[AnyDave]

He's right about 3A being amazing but 6A is a noticeable step ahead even with stock tubes

When you find the right tube combo it is amazing indeed

Yeah, I didn't love mine with the stock tubes, but just swapping out the preamp tubes made a massive improvement, and it can be done without spending a ton of money.

 

[Hengstenberg]

Seems to me, you just haven't found the right tube combo or quiet tubes. . .

I have 14 pairs of NOS driver tubes, too many to name them all.
All of them have HUM noise with 300 ohm+ dynamic headphones, only the stock (driver) tubes, coming with the new revision of the amp ((17AX4GT) are quiet.
As long as you use planars or low ohm dynamics you won't have much noise problems, but using high ohm dynamics is not a good idea.

The noise problems reported at the beginning of this thread still exist 1:1 and changing the driver tubes by Cayin for the new revision hasn't changed anything other than forcing you to use the stock tubes with high impedance HP's, or hope one day you will find a pair of NOS tubes that don't make any noise and at the same time bring the sound you like. - so good luck with that

imho, for users with high ohm dynamic HP´s, the HA-6A is not tube rollers dream, it´s a nightmare and in this case the HA3 should be easy the amp of choice.

cheers

 

[AnyDave]

I have 14 pairs of NOS driver tubes, too many to name them all.
All of them have HUM noise with 300 ohm+ dynamic headphones, only the stock (driver) tubes, coming with the new revision of the amp ((17AX4GT) are quiet.
As long as you use planars or low ohm dynamics you won't have not much noise problems, but using high ohm dynamics is not a good idea.

The noise problems reported at the beginning of this thread still exist 1:1 and changing the driver tubes by Cayin for the new revision hasn't changed anything other than forcing you to use the stock tubes with high impedance HP's, or hope one day you will find a pair of NOS tubes that don't make any noise and at the same time bring the sound you like. - so good luck with that

imho, for users with high ohm dynamic HP´s, the HA-6A is not tube rollers dream, it´s a nightmare and in this case the amazing HA3 should be easy the amp of choice.

cheers

That's sounds incredibly frustrating. If I had 14 pairs of NOS tubes and all hummed with 300+ ohm headphones, I'd be quite annoyed. Once I got my HA-6A away from my wifi router, I don't really have hum with anything. I don't care for the stock JJ 12au7 tubes because I find them closed in on top, but they aren't particularly noisy for me. Nor are most of the NOS tubes I have. I do have some very low testing RCA NOS tubes that are quite noisy, but the strong testing vintage tubes I have (many used, not NOS) work just fine with headphones of all impedances with no noise. I wonder if something else is going on with your HA6A.

 

[kali77]

Arrived earlier today. Played my 800s, Diana V2, and LCD-4 so far. No his no hum yet! Looking forward to some nice NOS tubes and for it to get broken in!

 

[kali77]

So from what I am reading you can run the 7062 safely in the 6a? I have a few NOS 12au7 on the way. Bit would be intrigued by some of the 7062 variants if they are safe to run without an adapter.

 

[joseG86]

Arrived earlier today. Played my 800s, Diana V2, and LCD-4 so far. No his no hum yet! Looking forward to some nice NOS tubes and for it to get broken in!

Beautiful, throw some GL KT88

 

[kali77]

Beautiful, throw some GL KT88

Thanks! I have some SE kt88’s on the way

 

[joseG86]

Thanks! I have some SE kt88’s on the way

lol all the way to the top, no BS, well done I'm glad for you

Remember it will keep getting better everyday

 

[Bix1378]

Looking for some advice: I pair the HA-6A with a SMSL-SU9 dac. I was considering upgrading my dac to a Gustard R26 but I’m not sure whether an R2R dac is the best fit with the Cayin. Which is better for the HA-6A, an R2R or delta sigma? Or is upgrading the dac not even worth it? Trying to stay under $2k

 

[Hengstenberg]

