[Oskari]

Yes, but your compilation is much easier to use. By the way, have you found a way to tell Foton valves apart from older Reflektor valves?

 

[Oskari]

Voskhod, Kaluga Nevz, Novosibirsk
Orzep, Orel
Foton, Tashkent
October, Vinnitsa
Anode, Diatkovo

 
It is quite surprising how many factories made 6N1P variants in the USSR.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

  Yes, but your compilation is much easier to use. By the way, have you found a way to tell Foton valves apart from older Reflektor valves?

 no self taught here wrt USSR valves. It is what I have slowly pieced together over 20+ years, I even have some of the original 300b valves befor they were officially making them

 

[lekoross]

Anyone have experience with the Amperex Orange Globes?

 

[feilb]

Alright. Here's a down payment on the rolling updates I promised over in the review thread. All impressions are initial. After I get through all the tubes I've got on the way, I'll post some final thoughts and rankings.
 
My Val 2 came stock with:
 
6n6p - 1984 Novosibirsk (they have the newer logo, not the pentagon)
6n1p - 1990(?) Voskhod
 
The stock sound has good soundstage and detail. It's a little hot on the top end, and is a little bloomy in the mids. The 6n1p tubes on mine have a very low level hiss, much lower than the noise floor of most recordings.
 
Output tubes
 
6N6P '71 Novosibirsk (NOS Matched) - Bought from a US seller on ebay, though the listing was entirely in russian. Thank you google translate. The biggest difference I noticed with these tubes was that most of the bloominess in the mids was gone. Maybe a touch less hot on the high end, but nothing major. For the price I paid, this was worthwhile. I wouldn't get too worked up about the output tubes, but this was a good upgrade.
 
Input tubes
 
6922 Amperex '65 Bugle Boy, Holland - These tubes were a disappointment to me. They were very smooth through the mids and offered a little more low end bass, which was nice. The big issue with these were the high end rolloff. They muddied up the sound on the HD800s and the soundstage was much more constricted. I love the HD800 for it's detail and soundstage and these tubes took that away for smoother mids and a touch more bass over stock. Not worth it for me.
 
ECC85 Siemens & Halske (NOS Matched) - These tubes are a big improvement over stock for me. Not many people talk about ECC85s, but these are really fantastic. The biggest thing I would say about these tube is that they are absolutely convincing. I've never liked the word timbre, but it is about perfect here. Everything sounds real. I didn't really know what I was missing. These tubes also completely kill any bloomy fluttery mids and treble present. Very well controlled. Bass is not notably stronger over stock, nor is it recessed. Soundstage is a little less deep than stock, but retains its width and height. These roll off a tiny bit too early for me on the top end. If they kept that top end detail all the way up to 20kHz and a little more depth in soundstage, I think they'd be perfect. That being said, they could really open up over the rest of "burn-in". Who knows. That being said, i think this tube would make many people very, very happy.
 
What I've got on the way
 
Voskhod '71 6N23P (NOS Matched) - They're not the "Holy Grail" tube, but the 70s Voskhods have a big following and I'm looking forward to trying them
 
Telefunken E88CC (NOS Matched) - I'm very excited to try these. Got them for a great deal, and hope they compare favorably to the ECC85s.

 

[notsimar]

I really like the telefunken e88cc's (compared to the stock tubes)

 

[FlySweep]

Can the Valhalla 2 safely roll 7DJ8 (7v) tubes ?

 

[feilb]

Should be ok. 7DJ8 = PCC88. There are some people who have reported success with these tubes. The major difference between 7DJ8 and 6DJ8 is the heater voltage (7.6V nominal vs 6.3V nominal). That being said, the amp determines the heater voltage, so if Val is designed for 6V heaters, the 7 will run at 6V. This will theoretically make the tube last longer but emission will be lower than rated. Good news. That probably won't matter unless you're really pushing the tube very hard (maybe harder than the Val is designed to go).
 
TL;DR - Yep, they'll work just fine

 

[JohnBal]

  Can the Valhalla 2 safely roll 7DJ8 (7v) tubes ?

E-mail Schiit directly to be sure. They would know.

 

[FlySweep]

  Should be ok. 7DJ8 = PCC88. There are some people who have reported success with these tubes. The major difference between 7DJ8 and 6DJ8 is the heater voltage (7.6V nominal vs 6.3V nominal). That being said, the amp determines the heater voltage, so if Val is designed for 6V heaters, the 7 will run at 6V. This will theoretically make the tube last longer but emission will be lower than rated. Good news. That probably won't matter unless you're really pushing the tube very hard (maybe harder than the Val is designed to go).
 
