Woo Audio WA6 + WA6SE: Tubes, Comments, Pictures, and Advice - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dubstep Girl 

 

the way i see it, on the WA6SE, i have yet to find a headphone that you have to turn the knob more than 11 oclock before it gets unbearably loud. with the regular WA6, you probably have to turn it more to like 3 o clock-ish before that happens..

With my Edition 8s I max out at position 6 on a 24 step attenuator (approx. 9 'o clock).  For most listening I'm on click 4 and low level 2 or 3.  Very little leeway, actually a bit of a problem.

I have some Thunderpants on the way, hopefully the situation will be better with those.

where can I get these tubes? Tung-Sol BGRP 6F8Gs and EML 5U4GM?

The EML you need to get it from a dealer or second hand.  The tung sols are quite hard to find at times.  They do pop up here and there on forums and on ebay.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ahzari 

Does anyone here have experience with the hifiman HE500 paired to the WA6/SE?

Let me Google that.

I'm really curious to know what other cans are working well with the standard WA6. It seems like all the cool ones aren't going to be driven properly. I'm wondering if the HD800s or the Beyer T1s would work? What about the Denon 7000? Looking forward to the local head-fi meet so I can try out a few different ones.

I just got fit yesterday for some Westone ES5s so my full-size budget won't come around again for a bit. I've actually read those sound great with the WA6.

From my experience with the WA6 and various HIFI headsets...   it depends on the headphones impedance of the phones...   The WA6 will properly drive all the way up to 600 ohm...   but you will have to have the volume knob at around 3 oclock for good listening levels with 600 ohm cans..  and that leaves little to no room left if you wanted to drive them a little harder/louder.. so, even though they are being driven with plenty of volume your still wanting more for some reason.  Maybe its a mind game, having the volume knob that high ???  And of course the phones with less impedance have plenty of room on the volume dial to put them where ever you need them to sound right for you...   

When I look at the specs for all of the Woo amps you can see that all of the amps are power limited at 600 ohm..  http://wooaudio.com/docs/wooaudio_amplifier_comparisons.pdf

not that the amps don't sound good, its just the power is limited at that impedance.  From what I can tell it looks to me that the sweet spot for power is for a 300 ohm head set...    and thats probably the reason the HD800's (300 ohm) sound so good on any of his amps...  and with tube rolling you have much more latitude for the sound that you want the amp to perform to..  

looking at the specs I'm a little surprised that the WA6SE has that much power over the other amps...   it should work extra fine with all the phones...   of course there's always the WA22  :-)

with the WA6SE, 11 o clock is crazy loud with 600 ohm and basically any headphone i have.

low impedance like grado don't need more than 10 o clock to be deafening loud. and thats considering i listen to music at very loud levels compared to most people here.

sennheiser sounds super loud at 11 o clock.

beyers 10-12 o clock

lcd-2 10 o clock

akg 11 o clock

anything more and the headphones will start to clip or sound bad since you'd be overpowering them.

^^^ +1

it is also dependent on the tubes you are using.  i use 6DN7's on my 6SE which have higher power output than the stock 6EW7's.  when fed from my Bifrost (2.0Vrms output power) my volume numbers looked very much like Dubstep Girl's.  HD800 & T1 @ ~10AM, HD600 @ ~9AM.  feeding it from my DAC-2 i have the ability to attenuate the DAC2's output power and i have it set such that HD800 & T1 now play @ ~12 to 1PM.

make sure to post your he-500 impressions with the WA6SE!!

Am I the only one who think the blue LED is annoying? I have black electrical tape over mine lol. The glowing tubes should be enough to determine whether the amp is on or off .