[Krutsch]

  Like on picture no getter at bottom                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 
Oh, OK... sorry, I thought your posted photo w/o caption meant they are the same and I became confused. 

 

[musicman59]

Some new glass. 300b AVVT, Mullard ECC32 and WE422a. They sound fantastic!

 

[Krutsch]

Some new glass. 300b AVVT, Mullard ECC32 and WE422a. They sound fantastic!

 
Sweet! Did you get the WE 422a from my guy in Madison?

 

[musicman59]

   
Sweet! Did you get the WE 422a from my guy in Madison?

Yes. Thank you for the tip. He is a very nice guy and a pleasure to deal with.

 

[reeltime]

Just picked up a matched pair of metal base GZ34s on eBay.  Hoping to get the same magic out of them in my WA5LE as I did in my WA6 of old.  Pairing them with the Elrog 300B.

 

[isquirrel]

Some new glass. 300b AVVT, Mullard ECC32 and WE422a. They sound fantastic!

Great valves, after a pair of WE422a's myself.

 

[isquirrel]

Finally took Matt's advice and bought a media server to replace the computer. Well holy s**t ! Wish I had listened to him earlier, what a difference.
 
The sound is so much clearer, richer and although I wasn't aware of noise before clearly there was some because now sounds emerge from this dead silent back ground.
 
The Elrog's now have 160 hours on them and have fully stabilised with SQ. The Takatsukis 300B's are next to fully run in. 
 

 

[Khragon]

Anyone find the WA5 HPH output slightly noisy with HD800? I can hear very vaguely some noise if I concentrate at 0 volume.
HPL have no issue at all up to max volume.

 

[preproman]

  Finally took Matt's advice and bought a media server to replace the computer. Well holy s**t ! Wish I had listened to him earlier, what a difference.
 
The sound is so much clearer, richer and although I wasn't aware of noise before clearly there was some because now sounds emerge from this dead silent back ground.
 
The Elrog's now have 160 hours on them and have fully stabilised with SQ. The Takatsukis 300B's are next to fully run in. 
 

 
 
I guess you had a difference experience than this guy?
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/741674/antipodes-dx-music-server

 

[Krutsch]

  Great valves, after a pair of WE422a's myself.

I think I already sent you via PM Steve's contact info ... I believe he has additional WE 422a tubes.
 
Why don't you reach out to him and see if the price is right?

 

[Krutsch]

  Finally took Matt's advice and bought a media server to replace the computer. Well holy s**t ! Wish I had listened to him earlier, what a difference.
 
The sound is so much clearer, richer and although I wasn't aware of noise before clearly there was some because now sounds emerge from this dead silent back ground.
 
 

 
I used to snicker at statements like that, but I am now a believer. Being on the low-end of things, I took a different approach - but the end result was similar: removing the PC/Mac from the playback chain yielded real results, as you describe. After years of screwing around, I am finished with computer audio for playback (obviously, not for management).
 
For the curious... I use a Denon DNP-720AE (which I will replace, at some point). I removed the stock feet and replaced with isolator blocks and covered the top with a sorbathane sheet. Then, I connect it to my DAC with a short, quartz fiber TOSLINK cable (I like optical for isolation; I tried different cables and I've found that going high-end matters to prevent ALL drop-outs).
 
I use an Apple Airport Express, placed way from everything, with the single ethernet connection into the Denon player. This isolates network activity into the Denon from everything but it's own traffic. I use a CAT-7 cable for its shielding.
 
Finally, I run a Mac Mini, directly situated with my router, with fast outboard storage for music files. I use MinimServer for DLNA/uPnP streaming and its awesome organization, metadata handling and presentation capabilities.
 
The critical step: I use MinimStreamer for transcoding all audio files into 24-bit WAV. I started doing this because the Denon presented hissing sounds with some FLAC files, so I tried transcoding on-the-fly to WAV to resolve that issue; I was then surprised to hear an audible improvement (there's an interesting discussion on the MinimServer forum on this topic). I attribute the SQ improvement to the fact that WAV/24 is the least burdensome data type for the Denon player to handle; all it has to do is strip off the WAV header and feed the PCM data to the DAC.

 

[TonyNewman]

   
 
I guess you had a difference experience than this guy?
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/741674/antipodes-dx-music-server

 
Dropping this and leaving it be.

 

[magiccabbage]

for anyone interested...............
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/754216/woo-audio-wa2-tubes

 

[Khragon]

Which DAC are you planning to buy? I'm eyeing either used Hugo or oppo ha1, leaning toward the Hugo.

 

[Stereolab42]

Which DAC are you planning to buy? I'm eyeing either used Hugo or oppo ha1, leaning toward the Hugo.

 
I hated the Hugo, loved the Oppo, and eventually settled on the exaSounds, which are divine.