[ruhenheiM]

quick question for you who using tube amp, have you replace your tubes? how long their life span is? let's say you listened through them about 4 hours a day. and is there any sign showing when the tube life almost over? thanks

 

[Astral Abyss]

I find my Grados play nicely with my WA6.

I've always wanted to try a Woo Audio amp. WA6 seems like the sweet spot before the prices skyrocket.

 

[joseph69]

quick question for you who using tube amp, have you replace your tubes? how long their life span is? let's say you listened through them about 4 hours a day. and is there any sign showing when the tube life almost over? thanks

Fortunately I've never had a tube fail on me due to usage. Also, I posted the same question a long time ago regarding signs of a tube that is going to fail, or do they just completely fail in a couple of Woo Amp threads but I never got a reply.
I'd say I'm very fortunate that I haven't found this out for myself, though!

 

[joseph69]

I've always wanted to try a Woo Audio amp. WA6 seems like the sweet spot before the prices skyrocket.

Definitely was the sweet spot for me. I don't know if you recall, but I had sold my first WA6 to buy the WA6-SE and quickly regretted it due the limitations for tube rolling compared to the WA6. I sold the SE immediately and bought another WA6.

 

[ruhenheiM]

Fortunately I've never had a tube fail on me due to usage. Also, I posted the same question a long time ago regarding signs of a tube that is going to fail, or do they just completely fail in a couple of Woo Amp threads but I never got a reply.
I'd say I'm very fortunate that I haven't found this out for myself, though!

did you use it frequently? how long have you have it?

i still have this one thing stop me going for tube i don't think i'm going to fancy myself replacing tubes every so often if that's going to be the case

 

[Lavakugel]

I've always wanted to try a Woo Audio amp. WA6 seems like the sweet spot before the prices skyrocket.

Hi Astral Abyss

You own both GH1 and GH2. Is it worth getting GH2 additional to GH1?

Thanks!

 

[Astral Abyss]

Hi Astral Abyss

You own both GH1 and GH2. Is it worth getting GH2 additional to GH1?

Thanks!

That's a tough question.

GH1 has the more traditional Grado sound, which you're obviously familiar with since you own them. What can you expect to be different if you buy the GH2? Deeper, more present bass, quite unusual for a Grado, at the expense of being less clear, but not muddy. That's the main thing you're going to notice. It's not really subtle. After you acclimate to the new bass, you'll notice less emphasis on treble, which means it loses a little of the Grado sparkle. As a result, I feel there's slightly more emphasis on the mids. I pick out vocals and individual instruments better on the GH1 but there's more cohesion of all the instruments as a whole on the GH2. It's probably due to it's warmer sound.

Are those differences enough for you to want to spend the money to own both? You'll have to decide that.

 

[rfan8312]

Kind of a random post here but I did get to hear the GS1000e yesterday and the RS2e. Both were just incredible. I didn't have a good source to listen so the GS1000e had no chance to scale, and so actually I got to hear a little more of what the RS2e can do because I thought it had a little better chance when playing just off of my smartphone. And they sounded better than I even hoped. I vow to get the RS2e next.

I auditioned a few tracks, no vocals. Just tracks with musicians that were able to find breathtaking tones for notes they play. And they sounded better than I could have hoped.

Would anyone be interested in checking these 4 tracks on their gear and offering any thoughts? If not no problem. Here are the tracks.


Grails - All the colors of the dark
>I can't believe how this sounded.

Aluk Todolo & Der Blutharsch - A Collaboration IV
>Amazing song concept I'm from a group from France collaborating with a group from Austria. It's an album they made together called The Infinite Church of The Leading Hand

Jazz Pistols Live - Three On The Floor
>I think this is the best live recording of any kind d that I've heard. On the RS2e the bass lines were completely separated. You could focus on just those if u wanted. Every instrument had complete separation and the drum solo at the last two minutes stole the show imo.

Zu - Carbon
>An italian band making a sort of heavy jazz rock with only bass drums and a large saxophone playing low notes. The entire album Carboniferous is a masterpiece that spawned an entire genre of music in Italy. One of the most well recorded albums I've heard. With low end on the RS2e without the least but of bloat. And sounds and notes had real texture they sounded like objects in motion.


If it's not ok to post song suggestions in this thread I wont do it. I just wondered if anyone else would want to hear these creatures of sound coming out of their high end gear.

