Tubes Tubes Tubes

My experience with tubes, albeit old, was that they never sounded the same. My stereo would sound one way one day and another way the next. It was never "bad" just "different". Solid state ended that. My system sounded exactly the same every time I turned it on. Not to say those early stereo setups of mine sounded good, but they certainly were consistent.

Nah, nothing like that Bill. The tubes are burning in. My tube gear sounds the same each and every day otherwise.

Well my tube stuff was scavenged out of an old Telefunken console. Not exactly state-of-the-art/ I always felt that the tubes were on their last legs.

I always felt that the tubes were on their last legs.

LOL....well, that's a possibility. Did you ever roll in new ones?

Some of those Telefunken consoles were pretty cool looking. Their weak spot was the speakers.

Well, I gutted the Telefunken after it sat in my sisters basement for 10 years. I think that was about 1980. Was able to get the tuner section, the phono preamp and the power amp out. The speakers were, well........ in there. It had two side firing speakers and a panel along the front. I had my DCM Time Window and AR3a speakers by then so I didn't do anything with the Telefunken speakers. Hated to leave behind that teak cabinet, but I couldn't transport it (wouldn't fit my decor anyway). The tuner had those Telefunken tubes that looked like cats eyes (I think bob p used to use one as an avatar).

Never did roll the tubes in the power amp. Probably would have been a good idea. The thing only put out about 40 WPC. It was also pretty ugly with a bare metal chassis. I had to neaten up some of the wiring because it hung out of the bottom when it was installed in the console. Those big hunks of wood hid some messy wiring!

Over the past week I started to notice the top end getting a bit too hot. I detected slight sibilance and cymbals sounded tizzy, two things I really hate. Having some time to play around with my gear tonight, I rolled a variety of different 9 pins and quickly realized why I run the Mullards. Ok, so that wasn't going to help....hmmmm. I then recalled someone mentioning playing around with the bias on their amp running these tubes, so I thought what the hell, I'll give it a shot. Normally, I set the bias at 3.0mV per the owners manual. I set the bias to 2.8mV and sat back for a listen. Right away I thought it sounded much better and after a few familiar CD's I found my feet tapping away with the music.......yes, definitely much better.

So far, I'd have to say that these tubes have a bit more bass punch than the Ei's I've been running and that's saying a lot. They also exhibit greater detail and micro detail with a deeper and wider soundstage. So, now that I've got the top end tamed....yeah, not a bad sounding tube.

More to come.

Thanks for the update. Great advice on bias adjusting.

I guess I should update my impressions of the Shuguang Treasure 6CA7-Z's. Per my usual style, I'll keep it short and sweet and juicy like these nutz., but first let me say that I went back to the proper bias setting.

Ok, here it is.......these tubes are my new standard. The improvements in all aspects of sound reproduction are quite astounding. What more needs to be said, they really are that good.

A huge thank you to James and Dave for the opportunity to enjoy the music on my all tube rig more than ever before. Thanks guys!

Great to hear F1nut. Thanks again for the update.