Preamp Deal of the Century

Theaudiotweak,

I find your argument a bit funny considering your Audiogon name... heh heh.

Anyway, you have to remember that all audio components aimed at the retail market (in general) are designed to be sold at a particular price point. Even Mick's preamps. Also, you need to remember that all tubes are not equal. Different tubes (of the same tube type), sound different. Now, many times tube designers will use some of the least expensive tubes they can for their stock product (to get the price down ofc... excellent tubes can really inflate the price of a particular component).

I would be the last to say that any tube sounds better than the stock tubes of tube gear. I would also not say that more expensive tubes will always sound better than less expensive tubes. I have a tube DAC that sounds better with $50 Siemans Falcon 6922 tubes than $150 Amperex 7308 premium quality white label tubes. However, both of those sets of tubes completely blows away (sonically) the Russian stock tubes the DAC comes with.

The inherent thing about tubes which is both their advantage and their bane is that they do add distortion to the signal. The more tubes a signal is run through, the more distortion that is added. No way around that, that I know of. The great thing about tubes is that in general they add mostly 2nd order and 4th order distortion (mostly 4th order). This distortion is picked up by our ear as more of musical qualities than anything else. Solid state on the other hand adds mostly 3rd order distortion. 3rd order distortion is picked up by our ears as not musical at all.

The problem, Theaudiotweak, is that tubes are funky devices. Saying that a tube piece must be 'heard as it really is' is like saying the best time to take a picture of a race car is while it is going 220MPH. No matter what tubes you use in a piece of audio gear (be them stock or some of the best you can buy), the sound of the tubes is constantly changing from second 1 they are installed and the devices is turned on. It is a type of performance curve they follow during their lifetime which is constantly changing and eventually ends in the tube not able to function. And after your stock tubes need replacing, what are you going to do? Get some more of the same tubes? You can... but you will not be guarenteed the same performance of your original stock tubes. Because, in general no two sets of tubes (even the same make and model) will necessarily perform the same.

Thus, people tube roll because their is a distict possibility they can achieve better performance from different tubes then their stock ones, OR their stock ones have gone kaput and they need new tubes (thinking that different tubes might work better than stock or maybe their stock ones are not available on the open market).

Theaudiotweak, you sound like a solid state guy.

Gotta run.

KF

Theaudiotweak, I suspect most of the people here have gotten past the stage of mistaking better for different. Although sometimes it can be hard to tell. With equipment quality such as this it is easier to discern the difference... if the rest of the system is up to the task of revealing it. Which I guess goes to your point. But I am aware of at least one other user here who's system definitely is up to the task. These guys aren't swapping tubes just because they can.

Jim

My backround in audio and video goes back over thirty years. It is and has been my hobby and profession over the same span of time. I have owned way back tube equipment from Marantz, Mac, Arc, Conrad, Sonic Frontiers ,Cary and Melos and Bat..Some of this gear is in use in my system today.None of it in a total state of originality. I suppose my criticism is non specific at anyone person or any single instance or thread. This thread is perhaps the most mature one that I have read and participated in for sometime..Because of these feelings, impressions or even facts, I felt compelled to question some methods by which some Goners' actually evaluate parts pieces or whole audio systems. It seems at least to me some, of less experience make wholesale random changes not having a method to their enthusiastic madness. Conclusions, bashing of gear that maybe way better than any other piece of gear that they own and is far more revealing of all of the stuff attached to it and thru it. When a client asks me to lend them a cable for audition I try to take all the same cable brand and type to that clients home. How can you evaluate one cable out of perhaps six or eight that are thrown in to the mix. All the same cable all of one voice. There has to be a point of stasis to really have a basis of comparison. This is only one example... People on this thread know how to do this and implement this. For this bobby to survive and hi-end audio as an ongoing work of art to survive, those of us with the knowledge education and expertise should take it upon ourselves to inform others on proper methods of design and implementation and not just the product in the box..Tom

Eccl: nice response, thank you; I just knew there was some juicy-good experience lurking back there...:o) Yes, agreed, NOS tubes are different in different applications, but I guess what I was trying to say: Which one do you reach for first when approaching any system with the Supratek? The initial orientation, I would resubmit, is to reach for an insertion of the "organic" first, reaching for the Ken's, that act being itself a symptom of the slight leaning of the Supratek in the opposing direction towards "clearness", in a general sense. And, yes, Mullards, particularly vintage EL 34's in a CJ, might make me pause with the black Kens. I assume you were using that extreme as illustration... (and, so you know, eccl, I'd like to respond to a lot more of what you said, maybe later).

