Mike Hanson
Trying to understand...
There are those here who may recall that I was hankering after more "texture" from my Cornwalls. I was told that I needed tubes, specifically in the power amp stage, as my speakers were intended for old-timey amplifiers (even though the Cornwall IV was released in the last decade). I went ahead and auditioned a few, and ended up with a Cary SLI-100 integrated. It had the boogie that I required, and more of that textural nuance that I desired. I was irritated, though, because it meant I couldn't use any of the many solid state power amps that I've built over the years.
There was a fair bit of hiss from one channel, though, and swapping input tubes highlighted that it was a poor 6922 tube. I replaced them with Electro Harmonix Gold, and things improved. However, I was still irked that tubes can go gradually like this, and the big KT-150 tubes in the SLI-100 would be expensive to replace.
During my initial investigation, some dissenters said that I should go with a tube preamp, fed into a solid state amp. Given my aforementioned irritation, I decided to look for something suitable to try. I discovered a Cary SLP-2002 for a good price, and set it up to compare against the SLI-100. I was pleased to discover it was at least as good, so I was happy to move away from the integrated.
Deja vu: the pre-amp was making low level hissy-spitty noises, so I decided to try swapping tubes. Conveniently, both amps use the 6922 for the input stage. The existing tubes were in the pre were Amperex ECC88/6DJ8, which I replaced with the Electro Harmonix from the integrated. Unexpectedly, my left channel wasn't outputting any sound. I tried swapping sides, but the problem remained on the left side. Then I tried putting the Amperex back in, and sound resumed. I popped the EH tubes back into the integrated, and they were fine there.
So the pre-amp that's supposed to work with 6922 tubes doesn't work with 6922 tubes.
Perhaps the pre-amp is on the edge, and can't quite manage the different tubes. I was already planning to send it into Cary, so they could fiddle with the volume resistors to give me more range. I'll ask them to do a full once over, to ensure that everything's fine.
So far, my experience with tubes has been frustratingly fiddly. Any web search brings up ambiguous or conflicting results. Is my life with tubes destined to filled with annoying problems?
As a sidenote, I'm currently using a Ferrum Wandla DAC. They're about to release a GoldenSound upgrade, including a "tube" mode that adds even order harmonics to simulate the distortion inherent in tubes. Perhaps that's where I'm headed.
There was a fair bit of hiss from one channel, though, and swapping input tubes highlighted that it was a poor 6922 tube. I replaced them with Electro Harmonix Gold, and things improved. However, I was still irked that tubes can go gradually like this, and the big KT-150 tubes in the SLI-100 would be expensive to replace.
During my initial investigation, some dissenters said that I should go with a tube preamp, fed into a solid state amp. Given my aforementioned irritation, I decided to look for something suitable to try. I discovered a Cary SLP-2002 for a good price, and set it up to compare against the SLI-100. I was pleased to discover it was at least as good, so I was happy to move away from the integrated.
Deja vu: the pre-amp was making low level hissy-spitty noises, so I decided to try swapping tubes. Conveniently, both amps use the 6922 for the input stage. The existing tubes were in the pre were Amperex ECC88/6DJ8, which I replaced with the Electro Harmonix from the integrated. Unexpectedly, my left channel wasn't outputting any sound. I tried swapping sides, but the problem remained on the left side. Then I tried putting the Amperex back in, and sound resumed. I popped the EH tubes back into the integrated, and they were fine there.
So the pre-amp that's supposed to work with 6922 tubes doesn't work with 6922 tubes.
Perhaps the pre-amp is on the edge, and can't quite manage the different tubes. I was already planning to send it into Cary, so they could fiddle with the volume resistors to give me more range. I'll ask them to do a full once over, to ensure that everything's fine.
So far, my experience with tubes has been frustratingly fiddly. Any web search brings up ambiguous or conflicting results. Is my life with tubes destined to filled with annoying problems?
As a sidenote, I'm currently using a Ferrum Wandla DAC. They're about to release a GoldenSound upgrade, including a "tube" mode that adds even order harmonics to simulate the distortion inherent in tubes. Perhaps that's where I'm headed.