The Leben CS300XS Thread - Page 120

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardilla 


What type of tube dampenereners did make it worse, under which condition?

The same tube dampers that worked in many other cases. People sometimes talk about about overdamping, I don't know if there is a strict definition of the concept or if it just means that the tubedamping doesn't give the desired result. Probably, different persons also have different opinions if the damping gives the desired result in a specific case. You have to try and it is simple to do it.

While using Google I stumbeled across this Leben CS300 thread and I decided to join and share my findings and opinion .

What made me decide to buy a CS300 was the following :

I  used to listen to music on the headphone on a vintage JVC reciever connected to the PC but wasnt really satisfied .

So I decieded I would try a tube headphone amp.
I went to the local HiFi store and asked for such a thing, they were all sold out at that moment so I asked for any tube amp he had ?

He had a 2nd hand chrome plate thing with tubes arranged  on it but with fortunally no headphone socket ;)

He allso had a new tube amp a Leben on stock.....Oh looks good I replied, but what does it cost ?

He mumbeled someting like 2500 Euros and I replied : Whaaat ?

He replied , why don't you take this thing home for the weekend and listen to it ?

That was a offer I couldn't refuse so I took the CS300 home, and as you can guess its still here with me from that day .

I was really impressed , details, so much details and the music just kept on flowing out of that little gold-green-wooden amplifier.

My set up has dramatically improved since the arrival of the Leben , and even the Leben itself .

After a a ESI Juli@ soundcard (I listen from a PC ) a separate Dac came and when I removed the opamps and replaced them for a srpp Telefunken 6211 stage that really got things going.

(talking about a microphonic tube ;-) but hard to find a better sounding ECC83 replacement.)

The CS 300 itself has now 2 nos Adzam ECC83's and 4 nos Soviet 6P14P EB output tubes and i'm fiddling with capacitors.

And last but not least, apart from beeing a great Headphone amp, the Leben's CS300 12 Watts do a trully stunning job with my 105Db Oberton 15NCX drivers !

But I ocasionally still plug in the Sennheiser 280pro .