[timjclark]

That's awesome VRacer! I'm completely unfamiliar with that 6H30Pi tube. My two favorites are 12ax7 and 6DJ8 in my Ember II. But now I kinda want to try the one you suggested..

 

[Tuneslover]

And what's better than a Project Ember? ... two of them!

Just got in a second used unit that came with an electro-harmonix 6H30Pi tube ... price could not be passed up. Both Embers cost me less than a single brand new one would! So now I have one for work and one for home. I tell you what... this 6H30Pi tube it came with is pretty sweet sounding - really digging it! Anyone know the expected life from a 6H30Pi type tube? They aren't too expensive, so I'd be fine buying a couple more if they actually were on the lower end of the life scale for a tube...

I discovered the EH 6H30Pi earlier this year and yes it's a nice sounding tube. Another nice old tube is the General Electric 6CG7/6fQ7. Both of them are regularly player on my Ember. A really awesome sounding tube is the JJ Electronic E88CC.

 

[Tyranids]

I was thinking of picking up one of these for a Sennheiser HD 660 S. Any thoughts on that pairing?

 

[BobMonkhouse]

I've been searching and searching for any comparisons between Ember and Lyr 3 and haven't been able to find anything. I know there has been bad mouthing about Ember from the Lyr 3 camp on the interwebs. But practically it doesn't help much.
Does anybody have an opinion?

 

[VRacer-111]

Well, I just got in 4 tubes I ordered, one being a new Electro-Harmonix 6H30Pi. It shows it tested at 19,000 & 19,100 hours... so they seem to have very decent life expectancy. Right now comparing a new Electro-Harmonix 12AY7 to the original 6H30Pi I had...

the 12AY7 is pretty impressive right out the box...overall smooth with slightly rolled off highs but still pretty clean and clear sounding, and the low end is just massively powerful and rich feeling without being bloated. It tested at 24,000 and 25,000 hours and was $24 for the Platinum grade from Upscale Audio... absolutely great match for the Porta Pros.

The 6H30Pi does have better top end presentation, but the mids and low end of this 12AY7 with just 3.5 hrs of run time on it now is more organic and powerful sounding... really sweet sounding! I've been very happy jamming to with the Porta Pros - the ~50Hz punch is just so visceral with them on that tube and my EQ settings... Tron Legacy album is something else.

The other two tubes I ordered and got in are a Mullard 12AT7 and Tung-Sol 12AU7W.

 

[RoyGB]

@VRacer-111 come share over on the Ember Tube Rolling thread.

It seems like this thread is kinda dead in comparison. Even the tube rolling thread is very quiet but it seems like it is a bit more active than over here.

 

[techboy]

By the way, I have tried the following amps since.

Magni 3 - Not as smooth, super small sound stage, weak bass, but has a few advantages over Ember. Ember wins though. Easy.

Sapphire - Not as musical but cleaner, crisper. But doesn’t sound as engaging. Ember won for me.

DarkVoice 336 SE - Not as musical or sweet. But thicker (in a good way) and has a larger soundstage. Ember wins.

MCTH - Sucks. Much worse than a Magni 3 but with a larger soundstage. Ember wins.

Asus E1 Muses Amp section - Ember wins. Muses is harsh.

Headphone was HD 650. DACs varied perhaps but mostly Mimby.

Beta 22 - More musical and sweeter than Ember with deeper and tighter bass. Ember was crisper and more forward. Beta22 was slightly better. But both were very good. DAC was Assemblage perhaps.

 

[techboy]

I've been searching and searching for any comparisons between Ember and Lyr 3 and haven't been able to find anything. I know there has been bad mouthing about Ember from the Lyr 3 camp on the interwebs. But practically it doesn't help much.
Does anybody have an opinion?

Many people on the other forum are biased against the Ember. Don’t believe the nay sayers.

 

[techboy]

I was thinking of picking up one of these for a Sennheiser HD 660 S. Any thoughts on that pairing?

I use Ember with 650 but with Sonarworks. Insane pairing.

I guess it will be the same with 660S. Get a Kameleon in line filter or Sonarworks, and then there isn’t much that can beat Ember under $1000 with 660S i feel. i haven’t heard the 660s though.

 

[dakanao]

By the way, I have tried the following amps since.

Magni 3 - Not as smooth, super small sound stage, weak bass, but has a few advantages over Ember. Ember wins though. Easy.

Sapphire - Not as musical but cleaner, crisper. But doesn’t sound as engaging. Ember won for me.

DarkVoice 336 SE - Not as musical or sweet. But thicker (in a good way) and has a larger soundstage. Ember wins.

