Hello,
I just received a set of NOS RCA 7189's from Jim at Hagerman Audio Labs in Honolulu.
Jim asked me if I was interested in trying out some different tubes and I of course said "Yes!".
They arrived today via USPS Priority 3 -day mail, on a Sunday!
Here is what I got:
Now for me its hard to really test for differences objectively with tubes because of the time it takes to power down and let the tubes cool down so
you wont burn your fingers etc, then insert the new ones, power up and let them warm up.
Too much time goes by and makes it hard to be objective.
So I have a method I use to take some of that pain away and reduce the time in between swaps to some extent...
What I do is use my dac with y adapters to connect to two amps, one is my reference amp, one that I have had hundreds and hundreds of hours on and know its characteristics
pretty well, the other is the amp that I am going to swap tubes out in.
In my case the test amp is the TUBA and I have probably 20 hours of listening with it in the past week...with the stock Mullard EL84's....and its been a great experience.
So I listen for an hour or so with a list of demo cuts I am used to and I use my less than 2 second swap from one amp to the other (level set of course) and do this over
the course of an hour across several songs...
Then after doing this I power down the test amp, remove and insert the new tubes and re-power up and start this hour or so listen to the same songs and swapping
in between the amps.
At least I have a reference amp that I am familiar with and material I am familiar with..so for me this is a good as it gets!
So how did the NOS RCA 7189's work?
Well in short, very nicely!
They seem to be very quiet, no hum, hiss or noise with the volume and either output jack of the Tuba. Dead silent.
One noticeable thing is they are very "sharp" or the attack when listening comes across to me as fast, crisp....no room for error with these tubes....
This adds to the overall dynamic presentation of whatever your listening to, and if its good material is fantastic, if its medicore its painful!
They seem to make the Tuba have the sharpness of a SS amp but with holographic clear imaging...the Tuba is so dang quiet at times with these tubes
I think I am not listening with a tube amp!
The tonality with these compared to the stock tubes is better to me....listening to Feist, Let It Die and When I Was A Young Girl...the tone of the bass etc was a 10 out of a 10.
I don't know how much a matched set of NOS RCA 7189's are but with these tubes and the Tuba you will have a very, very nice setup that will pair with a wide variety of headphones.
Either set of tubes will make you smile, but please mister, may I have some more of those RCA 7189's ?
Thank you to Jim at Hagerman Audio Labs....for the loan of the amp and tubes.
Now I have to save my retirement pennies !!
The Tuba will be winging its way back to sunny Hawaii!
Alex
