[zive]

  Question, could someone explain to a relative neophyte to tubes what exactly is a 74 reflektor (or is it reflector)? Obviously that's a tube, but are we referring to a particular brand and model?
 
Very curious as my Mule 2 should arrive Friday (so glad I work from home on Fridays!).

Others who own them can chime in, but in the context of this thread Reflektor will refer to a tube factory in Saratov City, Russia which, although opened for the purpose of meeting military/industrial tube needs, has more recently gained notoriety for the application of its tubes in guitars, recording equipment, and other audio applications. Some reviewers such as rb2013 have heralded the use of Reflektor's 6n23p tubes in Schiit Lyr2/MJ2's as the cream of the crop. The '74 or '75 that you've been reading about refer to the year of manufacture (either 1974 or 1975), with slight sonic differences between the tubes produced in those years. The "HG" denotation seen with these tubes refers to their status as "holy grail" tubes because their reputation has driven up demand for these rare tubes far beyond their supply.
 
If you're just getting you MJ2 I wouldn't worry about these tubes for a while. Their rarity makes finding a matched pair in NOS condition exceedingly difficult. Unless you're made of money and the opportunity to pick up a pair presents itself in your near future, I would put them out of mind for now and enjoy the MJ2 with the many other tubes which pair well with Mjolnir 2. 
 
Hope that clears things up and cheers to many hours of enjoyment with your new purchase. 

 

[rmoody]

  Others who own them can chime in, but in the context of this thread Reflektor will refer to a tube factory in Saratov City, Russia which, although opened for the purpose of meeting military/industrial tube needs, has more recently gained notoriety for the application of its tubes in guitars, recording equipment, and other audio applications. Some reviewers such as rb2013 have heralded the use of Reflektor's 6n23p tubes in Schiit Lyr2/MJ2's as the cream of the crop. The '74 or '75 that you've been reading about refer to the year of manufacture (either 1974 or 1975), with slight sonic differences between the tubes produced in those years. The "HG" denotation seen with these tubes refers to their status as "holy grail" tubes because their reputation has driven up demand for these rare tubes far beyond their supply.
 
If you're just getting you MJ2 I wouldn't worry about these tubes for a while. Their rarity makes finding a matched pair in NOS condition exceedingly difficult. Unless you're made of money and the opportunity to pick up a pair presents itself in your near future, I would put them out of mind for now and enjoy the MJ2 with the many other tubes which pair well with Mjolnir 2. 
 
Hope that clears things up and cheers to many hours of enjoyment with your new purchase. 

 
Awesome, thank you. My goal is to enjoy the MJ2 stock until finances recover. My friend bigro has a Valhalla 2 and Vali 2 and some tubes to share with me, that should keep me plenty busy. Hurry up Friday!

 

[tjl5709]

  Question, could someone explain to a relative neophyte to tubes what exactly is a 74 reflektor (or is it reflector)? Obviously that's a tube, but are we referring to a particular brand and model?
 
Very curious as my Mule 2 should arrive Friday (so glad I work from home on Fridays!).

I don't know what your budget is, but you can far exceed what you put out for the mj2 in various tubes. Having come over from a lyr2, I already had a rather expensive inventory of tubes for it, so moving up to a balance amp that used the same tubes was a no brainer for me.
 
Not sure about your cans, but with my HD650's, I have accumulated some 74 reflektors which sound very good. I also enjoy amperex orange globes & bugel boys. I'm partial to everyday listening with some amperex 7308's and some Telefunken E88CC's. Smooth, well balanced, with good detail.
 
Go to the Lyr tube rollers thread if your wallet can stand it.

 

[ThrillerUSA]

Regarding M2 or Lry 2 tubes, for my two cents which comes far from a tube-a-phile I bought a Lyr 2 a year ago, did a bunch of research to get a collective 'can't go wrong with these tubes' and settled with buying a pair of TELEFUNKEN E88CC / 6922 from UpscaleAudio.com.
 
The man who owns the joint claimed to have found some in excellent shape and I believed him so nearly USD400 later with shipping and cryo nonsense I've never looked back.
 
