captaincb said:

I was sent a gorgeous pic of a setup from a Woo customer. Had a DaVinci DAC feeding into the Woo 234's and then into some KEF LS50's. Not sure who owns it, but I wish I could have a listen to that set up. There is one member here who has at least that gear collection and maybe more... "Squirrel" is part of his name if I'm not mistaken.

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Yep, isquirrel
 
Some of his pictures on this thread here:
http://www.head-fi.org/g/a/924499/woo-audio-amp-owner-unite/

I wonder if isquirrel is friendly to Texans!! haha. 
 
Super cool photos in the link you posted. Thanks for doing that.

captaincb said:

  I wonder if isquirrel is friendly to Texans!! haha. 
 
Super cool photos in the link you posted. Thanks for doing that.

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Texan's no problem, how can I help?
 

Well... isquirrel... apparently I need to think about visiting Australia... after the strong assumption that I would be invited... hahaha
 
In all seriousness... I am very interested in following in your footsteps apparently. May not be able to follow in every which way, but I do see a ridiculous amount of similarity in your equipment chain and my desires to grow mine. I am just very new to the headphone realm. But it is a realm I will need to remain in for the time being. It can be safely tucked away in my private office. My main system is all in wall and hidden from the view of a two year old.
 
I am trying to make decisions for my private listening room that will be completely dedicated to headphone based systems... with the slight possibility of a near field desktop setup. No matter what... Woo will be involved. I just really believe in the concept of "the last amp you will ever buy"... even though I know it's not true. I seek out that level of products within my interests.
 
Looks like you do too isquirrel
 
I would happily continue this convo in PM if it would be something you wouldn't mind helping me with. Just remember... I'm a headphone noob!

Sure send me a PM

My SERP is going to be sold this weekend, still waiting for Elrog to make up their mind and send me my replacement.  Elrog is not holding up their end of the bargain, I wouldn't recommend buying from them for now.  Good thing I have my WE300B to keep me company.  I put in the stock tubes after packing up my SERP and boy.. one word, muddy.

So, my Philips Miniwatt SQ E88CC's arrived  earlier this week, been burning them in over the last few days. Overall, they're pretty great sounding tubes. I'm not particularly good at reviews, so I'll just say that they're very sweet sounding and the mid range is fantastic.
 
Many thanks to Krutsch for all his help, apologies for the terrible colours on the following photo:
 

effles said:

  So, my Philips Miniwatt SQ E88CC's arrived  earlier this week, been burning them in over the last few days. Overall, they're pretty great sounding tubes. I'm not particularly good at reviews, so I'll just say that they're very sweet sounding and the mid range is fantastic.
 
Many thanks to Krutsch for all his help, apologies for the terrible colours on the following photo:
 

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Yes... the Philips excel at the mid-range, sacrificing some of the clinical detail of the Telefunkens (I routinely switch between a set of Teleys and Amperex Holland tubes for the same effect). With the Tung-Sol 5998, you are all set, my friend.
 
Congrats and happy listening!

krutsch said:

 
Yes... the Philips excel at the mid-range, sacrificing some of the clinical detail of the Telefunkens (I routinely switch between a set of Teleys and Amperex Holland tubes for the same effect). With the Tung-Sol 5998, you are all set, my friend.
 
Congrats and happy listening!

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Yep! I listen to almost exclusively Folk, pretty heavily acoustic guitar and male vocals, these tubes really shine there. Enjoying them greatly. Thanks!

So Tony tried this already and had good results, but I had to see for myself... I bought a HiFiMAN HE-Adapter:
 
http://hifiman.com/Products/?pid=104
 
And hooked it to the speaker outputs of my WA-5 and plugged my LCD-XC into the box. Sounds very nice, a touch fuller but maybe less detailed than the front jack. Noise floor was higher than I wanted but this can be solved by replacing the 25-ohm series resistors in the box with higher values (they are chosen for the HE-6, which is much less sensitive of course than anything else). I'm going to do that and replace the 10-ohm parallel resistor with a higher-quality one as well, and re-evaluate. If nothing else I will have a box I can use with other tube amps that only have speaker outputs.

stereolab42 said:

  So Tony tried this already and had good results, but I had to see for myself... I bought a HiFiMAN HE-Adapter:
 
http://hifiman.com/Products/?pid=104
 
And hooked it to the speaker outputs of my WA-5 and plugged my LCD-XC into the box. Sounds very nice, a touch fuller but maybe less detailed than the front jack. Noise floor was higher than I wanted but this can be solved by replacing the 25-ohm series resistors in the box with higher values (they are chosen for the HE-6, which is much less sensitive of course than anything else). I'm going to do that and replace the 10-ohm parallel resistor with a higher-quality one as well, and re-evaluate. If nothing else I will have a box I can use with other tube amps that only have speaker outputs.

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It's a handy little device to have around. After a bunch of A/B testing I went back to the single ended output for the HD800 on the WA5. As always, YMMV.

Seen in WA22 manual they say that HP need to be plugged in before powering up if HP are not plugged in any danger because amp is OUTPUT TRANSFORMER COUPLED.

mikelap said:

  Seen in WA22 manual they say that HP need to be plugged in before powering up if HP are not plugged in any danger because amp is OUTPUT TRANSFORMER COUPLED.

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Yeah. I now do this every time I use. I didn't know this at first and I didn't read the manual. So for the first few months I just turned it on without anything plugged in. As far as I can tell or hear there was no damage.

badas said:

  Yeah. I now do this every time I use. I didn't know this at first and I didn't read the manual. So for the first few months I just turned it on without anything plugged in. As far as I can tell or hear there was no damage.

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Does the same go for the WA6???
I always power on/plug-in then un-plug/power off.

joseph69 said:

  Does the same go for the WA6???
I always power on/plug-in then un-plug/power off.

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As far as I know and just recently learned all tube amps should have a load on the transformer all the time. Either speakers or headphones. If not it can ruin the transformer or transformers. If they are ruined then ya might as well throw the amp away as they are the most expensive part of a tube amp. I have read that the Woo amps have some tolerance to not having a load however the best practice is to always have something connected. When I have just rolled new untested tubes I always just plug in crappy headphones until I am satisfied the new tubes are safe. Usually after 5 minutes.
 
I'm not a expert on this so there can be some mistakes in the above statement so other more experienced members could probably tell us more.