TL;DR - Yep, they'll work just fine

 
Thanks Felib.. so the only (potential) caveat to rolling 7DJ8s in the Valhalla 2 is that.. despite the V2 being compatible with this tube type.. the 7DJ8 *might* not run at it's optimum spec (7v), so the 7DJ8 might not sound as good as it's capable of sounding?  That isn't to say it'll sound bad.. just not *as* good as it would if it was rolled into a 7v circuit.
 

  E-mail Schiit directly to be sure. They would know.

 
Yep, I've emailed them just for confirmation, I'll post the answer once I receive it.

 

[feilb]

I doubt that it would make much of a difference audibly, but you are right to say that they are technically not running at spec. You may even get lower noise out of a tube because you're not driving the heater as hard.

 

[FlySweep]

Thanks, felib.. also, I heard back from Nick T. at Schiit (I emailed him around 1pm, got a reply back 20 mins later.. whoa!).  He stated the 7DJ8 is, indeed, compatible with the Valhalla 2.. huzzah!

 

[Puma Cat]

So, I received some Amperex 7308s last week from Upscale for use in my Val 2. These are reputedly a mil-spec style tube with tighter tolerances and increased durability over the Amperex 6922s that I've been using my Val 2 (which I took out of my CJ Premier 17LS preamp to try over the stock JJ 6N1Ps). I really liked very much what the Amperex 6922s did for Val 2, so I ordered these for permanent use in my Val 2 so I could put my 6922 Amperexes back in my Pr17 preamp. I somewhat mistakenly ordered Amperex 7308s as I thought that is what I pulled out of my Pr17, as they had an orange PQ label on them, and I have Amperex tube boxes with 7308 on them, so I thought that's what these were. 

It was only when I pulled out them out of Val2 to put in the new NOS tubes and looked at them closely did I realize the Pr17 Amperexes were actually 6922s, not 7308s. The confusing about this is that Amperex used identical orange "PQ" labels for both 6922s AND 7308s, apparently. 

I installed the Amperex 7308s in Val 2 last night, and have been comparing them to my Amperex 6922s. These 7308s are white label JAN tubes and are NOS. There are some differences I am hearing, but those differences may be initially due to the 7308s being NOS, and have no burn-in time on them. When I first listened to them last night, they were a bit bright and glare-y, but after about an hour of use, they started to sound much nicer, smoothed out and the high-end glare abated. I swapped the Amperexes 6922s back in before finishing up last night, and at that time,  I still preferred them over the 7308s, but I've done another swap of the 7308s back in tonight, and they are coming in to their own quite nicely. 

Initial impressions are just that, but here's where I am presently for reference: The 7308s appear to be a bit more neutral, perhaps a bit more resolving, but not quite as "palpable" , full-bodied and textured as the 6922s; the highs on the 6922s might be slightly more laid back than the 7308s, but I'm not going to make any final judgements until I get more hours on the 7308s, they've improved quite a bit just over the course of a few hours last night and tonight. 

I've experienced rather significant changes in tubes as they burn in; I bought a pair of Ediswan 6922s for use in my CJ LP70S power amp, and initially did not like them at all, but eventually decided to leave them in and get some good hours on them, and ended up preferring them over the Electro-Harmonic tubes the amp originally came with. Ediswans are a lovely 6922, BTW, so those of you interested in considering these, I would give them a go. They are on the pricey side at $95/ea but one of the nicest 6922s I've heard. 

More updates in time, but thought I would give this initial set of impressions, as I had a query via PM about the differences between the Amperex 6922s vs the 7308s.

 

[Puma Cat]

Note added in passing:
Okay, so it turns out I do have orange-label Amperex PQ 7308s as I had originally thought. I was mixing and matching these in my Premier 17; there are two sockets per channel and you can mix and match different 6922s variants in the no. 1 and no. 2 slots, so I had an Amperex 7308 and an Amperex 6922 in the first and second socket for each channel, respectively. 

So, what I can compare now are also the "orange label PQ" 6922s, "orange label PQ" 7308s, and white-label JAN 7308s. Will keep y'all apprised of my tube rolling findings.

 

[kirayamato]

what would be the best tubes to roll for hd 800  i have the valhalla 2 I listen to pop music usually the latest songs i do listen to alot of old songs but would prefer it to be the best on pop music and i prefer soundstage and wouldn't like it lowered by another tube for something else so basically if there is a clear cut upgrade thats what i would want