Now looks like I might pull the trigger on a M2 to go balanced and I'm committing myself to a second pair of Telefunken's by the same gentleman at UpscaleAudio. Wanna play Lry 2 and M2 same time with me lady using near identical setups but two separate volume controls. Source is simply Oppo BDP-105D with SE and Balanced outs on separate DACs. SACDs, USB, all of it.
 
I got addicted to tube rolling once on an EL34/12A little 50w home amp and ended up losing about a year of evenings and income only to end up with one solid setup which included PSVanes upfront and Winged = C's = from some special factory in the back and that was me done forever. Never going back. Heh heh.
 
Point of ramble being, if you can afford the Telefunken or Reflextors HG's or Orange Chocolates or whatever for the latest balanced effort by Schiit I don't think there's much shame in picking something said to be darn good by most and enjoy your music.
 
My tummy has butterflies now just thinking back to all the hours of A/B/C/D/A/C/A/B/A/C/C/D comparing. Ugh, I love this hobby. Fine line between love and hate.

 

[watchnerd]

 
My tummy has butterflies now just thinking back to all the hours of A/B/C/D/A/C/A/B/A/C/C/D comparing.

 
Sometimes it's best to just pick one that's 'good enough' and get on with listening to music...

 

[tjl5709]

  Regarding M2 or Lry 2 tubes, for my two cents which comes far from a tube-a-phile I bought a Lyr 2 a year ago, did a bunch of research to get a collective 'can't go wrong with these tubes' and settled with buying a pair of TELEFUNKEN E88CC / 6922 from UpscaleAudio.com.
 
The man who owns the joint claimed to have found some in excellent shape and I believed him so nearly USD400 later with shipping and cryo nonsense I've never looked back.
 
Now looks like I might pull the trigger on a M2 to go balanced and I'm committing myself to a second pair of Telefunken's by the same gentleman at UpscaleAudio. Wanna play Lry 2 and M2 same time with me lady using near identical setups but two separate volume controls. Source is simply Oppo BDP-105D with SE and Balanced outs on separate DACs. SACDs, USB, all of it.
 
I got addicted to tube rolling once on an EL34/12A little 50w home amp and ended up losing about a year of evenings and income only to end up with one solid setup which included PSVanes upfront and Winged = C's = from some special factory in the back and that was me done forever. Never going back. Heh heh.
 
Point of ramble being, if you can afford the Telefunken or Reflextors HG's or Orange Chocolates or whatever for the latest balanced effort by Schiit I don't think there's much shame in picking something said to be darn good by most and enjoy your music.
 
My tummy has butterflies now just thinking back to all the hours of A/B/C/D/A/C/A/B/A/C/C/D comparing. Ugh, I love this hobby. Fine line between love and hate.

I have the same telefunkens. They are wonderful. Really don't need anything else.

 

[ThrillerUSA]

Question, please?
 
The only other headphone amp I am considering today other than the MJOLNIR 2 is an Oppo HA-1.
 
Any possible chance someone here has experience with both?
 
My current cans are Sennheiser HD700s current amp a Lyr 2 (which I luv) and most enjoy acoustic music like Bosa Nova, Bill Evans piano jazz, Pee Wee Russell trumpet jazz, Ottmar Leibert acoustic guitar, Nora Jones sultry female vocals.
 
The volume control via remote control is just so attractive from the bed or couch plus have had very good luck with Oppo in the past including a recent HA-2 mobile DAC purchase.
 
I want to enjoy some balanced output next.
 
Many thanks in advance.
 

 

[shultzee]

  Question, please?
 
The only other headphone amp I am considering today other than the MJOLNIR 2 is an Oppo HA-1.
 
Any possible chance someone here has experience with both?
 
My current cans are Sennheiser HD700s current amp a Lyr 2 (which I luv) and most enjoy acoustic music like Bosa Nova, Bill Evans piano jazz, Pee Wee Russell trumpet jazz, Ottmar Leibert acoustic guitar, Nora Jones sultry female vocals.
 
The volume control via remote control is just so attractive from the bed or couch plus have had very good luck with Oppo in the past including a recent HA-2 mobile DAC purchase.
 
I want to enjoy some balanced output next.
 
Many thanks in advance.
 

I had them both.  The ha-1 is a nice all rounder.  Did a lot of things well. But when it comes down to the Mj2 amp vs. Ha-1 ss amp I would choose the mj2 with good tubes everyday.   Of course that is IMHO. 