MCTH - Sucks. Much worse than a Magni 3 but with a larger soundstage. Ember wins.

Asus E1 Muses Amp section - Ember wins. Muses is harsh.

Headphone was HD 650. DACs varied perhaps but mostly Mimby.

Beta 22 - More musical and sweeter than Ember with deeper and tighter bass. Ember was crisper and more forward. Beta22 was slightly better. But both were very good. DAC was Assemblage perhaps.

Have you heard the Chord Mojo with the HD650?

 

[techboy]

Have you heard the Chord Mojo with the HD650?

I have heard HD 800 and T1 and others with Mojo. Sounded veiled crap. The same headphones with other setups like Ember sound awesome.

 

[Tuneslover]

I love my Ember with Modi Multibit and HD58X.

 

[Tomcat]

A linear power supply for the Project Ember 2.1

There is very little information about how the Project Ember performs when used with an external linear power supply.

I have tried it and I'm glad I did. With a decent PSU the Ember reaches an entirely different level of performance.

I've been somewhat sceptical about the merits of the switch mode supply my assembled Ember 2.1 came with. As far as SMPS go, the GSM40A48-P1J from Mean Well's medical adaptor series is probably quite nice, but SMPS are notorious for the amount of ripple and noise they generate. A couple of months ago I had gotten a Chinese "Zerozone" linear power supply for my old "Pro-Ject DAC Box DS": That worked wonders. Reason enough to try it with the Ember as well. The Ember needs a 48V supply and those aren't easy to find. I managed to get a Chinese power supply via the Canadian Ebay platform. They advertised it as "Finished 65W hifi linear Power supply DC48V 1A / Ultra low noise LPS L6-4". Its R-core transformer is specified at 65W and the Chinese love to quote the higher figure. In reality it puts out 48W though, equivalent to 48V at 1A current. That's even a little higher than the 40W rating of the Ember's Mean Well SMPS. So, if the Ember has higher current draw (which tends to be during the inital warm-up phase of certain tubes with higher heater current) the PSU can provide it.

Additionally, I bought a DC umbilical cable from a different Chinese seller. This umbilical uses a Canare 4S6 Star Quad (speaker) cable and is terminated with a GX16-2 plug on the PSU side and a Oyaide DC-2.1G plug on the amp's side.

The result?

To my ears, the sonic improvement is as big or bigger than anything I ever achieved by tube-rolling. With the linear power supply the Ember sounds refined. The treble has a silkiness that just wasn't there before. Massed strings are simply gorgeous. Another thing noticeable with orchestral music is the far superior resolution. At times, the appearance of more "detail" comes at the price of reduced temporal cohesion and musicality. Not in this case. There is greater musical clarity with the PSU, superior realism and more emotional engagement. The Ember becomes more resolving in the sense that it simply gets out of the way of the musical performance. There's more weight and physical presence to instruments as well. And there's more bass slam. With the linear power supply, the amp has both: superior micro- and macrodynamics.

Now, is it worth it? I paid an additional 50 percent of the price of the assembled Ember for the Chinese PSU plus DC cable (including transport and customs). I love what the linear PSU does to the Ember's performance but at that 150 percent price point there might be other amps to consider as well. And it didn't stop there. I invested in adapters and attenuators as well.

Some background info on my Ember setup. When it comes to tubes, I much prefer 6SN7s with Garage1217's adapter to anything from the noval families. In the Ember, novals all have a somewhat shouty and forward quality to my ears (the Russian 6N6P being least objectionable). I could say I never found a 6SN7 I didn't like in the amp, but actually: My favorite 6SN7 is a Sylvania 7N7, the "loctal" twin of early 6SN7GTs, electrically identical but with the loctal instead of the octal base (a great way to get very good NOS performance dirt cheap, btw). This means I have a loctal-to-octal adapter (by Jacmusic) on top of the 6SN7-adapter from Jeremy. The headphone I use almost exclusively is an AudioQuest Nighthawk Carbon, with modern pleather pads, NightBird Model One cable and the -20dB attenuator plug from Garage 1217. The Nighthwak with its rather low impedance and high sensitivity seems to like the attenuation.

Do I regret the effort that went into tweaking my Ember's performance? No, I'd say it was worth it (as any self-respecting, i.e. obsessed audiophile would). Sonically, I am utterly pleased with the new properly powered Ember. It took me some time to get there. But I arrived.

 

[dakanao]

A linear power supply for the Project Ember 2.1

There is very little information about how the Project Ember performs when used with an external linear power supply.

I have tried it and I'm glad I did. With a decent PSU the Ember reaches an entirely different level of performance.

