Tube Questions.

I have my dream tube amp coming in soon and was doing my research to stock up on tubes beforehand. However, i notice most of the content seem to be relatively unscientific.

I think it should be of some help to people (and me) if there was a place where we can find tube info from people we trust. And refer to said infor in the future

I'll start things off. What is the best EL34's for sale today, other than the miniwatts which are 600 a tube (jesus crust). I need a quad, my research points me to canada fuller el34G's.

If only takatsuki or EML made el34's. That would save me a whole lot of trouble.

Pity Felix isnt here anymore =P

 

What is your dream tube amp? It might be best to start a thread on it, or move over to an existing thread if one exists. You simply cannot attribute a certain sound to a tube and expect that it has that same sound in all kinds of amps. Its is always the entire amp which creates the sound.

 

It's a DIY t2

 

Who's building it? Birgir?

Perhaps you should ask the guy who's building your T2, since he should know what he's doing as well as everything about the amp itself. FWIW, although I no longer own one I used to run Mullard XF series for my BHSE a few years ago and liked them quite a bit over current production tubes.

 

The staxmafia's opinion on tubes for the T2 is that

"The T2 a grounded grid amplifier so it really doesn’t care about the tubes all that much. The “difference” people are often reporting is due to the different life left in the tubes as nobody bothers to compare that."

IE: buy JJ's. Not too sure if i want to go with new production stuff. If someone can sell me a quad of miniwatts, that would be great. Otherwise i just might get a quad of black sable JJ's and burn them in non stop for a month to reduce its life first lol!

Due to how badly the T2 reacts to a tube blowing (georgep described his resistors turning black). I'm aiming for reliability first (or second lol).

 

If i'm being honest, the price of these tubes are really turning me off tube amps.

250-600 USD a piece for just the EL34 (need a quad). Plus the spares you will need, another 2-3 quads. To top it off, these will probably expire in time (1-3 years). That brings it up to 3- 7k. And it uses 6922 tubes too, nice ones at 180 a tube. Once again, quads, plus spares, easily 2-4k.

Damn, that is 5 - 11k in tubes alone. I can probably get another Studio or T2 for the cost.

 

Yeah it's crazy, that's why i prefer tube amp's to have no more then 2 tubes. It helps both financially and mentally, atleast for me personally, if there are 4 or more tubes it would seriously set off my ocd.

 

I read a little about this amp offline. It does sound "high maintenance". Are you sure it's really a dream amp? On the other hand if you believe it's unresponsive to tube rolling, then why bother with the expensive tubes? I've heard the same, BTW, for other grounded grid amps. There is a grounded grid preamp I had been considering building and figured "no tube rolling" to be a feature, not a bug.

 

Unfortunately, i don't believe there is no difference, and even T2 builders on head-case hear quite a bit of difference. I'll probably buy a shuguang 6ca7 quads to try out first, before moving to a XFZ-2.

Haha its a dream amp as i've always lusted for a totl electrostatic setup. I remember as a student (circa late 2010), i would open inner-fidelity and other sites everyday to read the reviews on the BHSE. The BHSE was financially impossible to acquire back then, much less a T2. However, things have changed.

While looking for a BHSE at the right price for the better part of the year in 2015, i also started looking for a T2. But it was a halfhearted attempt as nobody seems to be selling one or is willing to. Needless to say, i was quite elated when i found this unit.

I just hope it lives up to the hype in my mind, which will be unlikely, since i have the most unreasonably high expectations for them. And im pretty sure the setup's i've come to listen and owned will come close or maybe even better it.

 

Funny, I thought the BHSE would be the end-game for me, but it turned out that I wasn't really a stat kinda guy. I wanted to settle down on my BHSE and SR-007 MK1 (IMO superior to SR-009) and never look back, but I eventually missed the dynamic slam and plankton resolution of HD800. As of now, I'm happier with my current ZDS and modded HD650/800S than ever, and it costs much less compared to what I had before. Of course YMMV, and I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I think you should try to keep an open mind and not simply expect that T2 will destroy everything you've heard to date. I never heard a T2, and while it is supposedly superior to BHSE, my guts tell me if I had to choose without listening, I would pick a EC Studio over T2.

 

Haha good thing about a T2, im pretty sure i can sell it off for my net cost.

At worst, its a relatively harmless demo, other than the tube cost which ill be likely to lose a little bit of money on.

I definitely intent to keep it though, would be nice to have a stat and everything else setup.

 

Now that put a smile on my face. I can't tell you how jaded i am by headphones right now. The closest headphone setup i've had that could even come closed to my speaker setup was the LCD 4 to a 430HA. Heck even my speakers don't give me much pleasure any more after i've gotten addicted to the stax speed when i owned my previous 2 stax setups.

I just hope its not too much better on the xf2's compared to the shuguang's. If it is, i will be in for a hell of wallet beating buying metal base el34's

Can't wait to hear your impressions and comparison between tubes. Should provide a good benchmark for me. Lojay's advice on the stax was to get metal base El34's. But 600 for a light bulb older than my father. God.

Is your's new or secondhand ?