 

[jp11801]

  Question, please?
 
The only other headphone amp I am considering today other than the MJOLNIR 2 is an Oppo HA-1.
 
Any possible chance someone here has experience with both?
 
My current cans are Sennheiser HD700s current amp a Lyr 2 (which I luv) and most enjoy acoustic music like Bosa Nova, Bill Evans piano jazz, Pee Wee Russell trumpet jazz, Ottmar Leibert acoustic guitar, Nora Jones sultry female vocals.
 
The volume control via remote control is just so attractive from the bed or couch plus have had very good luck with Oppo in the past including a recent HA-2 mobile DAC purchase.
 
I want to enjoy some balanced output next.
 
Many thanks in advance.
 

 
 
I had the Oppo and returned it within the trial period, thought it was too hot and thin up top. The MJ2 is just fantastic particularly with the Yggy. 

 

[murphythecat]

   
Right now I'm alternating between the HiFi Man 400i, the AKG701s, and AKG271s with the MJ2.  Not surprisingly, the orthodynamics benefit the most from the extra power of the MJ2.  With the AKGs, the tonality remains the same, although channel separation is vastly improved.
 
As for DACs, I've been using both a Roland Super UA and a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Solo, swapping in or out depending upon what I'm working on (small venue field recordings with the Roland, everything else with the Apollo Twin).
 
There is a very good chance that at some point in the future I'll move the MJ2 from the desktop to the living room and just use the Apollo Twin for everything in the studio, which will be fine as long as I stick to the AKGs for my mixing phones.  
 
If I move the MJ2 to the living room, I'll use my mPRE for now. If Schiit comes out with a nice preamp next year (that is fully-balanced, dual mono, and has a remote) that might cause me to reconfigure everything and separate the DAC from the preamp.  
 
I doubt I would pick the multibit version, though, for a few reasons.  One is that all my recording gear is SD/DS so introducing MB into the playback chain is another variable.  The second is that the difference in price could go towards yet another microphone....

 
Also, anyone compared the MJ2 to the Taurus mk2?

 

[zive]

Quote:

   
The advice I took to heart was when someone said "You can start with cheap tubes and work your way up, or you can start at the top where you'll probably end up anyway and save all that money you would have spent on the cheap tubes".
 
I got the Telefunken platinum grade from Upscale Audio. Love them.
 
Since then I've acquired Philips Miniwatt SQ, '75 Reflektor, and some Amperex white label, and all of them sound great with small differences between them. The Telefunkens are still my favorite (sorry Bob!) but now I'm worried I won't be able to find any more when mine wear out in 10 years. 

Indeed, I have to agree with this post from much earlier in the thread.
 
Save your money, save your time, do thorough research up-front and save to buy the best pair of tubes you can afford once rather than rolling through ten of sets of mediocre tubes.
 
They don't have to be HG Reflektors but buying a single set of Gold Lions, Orange Globes, Bugle Boys, etc., will save you a lot of time and free up funds to spend on other components. 
 
A lesson I learned from wiser head-fier's than myself.

 

[watchnerd]

Man I would love it if Schiit would add some cool analog VU meters (real ones, not video games) to their top end stuff.

 

[frankraindog]

Also, anyone compared the MJ2 to the Taurus mk2?

+1 on this

 

[tonykaz]

Mr. watchnerd on VU Meters,
 
Can't Meters be additional to any circuit, they're just volt meters, aren't they? 
 
I do have some LED meters flickering on one piece of audio gear ( a vintage BSR 10-Band Eq ), nice looking but are they useful in some way?
 
I love the aesthetics of a nice vintage Volt Meter (in my home-Shop)  but I rely on my Fluke and a Kilowatt meters.
 
Tony in ….
 
ps.  by the way, can you explain the success of CHORD's WTA filtering? 

 

[mithrandir38]

One of the best values out there is RCA nos 6922 tubes. They are tonally killer and ran me about 20/25 bucks a piece. These were a late 60's batch. They transformed the sound of my Lyr and would likely be a good match in the M2.
As far as the OPPO/M2 goes, I've heard both and the M2 has much better treble performance than the OPPO, though the OPPO is more subjectively neutral.