Cayin HA-3A, a Compact 6V6s Transformer-coupled Tube Amplifier
- Thread starter Andykong
- Start date
Unfortunately importing from the UK, won’t save me the customs and duties… thanks, I’ll check it out, if I got no advice on EU online retailers.
Well I finally took the plunge into the tube world after finding a local deal on an excellent condition Cayin, and I'm definitely hooked! Having read through a good chunk of this thread, my main worry was noise. I have a desktop PC, monitors, router, etc in close proximity.. It's been about two weeks and this amp has exceeded my expectations and with no additional noise to speak of.
Original owner threw in some spare tubes as well, Mullard 6v6gt and Psvane 12au7-s art series which are a considerable improvement over the stock tubes that I briefly a/b tested. The Psvane provide a well balanced sound while the Mullards bring the lushness and warmth. Bass is well extended with good punch, intoxicating mids with very satisfying guitar crunch and beautiful vocals, and thankfully no harsh treble.
For the headfiers in here that stated the LCD4 is an awesome match with this amp, you were not kidding! I've owned a Singxer SA-1, Soloist 3xp and my current amp the GSX Mini, but none have made music as enjoyable quite like the Cayin. The Mini still holds a place in my heart for electronic music, rap, and the like, but in most other genres the Cayin comfortably pulls away. Now I find myself neck deep in the rabbit hole of NOS tubes. Pulled the trigger on a spare GE 22de4 rectifier and eyeing a whole lot of other 6v6 and 12au7 variants.
Finally, just want to thank everyone in this thread. An absolute ton of good information being shared, which is especially useful as a first time tube amp owner. Appreciate everyone's input on their tube rolling experiences, and with Cayin directly answering people's questions and helping troubleshoot problems. This "little" amp is a definite winner.
Original owner threw in some spare tubes as well, Mullard 6v6gt and Psvane 12au7-s art series which are a considerable improvement over the stock tubes that I briefly a/b tested. The Psvane provide a well balanced sound while the Mullards bring the lushness and warmth. Bass is well extended with good punch, intoxicating mids with very satisfying guitar crunch and beautiful vocals, and thankfully no harsh treble.
For the headfiers in here that stated the LCD4 is an awesome match with this amp, you were not kidding! I've owned a Singxer SA-1, Soloist 3xp and my current amp the GSX Mini, but none have made music as enjoyable quite like the Cayin. The Mini still holds a place in my heart for electronic music, rap, and the like, but in most other genres the Cayin comfortably pulls away. Now I find myself neck deep in the rabbit hole of NOS tubes. Pulled the trigger on a spare GE 22de4 rectifier and eyeing a whole lot of other 6v6 and 12au7 variants.
Finally, just want to thank everyone in this thread. An absolute ton of good information being shared, which is especially useful as a first time tube amp owner. Appreciate everyone's input on their tube rolling experiences, and with Cayin directly answering people's questions and helping troubleshoot problems. This "little" amp is a definite winner.
Just as a quick follow-up - After 3-4 days of intermittent noise issues that would fix on restart, I decided to remove and re-seat all the stock tubes, which I had not touched since receiving the amp, and [so far] I have not encountered the noise issue after another 4 days of use. Nothing else changed that I know of in that timeframe.
*edit - must have just been a fluke, noise returned today a few times. bit frustrating. not expecting the power and driver tubes to show up till sometime next week at the earliest
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I've bought tubes from tubesandrecords.com, my experience was good, but a fellow head-fier had a negative buying experience with them. So, at your own risk.
Another one would be TubeAmpDoctor
Hope this helps
Termineyter
New Head-Fier
Pppffttt, i"ve had some noise '(right cup) in my ha-3a since the moment i bought it. Wasn't to bad in the beginning , couple of months ago, thought it was the rca cables and interference from my electricity wiring in my house. So just bought some xrl cables now, because i wanted to rule that out as it progressively became worse and worse. + i just bought a gustard r26 so i really dont want any noise as it should be top of the line combined. Could anyone please help on what to do? I've switched out all the tubes except for the power tube and the problem persists ... Is the ha-3a malfunctioning?i'm also using optical cable. Have disconnected the dac from the amp and i still have the noise. I have ordered a new power tube and hope that will fix it.
Kind regards
Kind regards
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wizzman121
100+ Head-Fier
The main things to test are:
With and without the DAC connected
Swapping tubes one by one and testing each
Plug your amp in to an outlet on a different breaker in your house
If you hear the same noise despite all that it is probably the amp itself.
Termineyter
New Head-Fier
yeah pretty much tried all that.... only thing i still need to change is the powertube, fingers crossed its just a noisy powertube...
mudguardiain
100+ Head-Fier
I had a similar problem, turned out to be one of the power tubes. Is the noise still present when the volume is off, if so then it is most likely a power tube problem. I fitted two new 6v6 Gold Lion tubes & so far all is good, hopefully yours will be the same when you replace the power tubes, unlikely to be rectifier tube as from what I understand this is unlikely to effect one channel only, maybe wrong but hopefully not.
Termineyter
New Head-Fier
I can't find a single place to buy 22de4 tubes.... Where did you buy them?
Most of users have the later version with 25AX4GT. If you really want the spare tube, better look HA-300mk2 thread Feb06. Don’t thank, please!
I bought my 22DE4 rectifiers from the USA. Couldn't find any in Europe either. Let me get back to you in PM tonight, I might have 1 or 2 spare unused tubes which I could sell to you and post to Belgium.
Termineyter
New Head-Fier
OH, this tube fits in the ha-3a aswell?
dynamic headphones
100+ Head-Fier
read the manual that came with your amp or look on the amp, it should say either "22DE4" or "25AX4GT" just in front of the rectifier tube.
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