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Who drives their cans with tubes?

Using an ASL Mk1 that I've rolled the el84's in and put in a nice
windmill getter 5751. Sounds good with several different cans,
but amazing with the HD650's with Carda cabling.
Hibuck...
 
high resolution needledrops via usb to Grant Fidelity Tubedac-11>Grado RS1i/Senn HD580 w/650 cable.

rolling a 6dj8 from:
Bugle Boy '66 ECC88 Herleen factory, O getter
Telefunken '60 ECC88 Berlin, O getter
Mullard '63 E88CC_01 CV2493, UK Mitcham plant halo getter
 
Getting this guy in for review. I think it should be very good. It's tubes and ss.

HH-1_BLACK_500.jpg
 
That Cary should be amazing! My asl Head OTL is great as is he Schiit Lyr
with NOS Amperex's and Lorenz in it. Looking forward to hearing more on the Cary.
Hibuck...
 
Bottlehead Crack with Speedball with HD650's
Tungsol 5998 or stock Sylvania 6080 that came with (always use the 5998!)
Variety of 12AU7's: Mullard, Telefunken, Amperex Bugle Boy, Full Music, etc

Hifiman EF5 (hybrid with one 12AU7 tube and opamp output) with Hifiman HE-5LE's, HE-500's.
Same 12AU7's above can be used with this setup as well, plus have 3 opamp choices (OP275, AD797, and LMExxxx - forgot the last one, but there's a Bucher of 9's in the P/N and a 4 as well)
 
I'm calling this my Overkill setup.

Not long after I bought my console tube amps; I started looking at how to possibly safely run headphones off them. I came up with a real simple circuit that has 8ohm audio resistors loading the transformer and parallels the headphones through a 100ohm resistor and volume control.

They originally came with a RCA made Motorola 6AU6, 2 12AU7s, and a pair of JJ 6V6S in each amp. The 12AU7's were of mixed makes; a Beckmann labeled 5963; Mullard ECC82; and two 12AU7's that appear to be RCA made. I ran my headphones this way for a while; despite all the noise. I counteracted it by lowering the volume to the cans and cranking the input level. I then temporarily wired them up so the line-level bypasses the 6AU6 and goes right in to the technically-second AF stage. The noise floor dropped like a rock without that 6AU6; and the amp still had enough gain to power my cans. The sonics were unlike anything I'd ever heard.

If that wasn't enough; a month or so after bypassing the 6AU6; I got myself some NOS Sylvania 5963's and stuck those in the 12AU7 stages. Holy moly. There was even less hum and those 5963's sound outstanding. I never expected much from tube rolling; but I was proven wrong. I also rolled various RCA BP 5963's in there; but went right back to the Sylvies.

 
Using an Audiotailer Jade tube amp that I modified (Blackgate caps, Riken Resistors) with Sylvania 7236 power tube and a Telefunken smooth plate 12AX7 as driver. My primary listening phones are 600 Ohm Beyer DT990s.
 
I'm in this camp! Leben CS300 driving Audio Technica W3000ANV. It's absurdly good sounding.
 
My modest setup consists of,a Yamaha DVD-S2700 feeding a Musical Fidelity X-CAN V2 with the stock JAN Phillips 6922 tubes,wich in turn feeds my Grado GS/PS/HP1000
 
my headphone rig

I have a very modest setup too:

* One of those cheapie eBay "Bravo" 12AU7 based headphone amps. I spent about $55 on it, delivered. It's great!
* A used pair of much the maligned (but I rather like them!) Bose AE2 headphones. These are very comfortable and had better bass by far than a pair of AKG 702's I auditioned.
* An old Sony cd player (model CDP-311) which I got for $4 at a goodwill store and repaired the transport myself!
* I just bought one of those cheapie Pyle Pro (model PP-999) solid state phono preamps and occasionally use it with the Sony PS-X5 (also repaired and cleaned that one), with a very nice Shure M91E cartridge. The phono preamp is quite good actually. No, it's not going to smoke my main system phono preamp (an E.A.R. 834p) but what the heck -- it was $20 and doesn't suck by any stretch!

--Mark
 
Coolcolors said:
I have a very modest setup too:

* One of those cheapie eBay "Bravo" 12AU7 based headphone amps. I spent about $55 on it, delivered. It's great!
* A used pair of much the maligned (but I rather like them!) Bose AE2 headphones. These are very comfortable and had better bass by far than a pair of AKG 702's I auditioned.
* An old Sony cd player (model CDP-311) which I got for $4 at a goodwill store and repaired the transport myself!
* I just bought one of those cheapie Pyle Pro (model PP-999) solid state phono preamps and occasionally use it with the Sony PS-X5 (also repaired and cleaned that one), with a very nice Shure M91E cartridge. The phono preamp is quite good actually. No, it's not going to smoke my main system phono preamp (an E.A.R. 834p) but what the heck -- it was $20 and doesn't suck by any stretch!

--Mark
Click to expand...

That's very interesting. I love my Bose AE2s for airplanes, web streams, Netflix and other casual listening but you can't beat the AKG K701s I have for accuracy. Then again I didn't pay nearly full price for either phone. I've been looking at those Bravo tube amps and I guess what worries me about buying one of those is that I'm afraid it would be noisy. Does yours have any background noise or is it dead silent?
 
Bravo headphone amp

Hey there RamblinE,

Nope, don't hesitate to buy one of the Bravo amps. Mine is dead quiet and well worth the money I spent. I got the next one down from the Bravo Ocean. I don't know if there's a model number to it.

Yeah, I don't how to explain the Bose vs. AKG-701's. It's not that the AKG's suck by any stretch or don't have bass. They are great, but to me the bass on the Bose? Well, there's more there. The AKG's though throw this massive soundstage that I greatly preferred to the Bose.

Attached is a photo of the Bravo amp just like mine. I see the price on eBay has increased. What hasn't?

Mark
 

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Speedball upgrade and RCA Black Plate 12BH7A arrived for my Bottlehead Crack today.
Looking forward to getting it together.

Dave
 
Best I heard my AKG K-702s were on a tube amp at my friend's hiFi shop. Glorious.

I wish I could recall the amp.

Glorious.
 
Grado PS500's through a Bottlehead Smack amp
and
HiFiMan HE500's through their EF5 amp
Stock tubes but very delicious!
 
Fixed my S5 Electronics K12G DIY tube amp tonight. Plugged it's outputs into the box I made yesterday for driving headphones off of speaker taps.

K12G > AKG K701
 
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