 

[ruhenheiM]

@rfan8312
i'll try to check it at weekend. it's all right. you could post song, if you could find the youtube link that would be even better. i think most of us here are music lover, we like good music so if there are some new songs we haven't heard and it's a good music, we would be delighted actually, finding good music is like finding hidden gem in this current days IMO

 

[whirlwind]

quick question for you who using tube amp, have you replace your tubes? how long their life span is? let's say you listened through them about 4 hours a day. and is there any sign showing when the tube life almost over? thanks

Most tubes will be good for around 2500 hours if they are new when you get them....there are 10,000 hour tubes also.

The EL3N tube amp that I have , those tubes are 10,000 hour tubes.

Of course they may not last that long, as any tube could go bad at any time, but quite honestly, they last a long time.

When a tube goes bad it could go silent in one channel of the amp, or it could get unreasonably noisy...or make weird sounds.

I have always used tubes and in all of the time I have probably had less than 10 tubes go bad...i have pitched a few because of noise, though.

The tubes in the top amp are 10,000 hour tubes...the tubes with the red bottoms. Tubes are far more dependable than people give them credit for

 

[ruhenheiM]

Most tubes will be good for around 2500 hours if they are new when you get them....there are 10,000 hour tubes also.

The EL3N tube amp that I have , those tubes are 10,000 hour tubes.

Of course they may not last that long, as any tube could go bad at any time, but quite honestly, they last a long time.

When a tube goes bad it could go silent in one channel of the amp, or it could get unreasonably noisy...or make weird sounds.

I have always used tubes and in all of the time I have probably had less than 10 tubes go bad...i have pitched a few because of noise, though.

The tubes in the top amp are 10,000 hour tubes...the tubes with the red bottoms. Tubes are far more dependable than people give them credit for

hahaha i see.thanks for your information. so with good tubes also good care and normal listening time, is it safe to say it would probably need to be replace in 5 years? or is it just too optimistic...

are there any precaution with tube amps? like maybe dust or temperature something like that?

 

[whirlwind]

I would say if you listen 4 hours a day, everyday...2500 hour tubes could last you around two years....10,000 hour tubes would last 4 times as long , at least supposedly.

You do have to be more careful with tube amps than you would with SS amps

I always start my amp up first, then plug in my headphones...and when shutting down, unplug my headphones then power down my amp.

I also never leave my amp unattended for very long , because if a tube would happen to arc or something, you are not there to power down quickly....this is just me, i am probably over cautious. My amps are designed to blow a fuse before hurting my amp.

Heat can be an issue, but some tubes run very hot and some tubes don't.....some you don't want to lay you finger on for long

I would say if you are interested in trying....give them a go...I am biased, but tubes always win out with me.

 

[ruhenheiM]

thanks! i will give it a try not sure about owning them though

i was very interested when i first saw the old little tube amp...man i really forget the name, the schematic was on headwize something about jd limited edition with green chasis. and then saw rsa raptor, zana deux stuff like that. my first thought with all that was that's really cool looking gears. then i looked at the price and did read few things, and read some precautions which i already forgot by now and since i'm lazy, i was like maybe this is not for me. but to this day tube amp still haunt me


i remember it!!!!!
earmaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

[joseph69]

did you use it frequently? how long have you have it?

I would say I used my WA6 frequently for +/-3yrs but also rolled different tubes as well. I haven't really used the same tubes for a long period of time so I know this isn't much help for you, but @whirlwind has already given you some good input!.

I always start my amp up first, then plug in my headphones...and when shutting down, unplug my headphones then power down my amp.

Woo states not to power their amps up without the headphones plugged in, so I guess it all depends on the amps design.

 

[DavidA]

@ruhenheiM, like the others I also prefer a tube amp for most of my Grado and other headphones but my tube amps (Project Ember, Lyr2 and BH Crack) are not as high end as some of the others like the Leeloo, WA6 and especially the custom Glenn amps. I've had only one tube go bad in the last 4 years, just started to sound fuzzy, I think most tubes seem to last quite long but I'll probably never really know since I rotate my tubes once a month and have 28 pairs for my Lyr2, 63 driver tubes for the BH Crack and Ember, 24 power tubes for the BH Crack.

One thing I've been told was to limit the off-on cycles, something to do with the heating and cooling cycle which causes the most ware. So my normal day is to turn on the amps when I want to listen and turn them off when going to sleep but these days I might not use any of the tube amps since the RS2e, SR225e, Nhoord and Ypsilon headphones are so efficient and sound great from the headphone jack of my computer.

@whirlwind, I also let my amps warm up before plugging in headphones and remove them before shutting down. I also always turn the volume down before plugging or in-plugging any headphone.