[Spent&Bent]

For the last several days I have been trying to improve upon the stock Earmax Pro sound by rolling in some new tubes, starting with the center (gain) tube.

Right now I have been experimenting with:

1.Sylvania 6201 GB NOS, lightly used good measures but I find it too soft.
2.Telefunken ECC 801s - NOS, excellent.
3.Siemens ECC 801s - NOS, excellent.
4.Amperex Bugle Boy 12at7 - NOS, very nice.
5.about 15 or so used RCA & Sylvania tubes, some the labels are lost..... these are all very weak or not as good sounding.

Still stock outer (channel) tubes until next week.

All except for the piss-poor RCA & Syl batch (that I paid a fortune for

, well that's ebay I guess...) these are all very good.

The syl GB I found to be too loose in the bass and overly rich on the RS-1, my old Senn HD410 made it sound a bit better.

Both the siemens and the telefunkens are very very nice, obviusly in a class of their own compared to the others.
The problem is that they just strengthen what the RS-1 does to the sound spectrum, not make it more neutral like the RA-1 does.
I am not pleased.
Right now my old sennheiser HD 410 sounds fabulous, especially with the siemens / telefunken but that was not what I wanted at all.

Next week I got some more RCA center tubes coming and hopefully 4 matched outer tubes that I still have not received from the USA.

If I can't get this to sound any better I am giving up I get sick of spending about 500 euro's right now on tubes alone what I have done as of yet, this is getting a very expensive little amp.
I am hoping replacing the outer (channel) tubes will make the sound better, right now there are still the stock tubes.

Yes I am in a bad mood because the RA-1 still sounds better, and don't get me even started on the baby orpheus because I have to sell it but I don't want to anymore.

 

[Anders]

Thanks you for the exploarations that are useful for me who also have got an EMP recently. I wasn't impressed by RS-1 with this amp with stock tubes although I haven't listened much to this combination. It sounded like a softened up Grado without the intensity and excitement. From what I have seen at Head-Fi it seems notoriously difficult to find an amplifier that is a really good match for RS-1 except RA-1, at least if you want some concensus.

Of the headphones I have used with EMP so far, Beyerdynamic DT931 was the surprise. HD650 works well but not as good as with the Prehead. It seems that DT931 and EMP has some synergy and sounds better with EMP than Prehead, little preliminary. I have upgraded DT931 with the Oehlbach cable from Meier. HD650/Zu is more transparent and balanced but DT931 is more direct with more fun and excitement, at least for the moment. Somewhat in the Grado direction.

Hope you will find some tube combination that works with Grado!

 

[JaZZ]

Sorry to see that you're not so happy with the EMP, at least with Grados. But I wasn't too with SR-325 and -225, so this amp obviously isn't a Grado fan. Nevertheless I'm quite sure that you can make this combo sound good with the right tubes. I didn't try too hard though because my preference then as well as now was/is with Sennheisers (and the DT 880). And that's where the EMP shines, especially with the HD 650.

I'm still in the process of burning in and accustoming to the Zu Mobius (which is a great cable and getting better every hour!), but have already found some excellent sounding tube combinations.

Siemens ECC81 + 2x Mullard ECC88
Siemens E81CC (or ECC81) + 2x Telefunken E88CC
Siemens ECC81 (or E81CC) + 2x Reflektor E88CC (Russian)

I clearly prefer Siemens to Telefunken for the input stage; they sound much more neutral to my ears. E81CC is clearly more brilliant than ECC81, but can be a bit sharp at times, depending on the combination.

The HA-2 is close, but so far I slightly prefer the EMP.

 

[Hirsch]

This may sound elementary, but which pads are you using on the RS-1. Mine sounds great with flat pads, but very few amps except the RA-1 make it listenable to me with the stock bowl pads.

I've been using a Syl GB 6201 in the center, but am using Telefunken (rebranded from Siemens) PCC88's at outputs, and have been happy with results using the RS-1 with flat pads. The PCC88 is nice for a couple of reasons.
1) It's designed to run at 7 volts instead of the 6 volts that the ECC88 uses. Consequently, it runs cool, and is likely to last a lot longer and
2) relative to the ECC88 family, the PCC88 is cheap (although prices have been rising now that the word on these is getting out. I've got to learn to shut up

)

I've also found that in general (but there are many exceptions), black plate tubes tend to have better frequency extension and a more defined sound. It's also important to give a tube time to burn-in, if it is NOS or hasn't been used in decades. In general I find that it can take up to a 100 hours or so, sometimes longer, before the tube gets close to its real sound in the system.

 

[Spent&Bent]

Hirsch, thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately I still have no flats, since todd does not accept paypal and a wire transfer gets expensive for such small things I have been following the FS forum for some no luck yet.
Also, I did send todd email before about the flats but got no response back, and since it wasn't of that high priority I didn't try contacting him again.

