Plenty of 6922/E88CC/6DJ8/ECC88/PCC88/6n23p tubes available on eBay and new production tubes from Electro Harmonix, JJs, Gold Lions etc. You should be fine and these tubes have an average life span of 8,500 - 10,000 hours.
Plenty of 6922/E88CC/6DJ8/ECC88/PCC88/6n23p tubes available on eBay and new production tubes from Electro Harmonix, JJs, Gold Lions etc. You should be fine and these tubes have an average life span of 8,500 - 10,000 hours.
Honestly, I didn't compare it much with the Vali 2 as I sold it off about a week after the CTH arrived. From memory, I recall the CTH being a bit more detailed and expansive in its presentation than the Vali 2. It's not a huge difference but it was significant enough that I felt the price difference was justified.
While subtle, I found the CTH (stock tube) gave me a bit more bass with the HD700 and HD6XX. Though of course both are open backs, though with good bass for the type, and the synergies may be different.
Did you get yours new? I wasn't a fan of the stock tube. Anemic bass, and narrow 2 dimensional soundstage. The fix: 6c8g adapter with Tung-sol or Philco 6c8g, or 6n3 adapter and any of the 5670/2c51/396a tubes.
Cheers!
Did you get yours new? I wasn't a fan of the stock tube. Anemic bass, and narrow 2 dimensional soundstage. The fix: 6c8g adapter with Tung-sol or Philco 6c8g, or 6n3 adapter and any of the 5670/2c51/396a tubes.
Cheers!
Yeah, brand new. It's a shame that my 9 year old Xonar STX demolishes this thing in bass quantity. Anemic is a good word, maybe even an understatement. Imaging and vocal clarity are solid though, but if I just wanted that I would have went with a pair of HD 650's.
$250 was the absolute most I could spend, so any upgrades need to wait. I am concerned about the channel imbalance though, so I wrote Massdrop support to see what they have to say.
@Marlowe That's interesting, the 6XX are supposed to be amazing with the CTH though, so I guess this amp has a better synergy with those.
CTH to Xonar STX via RCA paired with X00 Ebony headphones. Windows volume at 100, zero distortion or background noise.
Right side seems a tad bit louder and seems to even out with the left channel at 100 volume and right channel at 80-90 volume, but without measurement tools it's too hard to tell. It's hard to notice at louder volumes, but at a listening volume where I can hear others talking around me it's noticeable.
Other than the issues, detail and clarity are unreal, it's really brings certain genres to life.
I wasn't a fan of the stock tube. Anemic bass, and narrow 2 dimensional soundstage. The fix: 6c8g adapter with Tung-sol or Philco 6c8g, or 6n3 adapter and any of the 5670/2c51/396a tubes.
Although I am reasonably happy with the stock tube so far (I've had it a couple of months and it's fully burned in) I do have the adapters with Tung-Sol 2C51s in my Valhalla 2 (as well as four cheap 5670s in a drawer). I've been hesitant to put these in the CTH, but since several people report using them, and none have reported the CTH blowing up, I'll probably give them a try at some point.
I should have added a couple of things. First my comparison is primarily to the Valhalla 2, which sounds fine with the same headphones but I think the CTH sounds a bit better. Second, and obviously, this is subjective and relative to expectations, like everything in this hobby. In any event, I'm currently listening to the expanded version of The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads with the HD700 through the CTH and Tina Weymouth's terrific bass work sounds just great.
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