon.

Most things in audio measurements have weak correlation to what sounds good. Enjoy. It is very common to trade 'precision' to 'soul' or 'musicality' and the other way around as well.

Totally agree. I just mentioned that in another forum that at the core the Piety is awesome, but still a Magni at the core. At that point, better to buy a next level amp.

Piety? Heresy!

Heresy? Because they are Fulla....and should go to Hel! They reached the 300 mark. WOW.