On auidiotweak, generally, well, mostly generally:

I know what audiotweek is saying - that we must be careful that we are not hearing what someone has told us we should hear, or that we want to hear. Or, even, that we don't tell ourselves, in that self delusion, that the euphonic "color difference" is the "organic" that catalyzes the listening mind towards deeper experience of the beauty and meaning within music (as opposed to just listening to "colorations" in sound). And yet, even as I say the above, can't you perceive the obvious difference in those two orientations? Jim said it well, and, er, more concisely than moi: different is not synonomous with better.

A focus on "different" can be seen as analogous to a focus on changes in relative quantity (different "colors" but really just the same in ability to catalyze deeper listening experiences), while that orientaion which is conoted by "better", addresses concepts of "quality" (and which I would submit means, in our context, a component that is "better" able to catalyze a deeper relationship between mind and sound/music). What jim says is, and what I was trying to clumsily say above about people at a transition point when approaching the Supratek, is that people here seem ready to get past the merely quantitative, some perhaps just at the precipice; of now looking for that "something" in their system that transcends the quantitive search for accuracy in its comparison of the same "colors", or "details", or....its now about the pull of "quality" that brings people here as a primary motive of will. And having just arrived there/here, naturally, they seek out an informed peer group; informed both quantitatively AND qualitatively.

I think audiotweak knows this deep down, he's just spent too much time selling gear to guys with money and no ears (ie the will to go deeper in themselves as secondary orientation, desire to induce coveting in others primary). Seeing this too much can lead to a bit a post modern malaise, eh, audiotweak? :0)

Remember, though, if you want to take on the mantle of teacher, one teaches through inspiration - as in, inspire the qualitative will towards deeper musical experience - not just the conveyance to others of "method" or "design", or "implementation" of method and mechanos (all quantitative-orientated words, something to self-reflectiveley ponder given the above...).

Einstein said, "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Inspire first, towards that "something" beyond mechanos, even while explaining the implementation of empiric comparison. Yet never forget, the former is primary in our search, whether it be for "better" sound, or "better" mathematics, or better "design", or...I think you know this too, audiotweak.

You know, making inspiration towards "quality" the primary orientation doesn't always and necessarily mean irrational regression...That's where hope rests.

I hear you Tom! and a very good point. One hell of a lot of experimentation going on out there without some type of methodology or reference point to work with.And with tubed gear, more often then not, it can lead far too many poor souls into proverbial Bermuda Triange. I have read more hype and BullShit regarding vacuum tubes here and there and everywhere on the net. Too many people that I know personally have rolled different tubes, way to many times until they are so confused and frustrated with how bad their stuff sounds, that they start looking at what to upgrade next. They read somewhere on the net,some inexperienced dimwit professing that the 12abcdxyz is an auwsome tube, and then they go out buy some tired tube pulls or relabelled fakes they saw on ebay, and they don't even own a tube tester nor know how to use one!A simple recipe for disaster if one has little or no experience with tube brands,tube types, vintages, and tube topology. It's really a simple rule of thumb....If your going to invest in NOS tubes,buy a tube tester and learn how to use it. That said: there is no denying that many NOS tubes can transform most any well designed amplifier[vintage,modern, DIY or otherwise]into a magical experience. Examples you say: Try a fresh siemen ecc803/12ax7 [60,s vintage] in any interation of the audio research sp series preamps and most would soil themselves at the transformation.I am not talking tonal balance tweeks here gang, but a whole higher league altogether. For those that use a modern amp with a 12au7 as a driver tube, now try a 60,s vintage mullard [10m series] or mazda chrome plate from the same era and you'll think you have died and gone to heaven.Ever heard an original genelex KT77 in place of an el-34? Now thats an ear opener if the ever was one!It just doesn't get any better than that!Same with the Genelex Kt-88 or Kt-66 to name a few more. Forget the tonal balancing act here gang,its a whole nother order of magnitude better in every which way! Tonal balance changes? Far easier accomplished with speaker placement, room treatments and cables, "NOT" the tubes.