Looking for some advice: I pair the HA-6A with a SMSL-SU9 dac. I was considering upgrading my dac to a Gustard R26 but I’m not sure whether an R2R dac is the best fit with the Cayin. Which is better for the HA-6A, an R2R or delta sigma? Or is upgrading the dac not even worth it? Trying to stay under $2k

Audio-GD R2R R1-NOS is a perfect match and not only for Cayin tube amps - R1N sounds beautiful, lush, haunting real and 3D.
This DAC is a masterpiece made by Kingwa. love it. <3

 

[Michaels1963]

Looking for some advice: I pair the HA-6A with a SMSL-SU9 dac. I was considering upgrading my dac to a Gustard R26 but I’m not sure whether an R2R dac is the best fit with the Cayin. Which is better for the HA-6A, an R2R or delta sigma? Or is upgrading the dac not even worth it? Trying to stay under $2k

I use the Cayin HA-6A with the Denafrips Venus II DAC and really enjoy the music

 

[kali77]

Added some RCA black plate, dimple foil square getters from the 50’s. Stunning! What a difference.

SE kt88’s burning in now as well. Looking forward to a long listening session this evening.

 

[kali77]

Also I am surprised this amp does not get more love.

 

[Andykong]

Looking for some advice: I pair the HA-6A with a SMSL-SU9 dac. I was considering upgrading my dac to a Gustard R26 but I’m not sure whether an R2R dac is the best fit with the Cayin. Which is better for the HA-6A, an R2R or delta sigma? Or is upgrading the dac not even worth it? Trying to stay under $2k

I would name products in my recommendation, for obvious reasons, but I can offer some opinions based on my observations in managing HA-6A and HA-300 discussions in the past few years.

The HA-6A is designed to work with 2V single-end and 4V Balanced line-level input, minor deviation shouldn't pose any problem, but some users have reported minor problems with DAC that have significantly lower/higher output levels with their line out. If I remember correctly, DAC with 3V single-end and 6V balanced displayed compressed dynamic when pairing with very demanding headphones such as Susvara. The user didn't hear any volume increase after the volume reached 12 o'clock. He took my advice and tried to lower the output of his DAC (a Chord DAC if I remember correctly) so that the amplifier could turn up to 3 o'clock, and he was happy with the improved dynamic from his Susvara.

Theoretically, DAC with significantly lower output (e.g., 1.5V single-end and 3V balanced) might exhibit problems from the other side. When you under-feed your amplifier, you'll stress your amplifier to run at a higher output, with a tube amp. like HA-6A, the voltage amplification stage (the driver tube) will take up extra load to compensate for the lower DAC output.

In addition, if you are using USB Audio as your digital source, a DAC with stronger filtering/isolation in the USB receiving board will help you combat/control the interference problem caused by dirty USB sources.

 

[joseG86]

I would name products in my recommendation, for obvious reasons, but I can offer some opinions based on my observations in managing HA-6A and HA-300 discussions in the past few years.

The HA-6A is designed to work with 2V single-end and 4V Balanced line-level input, minor deviation shouldn't pose any problem, but some users have reported minor problems with DAC that have significantly lower/higher output levels with their line out. If I remember correctly, DAC with 3V single-end and 6V balanced displayed compressed dynamic when pairing with very demanding headphones such as Susvara. The user didn't hear any volume increase after the volume reached 12 o'clock. He took my advice and tried to lower the output of his DAC (a Chord DAC if I remember correctly) so that the amplifier could turn up to 3 o'clock, and he was happy with the improved dynamic from his Susvara.

Theoretically, DAC with significantly lower output (e.g., 1.5V single-end and 3V balanced) might exhibit problems from the other side. When you under-feed your amplifier, you'll stress your amplifier to run at a higher output, with a tube amp. like HA-6A, the voltage amplification stage (the driver tube) will take up extra load to compensate for the lower DAC output.

In addition, if you are using USB Audio as your digital source, a DAC with stronger filtering/isolation in the USB receiving board will help you combat/control the interference problem caused by dirty USB sources.

Thank you very much for this info, I reach 12 o'clock with HE6SE V2 using balanced in/out from the Pontus but sounded amazing, might try thru RCA as well and see the volume thing