Quote:
I agree with Misterrogers in that Jason and Schiit designed the amp with a certain family of tubes in mind and only advocate those being installed. It makes good business sense. However, like the folks that overclock their computers, the hardware is designed with some headroom (no pun...) and can be pushed safely if you stay within the boundry. With the PCC88s, I seemed to recall that Jason said he felt the PCC88s wouldn't be pushed to their full potential (due to the undervolt) in the Lyr, but even the "limited" sound quality has exceeded many of the 6volt tubes. I wonder if he would consider a 7volt Lyr option? I wonder how much more "potential" the PCC88s would show?
But there are a great many of us (me included) that have used the PCC88s with no problems whatsoever. I even swap back and forth between the 6volt recommended tubes and the 7volt PCC88s on a fairly regular basis with no ill effects.
Hope this helps...
Cheers!
-HK sends
Quote:
Gosh I seem to have to say this alot... The only reason Jason is saying no.. Is because he thinks that tubes like the PC88's that he has never tested would not sound as good as any of the ^dJB, 6922' variants etc..Jamato made a comment see in the Guitar amp world we have to Bias our amp's when we change tubes it's tedious and dangerous as all hell if you touch the wrong thing as we are dealing with Capacitors that hold the voltage that is leathal.. big 6L6 tubes etc.. So in the case of the Lyr there is not reason he has to support not using the PCC88's example some of us overbias our tubes like I do on my amps to give a more organic sound we can really push them if we wish with reduced life span we get usually a year out of 6L6's a bit more out of EL34's... So no Jason has no reason any more than he did eons ago when he was against using anything but 6922's until Jamato and others tested the tubes then suddenly he is using the GE's as default... So the PCC88's are perfectly safe and some of the best sounding are PCC88's...
Thanks for the details, both. If it were a matter of "could damage the amp, but everyone's been lucky so far" I wouldn't have any desire to try it. But both of you seem to concur with my own theory given the electrical difference, that it doesn't seem there's any way to damage anything except maybe a poorly made tube. It won't pull more power through the amp, it just won't receive all the power it wants on the heater and will "under-utilize" it. So if were' just talking about stuff that won't sound right some of the time, but some models do, sounds good to me. Longer life is a side benefit as well possibly.
Since you mentioned the GE's I looked it up. 6.5V heater. So the stock tubes are already under-powered by -.2V, what's another -.5V? Of course those are noisy buggers at times. I wasn't sure if the whining was the Lyr or the tubes. After putting the 2492's in and losing the squeal, I know it was the tubes
Maybe running out of spec makes noises more apparent or something, but it's worth a shot.
Jason (correctly) cautioned me against using Lyr with Denons because it's too noisy. And indeed it was too noisy. With the stock tubes. Not so with the Mullards. Of course I discovered this after I bought an SS amp for the Denons
. No harm though, I prefer the Denons on the SS still.
Quote:
Ahem - custom built Buffalo II DAC with a 'forest' of Belleson super regulators, feed via an exeU2I USB->I2S card, full galvanic isolation, sample rates up to 384k PCM/DSD; you can keep your stinkin SPDIF
Listening to ripped SACD Iso's right now (DSF 1bit/2.8Mhz (DSD64)), and I doubt you'll ever finding a more resolving, jitter free, analog sound. All through USB.
Ripped SACDs? How does one rip SACDs? Not that I have a DAC that plays DSD, but I have an SACD collection, some of them non-hybrid, that I'd hate to lose when my last SACD player goes down. One already has, it inconsistently recognizes discs, and starts stuttering before dropping out during playback. I've recently been buying some HDTracks downloads, most are PCM interperetations of DSD discs, a few are genuine DVD-A rips, etc.
I still hate Sony for their mangling of the SACD format
All: Since the Tunsram PCC88s were mentioned...I noticed Tubemonger has them at $50 a set or so (and I did very well with my Mullards from them, though one set is crazy microphonic, it doesn't affect SQ), but Upscale has them for $90 a set for their Platinum and $80 a set for Gold. Anyone with experience from both vendors have an opinion of if the price difference is worth it for the pre-tested guarantee of high performance rather than tube roulette? That's a big jump. But pre-testing no doubt has solid merit.
Also, if going from Upscale, any opinions on the cryo treatment for $8? I know nothing is proven one way or another about cryo...whether it helps SQ or prolongs life. But $8 is affordable enough that it could be good "tube insurance", unless it poses a risk to damaging them? Or it's so utterly unworth it, don't bother.
For those of you that tried Tungs PCC88...in your opinion how does it compare to a CV2942 (dimple getter?) Either in terms of performance or SQ?
