Etrius
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2005
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I just picked up an MHDT labs Parsidea DAC for my system. I'm extremely pleased with it. I had my doubts that I would be able to hear the diffences when rolling the tube, but I was very surprised by the results of my tube rolling experiments.
The 5670, 2C51 or WE396A tubes are cheap! Well, maybe not the WE396, which the manufacturer mentions as a good tube, so people are bidding these up to $30-40 a tube on ebay. Given the overall cheap prices, I picked up a bunch of tubes to try out. The tubes I bought cost $10-15 per tube. They are available for cheaper if you look hard enough.
My sonic memory can be short-lived, so I needed to switch tubes and listen in a short time between tube rolls. I kept the DAC connected but removed the case lid and rolled the tube with the unit off (of course), and I always played the same 3 songs to allow for comparison between tube rolls. There is a VERY noticable change in sound with tube rolls.
My impressions:
General Electric 5670- it comes with the DAC. When I very first plugged in the DAC using the stock tube I was impressed with the sound. This is most likely because the DAC in my Marantz player blows, so the Paradisea with almost any tube is better. Having compared it to the other tubes, I now realize it is the weakest tube in the collection. The bass is bloated and lacking in detail. It is a harsh and unrefined sounding tube.
Raytheon 5670- A clean, refined, detailed tube. Nice tube. I actually wanted a "tubier" sound. This was the most "solid-statish" of the tubes I tried.
Ken-Rad 5670- My favorite. Warm, pronounced and defined low end, slightly rolled off highs/never bright. Decent detail. Nice analog sound.
Sylvania 5670- Nice tube. Very mellow, slower, laid back sound. Nice analog feel. Spent the least time with this tube, so I haven't analyzed it further.
Please share your impressions so Paradisea owners can get an idea of what tubes are out there and how they sound.
A note on my tastes:
I'm biased toward warmth and dynamics. I've tailored my setup to bring out electric guitars, and highlight the timbre of strings (cellos, violins, ect...). I am an avid fan of Metal, Classical string quartets, and Jazz. The Paradisea really perfected the sound I was after. I was afraid a tube buffered DAC would be "too tubey" in my setup but fortunately I was wrong.
My current setup is a Grado RS-1, and MPX3 SLAM with an RCA 6sn7GT grey glass gain (an absolute must for Grados) and GE 6BL7GTA outputs.
The 5670, 2C51 or WE396A tubes are cheap! Well, maybe not the WE396, which the manufacturer mentions as a good tube, so people are bidding these up to $30-40 a tube on ebay. Given the overall cheap prices, I picked up a bunch of tubes to try out. The tubes I bought cost $10-15 per tube. They are available for cheaper if you look hard enough.
My sonic memory can be short-lived, so I needed to switch tubes and listen in a short time between tube rolls. I kept the DAC connected but removed the case lid and rolled the tube with the unit off (of course), and I always played the same 3 songs to allow for comparison between tube rolls. There is a VERY noticable change in sound with tube rolls.
My impressions:
General Electric 5670- it comes with the DAC. When I very first plugged in the DAC using the stock tube I was impressed with the sound. This is most likely because the DAC in my Marantz player blows, so the Paradisea with almost any tube is better. Having compared it to the other tubes, I now realize it is the weakest tube in the collection. The bass is bloated and lacking in detail. It is a harsh and unrefined sounding tube.
Raytheon 5670- A clean, refined, detailed tube. Nice tube. I actually wanted a "tubier" sound. This was the most "solid-statish" of the tubes I tried.
Ken-Rad 5670- My favorite. Warm, pronounced and defined low end, slightly rolled off highs/never bright. Decent detail. Nice analog sound.
Sylvania 5670- Nice tube. Very mellow, slower, laid back sound. Nice analog feel. Spent the least time with this tube, so I haven't analyzed it further.
Please share your impressions so Paradisea owners can get an idea of what tubes are out there and how they sound.
A note on my tastes:
I'm biased toward warmth and dynamics. I've tailored my setup to bring out electric guitars, and highlight the timbre of strings (cellos, violins, ect...). I am an avid fan of Metal, Classical string quartets, and Jazz. The Paradisea really perfected the sound I was after. I was afraid a tube buffered DAC would be "too tubey" in my setup but fortunately I was wrong.
My current setup is a Grado RS-1, and MPX3 SLAM with an RCA 6sn7GT grey glass gain (an absolute must for Grados) and GE 6BL7GTA outputs.