I've been somewhat sceptical about the merits of the switch mode supply my assembled Ember 2.1 came with. As far as SMPS go, the GSM40A48-P1J from Mean Well's medical adaptor series is probably quite nice, but SMPS are notorious for the amount of ripple and noise they generate. A couple of months ago I had gotten a Chinese "Zerozone" linear power supply for my old "Pro-Ject DAC Box DS": That worked wonders. Reason enough to try it with the Ember as well. The Ember needs a 48V supply and those aren't easy to find. I managed to get a Chinese power supply via the Canadian Ebay platform. They advertised it as "Finished 65W hifi linear Power supply DC48V 1A / Ultra low noise LPS L6-4". Its R-core transformer is specified at 65W and the Chinese love to quote the higher figure. In reality it puts out 48W though, equivalent to 48V at 1A current. That's even a little higher than the 40W rating of the Ember's Mean Well SMPS. So, if the Ember has higher current draw (which tends to be during the inital warm-up phase of certain tubes with higher heater current) the PSU can provide it.

Additionally, I bought a DC umbilical cable from a different Chinese seller. This umbilical uses a Canare 4S6 Star Quad (speaker) cable and is terminated with a GX16-2 plug on the PSU side and a Oyaide DC-2.1G plug on the amp's side.

The result?

To my ears, the sonic improvement is as big or bigger than anything I ever achieved by tube-rolling. With the linear power supply the Ember sounds refined. The treble has a silkiness that just wasn't there before. Massed strings are simply gorgeous. Another thing noticeable with orchestral music is the far superior resolution. At times, the appearance of more "detail" comes at the price of reduced temporal cohesion and musicality. Not in this case. There is greater musical clarity with the PSU, superior realism and more emotional engagement. The Ember becomes more resolving in the sense that it simply gets out of the way of the musical performance. There's more weight and physical presence to instruments as well. And there's more bass slam. With the linear power supply, the amp has both: superior micro- and macrodynamics.

Now, is it worth it? I paid an additional 50 percent of the price of the assembled Ember for the Chinese PSU plus DC cable (including transport and customs). I love what the linear PSU does to the Ember's performance but at that 150 percent price point there might be other amps to consider as well. And it didn't stop there. I invested in adapters and attenuators as well.

Some background info on my Ember setup. When it comes to tubes, I much prefer 6SN7s with Garage1217's adapter to anything from the noval families. In the Ember, novals all have a somewhat shouty and forward quality to my ears (the Russian 6N6P being least objectionable). I could say I never found a 6SN7 I didn't like in the amp, but actually: My favorite 6SN7 is a Sylvania 7N7, the "loctal" twin of early 6SN7GTs, electrically identical but with the loctal instead of the octal base (a great way to get very good NOS performance dirt cheap, btw). This means I have a loctal-to-octal adapter (by Jacmusic) on top of the 6SN7-adapter from Jeremy. The headphone I use almost exclusively is an AudioQuest Nighthawk Carbon, with modern pleather pads, NightBird Model One cable and the -20dB attenuator plug from Garage 1217. The Nighthwak with its rather low impedance and high sensitivity seems to like the attenuation.

Do I regret the effort that went into tweaking my Ember's performance? No, I'd say it was worth it (as any self-respecting, i.e. obsessed audiophile would). Sonically, I am utterly pleased with the new properly powered Ember. It took me some time to get there. But I arrived.

It’s quite ironic how the maker of the Ember, doesn’t believe in clean power supply improvements because it isn’t measured on audiosciencereview, yet the differences are very clear

 

[Sonic Defender]

People making a claim isn't evidence, and it certainly isn't clear, it is an opinion. If it can't be measured, there is a really good chance that it cannot be heard. Ultimately it is great that people can enjoy this hobby their way, and they should. Not a problem at all if you don't believe in scientific evidence, you don't have to and nobody should tell you that you have to, but be respectful to those who differ in their opinion from yours. I will bet that the maker of the Ember who you say doesn't believe in the value of over-specified power supplies (there is of course a minimum standard that has to be reached) at least tried to reach an educated opinion and they shouldn't be mocked because they believe in scientific evidence.

There are a handful of members at ASR who collectively have more knowledge and experience designing, testing and implementing audio components than the entire Head-fi community past and present put together. They have earned the right not to be mocked simply because they have publicly stated that they believe in evidence. Let me ask you, would you take medication or drive a car on the highway that had no scientific evidence that it worked or was safe? So why is evidence good when it keeps you and your family safe and suddenly worth mocking when it doesn't agree with your opinion?