[Paladin79]

Now that's a bedside stack! Kudos once again, @Paladin79

That looks great together with the headphone stand!

 

[bcowen]

My results are in on the standard tubes I tested for the Vali 3. All tests were blind and I found out which tube was which after the sixth tube was evaluated. Max points 100.

Order of finish by score.

WE 396A. 96
GE 5 star 5670. 93
GE JAN 5670W. 92
GE Yellow Top. 87
CBS 2C51. 83
Russian 6N3P. 80

The bottom three tubes scored lower in such categories dynamic range, timbre, micro details etc.

Now you need to do this again and include a Tesla 6CC42, a triple mica Foton 6N3P, and a real Bendix 2C51. No rest for the weary, as they say.

 

[Paladin79]

Now you need to do this again and include a Tesla 6CC42, a triple mica Foton 6N3P, and a real Bendix 2C51. No rest for the weary, as they say.

Send them, I will use the same test procedures.

 

[RickB]

Tubes are worth what people will pay for them. I could pick that tube out of the six pretty easily.

The fact that there's only a 4 point difference between that and a $20 tube makes me feel better about sticking with the GE JAN 5670W.

Edited for stupid math error.

 

[Paladin79]

The fact that there's only a 3 point difference between that and a $20 tube makes me feel better about sticking with the GE JAN 5670W.

Not a bad plan, like so much in audio, you can spend a lot for small differences once you reach a certain level.

This is just my opinion after my listening session. As always YMMV.

 

[Ripper2860]

A quick drive-by Jazz recommendation while I'm in queue to see Stevie Nicks.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Hey all,

The time flies by. Too many things to do right now!

Sooooo, a quick update, before I go into Weekend Documentation Hell (long story, you'll read about it this year):

1. You may see Kraken as early as next week. Think "media capability, music quality." Not giant power. I've been using one for about a year. It's a great little amp, but if you're looking for a 7x300W monster, this isn't for you.
2. Getting close on being able to let you know where the new Schiit is going to be. As soon as the building has closed and the foundation repair guys are on site, I'll let you know. It's in a cool area of San Antonio, that much I can say. Corpus Christi stays as it is now...making smaller products.
3. Other stuff I've mentioned is slugging its way to production (Stjarna, Gungnir 2, etc.) but don't be surprised if these are delayed a bit, mainly due to, well, everything. You move a company, do the dev work on a Very Big Idea, develop new products, etc, and see how it works out. We're concentrating on making sure there's as little disruption in current operations as possible. And that alone is a very big job.

All the best,
Jason

 

[StimpyWan]

I'm particularly fond of this story. They spent 6 hours working on the words "Well the" for "Home at Last" during the Aja sessions

"We’d be remiss if we didn’t include this anecdote about seasoned studio engineer Lenise Bent, who worked with the band during their Aja sessions. It was the recording of the song “Home at Last” that brought her to a breaking point, due to Fagen and Becker’s insistence on getting two words, two syllables, absolutely perfect. As remembered by Dick LaPalm, Bent’s friend and publicist extraordinaire:

"‘Dick, I have to talk to you.’ She put her head down on the desk in her arms and said, ‘Well-the, well-the, well-the.’ I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Lenise looked up and said, ‘Dick, I have to get off the Aja session. They worked on the words ‘well the’ for six hours last night. All they did was work those two words for just the right sound for hours. I really have to get off the session.’"

https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/steely-dan-stories-of-donald-fagen-and-walter-becker.html

I appreciate the perfectionism to a degree, but anything after Aja is kind of iffy for me, when I feel they started taking it to a pretty absurd degree, at the expense of the human element of musicianship (e.g. that programmed beat on "Hey Nineteen"). I think of recorded music first and foremost as a kind of language, the same way people talk about the "language of film". It's a cultural artifact, with nods to the values of the cultures it comes from. With the later Steely Dan stuff it's almost like they tried creating their own dialect of recorded music that did away with a lot of the language that had come before, all in the name of perfectionism.

IMHO of course

I had a client like that once. I had mastered his whole CD, which he loved, except for 1 track. Even before he sent me the mixes, that 1 particular track was bugging him. Well, by the end of the session, I was making EQ and level changes of as little as 0.1dB, before he was satisfied with the mix. Even his wife was ready to kill him, by the time we were finished...! Nice guy, but his session was one of the reasons I quit mastering. I was starting to hate music due to the stress of working in it...!

 

[StimpyWan]

Giving my new Ania Pro cart a run on the new Kevin Gray AAA cut of Eastern Sounds

I love the look of Rega tonearms! I should get one for my Sonographe...!

 

[Ripper2860]

Very Big Idea...

Come on. You're being a bit modest, aren't you? We all know it's really a VERY BIG IDEA in all caps and bold.

We're good. All good things come to those that wait. Plus, I'm broke.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

More on topic.

Not a comment on the Lyr+. Or maybe it is.

 

[riffrafff]

Great work! The Western Electric 396A Tube Sellers Association thanks you for your contribution to their ongoing excessive profits. Which they won't be sharing with you.

Meh. My 5-star 5670 is close enough for me.

 

[Ripper2860]

More on topic.

Not a comment on the Lyr+. Or maybe it is.

Vali 3 is so good that Lyr + has been relegated to a pedestal.

** I spy, with my little eye, a WE396A.

 

[cats4cans]

More on topic.

Not a comment on the Lyr+. Or maybe it is.

Now if only you could somehow shoehorn the Magni Unity DAC card into a Vali…. but I understand you're busy doing just a few other trivial things.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Now if only you could somehow shoehorn the Magni Unity DAC card into a Vali…. but I understand you're busy doing just a few other trivial things.

Unfortunately, even if it fit, Vali 3 doesn't have the right voltages to run it...it's a very very very minimalistic design. So unfortunately no chance of that happening.