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Adding some tubes?

K

kpsingh0

Member
Hi
I am interested in adding some tubes to my current set up. I have a pair of audio engines connected to my iPad plays lossless. Some at 24 bit. I have basically found two ways of adding tubes to my system.
1. Pre-amp
2. Tube buffer
What do you guys think my best option with most tube sound? Other options are welcome? I have heard some people say it's crazy adding a pre amp to a digi source and others say buffer is just another step of distortion. Anyone with experience with both?
Thanks
 
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I think what people are telling you is right - you will just be adding a certain level of distortion to your totally digital system. With powered speakers, you don't have much choice. But you may like the "distortion" that you hear.
Something else you may want to consider is a good quality DAC if your Audio Engines take an analog input. You can certainly do better than the DAC built in the IPad. Take the digital out of the IPad, do the conversion in a good quality DAC and feed your speakers the analog signal.
 
I think maybe I should take distortion as such a bad word then. Which do you think will make a bigger difference in terms of sound. Buffer vs pre amp
 
I am in the "buffer is a marketing ploy" camp. My first choice is add a tube power amp if the speakers are amenable to that (not all are) but if you have powered speakers the only real choice I see is tube preamp. There are a lot of guys here who swear by that option as a first choice too so I would say give that a shot.

You don't need much in the way of gain so a low mu triode line stage is what you need IMO. 12BH7 or 6SN7 maybe. If you want to try to soften the digital edge a bit you could try something 12AU7 based which would add more second harmonics than the other tubes. If you build for 12BH7 you could sub in 12AU7 pretty easily to compare the two.
 
Oh yeah. Lol I was just thinking about that today. but won't do that for a while. I think I found a solution. Maverick audio d1. It's a dac and has tube. If I use a transport for my iPad into the dac I'm set. Dac and tube pre amp. Class!
 
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