Tube dampeners on ARC gear ... FREE TWEAK

Frank,

I've been playing with the Herbie's dampers for a few days now, however, they don't work well in my system.  The bass was more solid and soundstage was more focused but I lost the extended high and smooth mid at the same time.  As you know I listen to a lot of female vocal and those are the things that matter the most to me.  I tried to play around with the damper position on the tubes but they just don't sound right no matter what I did.  I think I will send them back unless you have some tips that you can share again.  As soon as I removed the dampers, my system is back to normal again.  It seems like the Herbies are overdamping my system.  Meanwhile, I inserted only 1 ARC ring back into each tube and I noticed the high/mid are still good but the bass is more solid.  So it's like getting the best of both worlds.  Let me know what you think.  Thx.

Allan

folkfreak ...

Wow! That's a lot of tube dampeners. Odd, isn't it, that you're getting some real improvement from dampening so many tubes and yet in Allan system, he's getting over dampening as a result. 

Allan ...

I think its possible to over-damp with some of these tweaks. Based upon my positive results by switching to the Herbie dampeners in the preamp, is hard to imagine that they would be a problem though. Nice that Herbie has the return policy.  

I have Herbie's tube dampeners coming in Monday's mail for the power tubes in the phono, preamp an CD player. I'll report the results here. Hopefully, they will make further improvements. 

Frank

I suspect most people will find that Herbies tube dampers are quite sensitive to where on a particular tube they are placed. For example, on medium/large output tubes like 6SN7 the Herbies damper should sound correct/best when placed where the getter is located, which for bottom getters means on the lower portion of the tube. Also suggest trying placing the Herbies damper on the base itself instead of the glass. For small tubes the ideal location is usually but not always about 2/3 of the way up the tube. Also, when using many Herbies can I suggest trying one at a time, evaluating the sound incrementally. Otherwise, it's like tying to solve three simultaneous equations in four unknowns.

Geoff,

Thanks for your suggestion.  I did play around with the position for the Herbies dampers but nothing seemed to release the high/mid back to my system.  I guess my case is a little different than most of you here in the forum where you guys are using them on traditional preamps and power amps.  I am using them on a pair of PCC88s acting as a input stage for the PS Audio BHK 250 power amp.  It is not really a tube amp but a hybrid.  I guess I will send them back.

Frank,
I am placing an order of 4 Red fuses to replace the rest of the rail fuses in my amp since they are on sale now.  I am not sure if the Black fuses are twice as good as the Reds.  What do you think?

Allan

^^^ Allan ...

The Black fuses are a significant improvement over the Reds. I had my entire system completed with the Reds when the Blacks hit the market. I now have the system completed with the Blacks. There is no way I would want to go back to the Reds unless I had to use one as a spare. I would suggest that if cost is a factory that you do one fuse at a time, but make it black. :-)

Frank