[Pharmaboy]

Don’t worry about your tube rolling to start.

There has always been a need for a qualified "headphone therapist" -- someone to say soothing things like this to help pull about-to-become-deranged Head-Fi members back from the edge.

Please post your hourly rates and contact information (kleenex is the patient's responsibility).

"Asking for a friend"

 

[Monsterzero]

There has always been a need for a qualified "headphone therapist" -- someone to say soothing things like this to help pull about-to-become-deranged Head-Fi members back from the edge.

Please post your hourly rates and contact information (kleenex is the patient's responsibility).

"Asking for a friend"

Yeah, I can agree that getting a tube amp and using the stock tubes to start is a good idea. It gives you a good baseline of how your amp sounds, but at some point tube rolling becomes almost a necessity. The tube roll that sounds fantastic with the VO, for example will sound awful for a Beyer T1.1, again for example. Even if you want to keep it within the confines of the ZMF ecosystem, what sounds good for the VC might not translate well to the Auteur.

Sticking with the stock tubes means sticking with a singular sound signature, and often times not a very good one at that, so might as well get a solid state amp if you're good with a single sound.

 

[ArtBoy]

What about a Feliks Echo? Can get a used one for a fairly good price. But you have 4 tubes vs 2 on the crack.

 

[Dawgfish]

Buy something from the classifieds that already has upgraded tubes.

Agree 1000%

 

[Dawgfish]

Nm

 

[Unterstuffz]

Thank you all for the great input i am really grateful for the effort (i mean it)
It seems maybe tube amps are apperently not the best choice for me i just was very intrigued about the impedance effect that a otl has on high impedance headphones ... Im more in it for the music mainly my whole system is contructed around the premise
"
pour scotch
Sit down
connect headphone to amp
Start roon an listen to music

"
So even when i think its super nice to tailor the sound to your needs with tube rolling and can absolutly understand the appeal behind it, i fear its to much stress for me to change the tubes each time i change the headphone.
But thanks again ... gotta love this community <3

 

[Dawgfish]

Thank you all for the great input i am really grateful for the effort (i mean it)
It seems maybe tube amps are apperently not the best choice for me i just was very intrigued about the impedance effect that a otl has on high impedance headphones ... Im more in it for the music mainly my whole system is contructed around the premise
"
pour scotch
Sit down
connect headphone to amp
Start roon an listen to music

"
So even when i think its super nice to tailor the sound to your needs with tube rolling and can absolutly understand the appeal behind it, i fear its to much stress for me to change the tubes each time i change the headphone.
But thanks again ... gotta love this community <3

Nothing says you have to change tubes. You owe it to yourself to hear a high impedance headphone on an OTL tube amp. My recommendation is to get a reputable tube amp and just listen and enjoy. That will give you an idea what tubes can do for your high impedance phones. Whether you want to do anything further is totally up to you.

 

[mchuckp]

Thank you all for the great input i am really grateful for the effort (i mean it)
It seems maybe tube amps are apperently not the best choice for me i just was very intrigued about the impedance effect that a otl has on high impedance headphones ... Im more in it for the music mainly my whole system is contructed around the premise
"
pour scotch
Sit down
connect headphone to amp
Start roon an listen to music

"
So even when i think its super nice to tailor the sound to your needs with tube rolling and can absolutly understand the appeal behind it, i fear its to much stress for me to change the tubes each time i change the headphone.
But thanks again ... gotta love this community <3

I think my counter to this is that if you can afford a used tube amp, why not see what you think? Don’t like it or too much work, sell it. If you got a decent price on it, you won’t lose that much if at all.

I had a Cary tube speaker amp for over a decade and used mainly the same combo of tubes for most that time replacing as I needed. Never did much rolling. Wasn’t using my speakers much so sold it last year and got into cans. Been missing the tube sound so recently picked up a Felix Elise used w stock tubes and loving it w my HFM planars and my Atriums will be here next week to try. So far, I dig the sound w stock tubes way more than my spendy Burson Soloist GT.

Will I keep the amp? Will I start rolling a bunch of tubes? Not sure…but I’m loving the sound with stock tubes so far. Could it be a lot better with Different tubes? Probably ..but my ears haven’t heard it so they don’t know if they are missing anything.

I love where I’m at right now. Loving my tube amp and have options to tweak it at some point if I choose to or sell it and recoup at least most my money. Just hate to see you not at least see if tubes are your thing.

 

[Monsterzero]

i just was very intrigued about the impedance effect that a otl has on high impedance headphones

look into a 1970s era vintage receiver. Typically much cheaper than a tube amp, unless you go after a 100wpc + behemoth. In the 60s and 70s all headphones were high impedance, so the HP jack was optimized for them. I am currently using a Sansui 881 in my system, primarily for my vintage AKGs, but it rocks ZMFs as well.

Vintage receivers also have built in tone control for bass and treble and higher end models have tone control for the mids as well. Multiple inputs make receivers quite versatile and typically have a good phono stage, if that's your thing. And best of all, no tubes to mess with.

 

[Leonarfd]

I still vouch for the Feliks Audio Echo with ZMF, pairs perfect with both Verite and Aeolus. I have tube rolled some, I do seem to come back to the stock tubes after a while. Good amount detail and smoothness.
Its also so silent in my setup that I can use IEMs with it, not always a perfect pairing but for the few that work its excellent.

 

[Marutks]

I still vouch for the Feliks Audio Echo with ZMF, pairs perfect with both Verite and Aeolus. I have tube rolled some,

Are there different 6N6P / 6N1P tubes? Do they sound different? Can you use 6N23P tubes in the Echo?

I use 6N6P, 6N1P and 6N23P tubes in my Blue Halo amp because they are dead quiet.

 

[Leonarfd]

Are there different 6N6P / 6N1P tubes? Do they sound different? Can you use 6N23P tubes in the Echo?

I use 6N6P, 6N1P and 6N23P tubes in my Blue Halo amp because they are dead quiet.

I have taken up reccomendations from others so I'm not very experienced in what works or not. Have only rolled the front tubes, the very modern ones I tried were worse than stock. While I had some great old Russian ones, but had bad channel imbalance.
The JJ in the picture were great if I want more detailed and less smooth sound.

 

[goldwerger]

Please post your hourly rates and contact information (kleenex is the patient's responsibility).

1 NOS tube per session

 

[cats4cans]

pour scotch
Sit down
connect headphone to amp
Start roon an listen to music

This is almost exactly what I do 99% of time. I change whiskies much more often than tubes.

 

[AudioDuck]

Nothing says you have to change tubes. You owe it to yourself to hear a high impedance headphone on an OTL tube amp. My recommendation is to get a reputable tube amp and just listen and enjoy. That will give you an idea what tubes can do for your high impedance phones. Whether you want to do anything further is totally up to you.

What Dawgfish said. While I’ve certainly done a bunch of tube rolling, I could have made one change to what I have now and called it good.

I’m definitely the “turn it on, get some Scotch, fire up BlueOS, plug in the headphones, and listen to whatever strikes my fancy” type.

The only difference between listening to my WA2 and when I’d listen to my Violectric V200 (have since sold it) is that the WA2 needs about 2 minutes of warm-up. That’s it.