FYI: I do have modded senn pads I will try to find out if I like them better now I have all these tubes... until I can get the flats.

that PCC88 you mentioned sounds very interesting hirsch, I will see if I can get some, I'm not giving up on this little amp yet

About the extra burn in of NOS you could be very very right, right now I'm actually using the syl gold brand and it has been improving to my ears over the course of this day..... I was wondering if this was purely subjective though, I have not yet done another run of musical snippets etc, after a few days I got so tired with switching and testing right now I'm just listening to music and doing other things that need be done, far less stressing for me I can tell you

Hirsch, do you happen to know if tube dampers have any real effect? I just got some and use them now, but they don't look good on the amp so I was wondering if they are of any real, proven use else I take them off again.

Anders: thanks for your reply like agreed in our PM's I will see what I can do for you.

P.S. I was reading up some more about tuberolling the EMP and found a thread where tomcat said something about switching polarity to improve performance, does this benefit only show up after leaving the amp on for a day or so or is this instant or all just nonsense? I'd like to hear more about this, thanks.

 

[Hirsch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Spent&Bent Hirsch, do you happen to know if tube dampers have any real effect? I just got some and use them now, but they don't look good on the amp so I was wondering if they are of any real, proven use else I take them off again.

I think the dampers can be helpful with microphonic tubes. As far as an overall benefit in general, I don't know. I think I prefer listening with the Herbie's Audio Labs HAL-O tube dampers in place, but I haven't had that "AHA!" moment where I can pin down what I think I'm hearing, and be sure.

 

[Anders]

I can answer the question of AC polarity. You can insert a European Schuko AC plug in two ways into the wall. In one case you get the wrong polarity and the hot and neutral leads are switched. This is not specific to EMP but is valid for all components. There can be a difference in sound but how much differs between components. When I tried it with EMP in my main system I think there was a difference but I am not sure.
The effect is instantanous. I also beleive that the effect for one component can vary depending on what other component it is connected to and the potential in the chassi.

 

[Spent&Bent]

Anders: Hmm I have been reversing and re - reversing the plugs of a lot of stuff now, I can't say I notice much as of yet.

Listening some more to the Sylvania 6201 GB I find the general atmosphere (mood) of certain recordings changing into something different.

Whereas the atmosphere with other tubes would be light and cheerful, it can get pretty menacing with this one.
recordings where people were smiling before when singing / talking they do not do this any longer, infact they can sound hurried and serious. (visualising expressions happens automatically with me on good recordings and this amp)


Its hard to explain what I really mean here, because OTL tubes are so good in micro detail things like accents of singers, something in price comparable solid state does not reproduce that well IMHO maybe its affecting a certain minute portion of the sound that causes for me to get this impression.
I have never experienced something so pronounced, yet at the same time also so subtle when listening casually.

I will put this to the test with other people that have been listening to my system before, to see if they say the same, asking them what mood was the recording conveying before, opposed to now.

 

[Trogdor]

I mean for the price at least. I test drove the EMP's with the RS-2's and I thought they were average. I know the salesperson told me that the EMP tubes have been broken in (whatever that means in terms of hours). They were stock tubes.

In any event, I was not impressed for ~$750 USD. I have still yet to hear a tube setup that really impresses me (i.e., justifies the obscene markup).

With that said, I haven't heard a lot...

Trogdor

 

[Spent&Bent]

Today finally a shipment of 4 matched Amperex PQ gold pins arrived.
I had been waiting ages for this but preliminary testing suggests it was worth the wait.
The tubes complement the telefunken well, I tried this combination and the PQ's definately seem to mellow out the slight problem with the highs I had on the RS-1 (now on modded senn pads again btw).
Maybe the philips channel tubes were noisy or a bit bad to begin with, with the telefunken or siemens gain tubes exposing this weakness and others hiding it, because after switching to the amperex PQ's the sound is missing that HF grain almost interference that was connected to instruments yet seemed detached and disjointed sounding in the songs (hard to explain this...)
This could be mistaken for the philips having more detail that has now been lost with the PQ but IMO it's definately grain or otherwise interference....

The midrange sounds "right" now, with PQ gold pins and the telefunken ECC801s what could be described in my own words: " watery (less defined) realism", coupled with reasonable tight and low (but not cavernous) bass.
The highs are smooth and nice, like they should IMO.
Very engaging with both male (male sounded nice even with lesser tubes before, but maybe because I heard more reasonably up close live female singing ???) and female which sound lovely now, singers like vanessa carlton or britney spears sound (considering taste) adoringly girlish, yet unrefined,unbalanced like they should while singers like sheena easton have that great smooth, velvety, seducing sexy quality that makes her and others voice so good to my ears dragging me in her music.
Like I said before there is an amount of realness now that was absent before IMO, there is no obvious amp induced veil at all anymore, just slight watery sound as if my ears are a bit off when hearing something live (ofcourse to you people my ears are probably off all the time lol)
It's unfortunate that these tubes are (very) expensive.... but IMO they are worth the premium over the stock type.

Needless to say I'm pretty happy with the EMP right now, but I have most definately been poisoned by the immense PraT of the senn electrostatics and their clarity.... it's so very hard to pick what system to listen to right now, maybe need two sets of ears.

P.S. still waiting for RCA blackplate gain tube, if this does anything new I will update.