[eskamobob1]

If I could go back in time, I would have bought backups of the 417 when I could. I like tubes too, but I've been listening to music like 5 hours a day recently, and the worrying part of me is starting to get scared for my tubes.

If i could go back in time I would have never bought LCD-2C and started my fall into insanity

 

[eskamobob1]

I understand.
There are always other tube amps that rely on different great tubes though.

I almost reqed aic-10 for having fewer tubes but remembered he already had one. Seriously my favorite part about the amp (outside of sound obviously). 20 years of tubes cost me like 2k.

 

[eskamobob1]

You will always find tubes with the right source.

If I were you, I'd look at upgrading to a tube DAC or work a tube pre into the mix. There are some major gains with the right pairing with solid state.

I recommend demoing one of the Lampizator DACs to scale with the WA33 and trying something like CFA with a tube pre.

Otherwise another level would be the Primavera or an 845 based amp.

God man. I've only heard I think 3 845 amps and they have all be astonishing. Only thing I have a hope of competing with it is globe 45s

 

[Ciggavelli]

If i could go back in time I would have never bought LCD-2C and started my fall into insanity

I had the LCD-2 early on too. My first HiFi headphones were the Grado RS1e which blew my mind after years of listening to regular, cheap headphones. Then that turned into the HD800s, which led to my insanity…hahaha.

The Hugo 2 is also to blame for me. After a bunch of cheap dacs, that sh!t blew my mind.

The TCs are the worst offenders though. I’ve been basically building everything around them.

I thought I would do a one and done with the 3ES Elite and the Shang, but I still want to maximize that too…lol

 

[CAJames]

If I could go back in time, I would have bought backups of the 417 when I could.

If I could go back in time tubes probably wouldn't be my highest priority, but I definitely have a shopping list once I take care of some other business.

 

[paradoxper]

God man. I've only heard I think 3 845 amps and they have all be astonishing. Only thing I have a hope of competing with it is globe 45s

I'm building an 845 for the RAALs. I also use the Perryman 45 in my Phonique DAC and they are absolutely enthralling but they are a much softer sounding tube that only finds a real balance with Elrog and TM 300B

 

[jlbrach]

This is gunna be mega tough. Masskobo and releaf may be worth a shout but I've not heard either to day for sure. Outside of that I don't think cfa3, nimbus, or similar competes tbh. Hm1 is similar tier to the base wa33 ime, but i linda doubt it competes with the elite. Maybe speaker amps?

the CFA3 is damn good...

 

[joseph69]

Now I'm very scared to listen to my WA33 too much for fear the 417s will go out and I can't get another quad pair
I think when those tubes go, I might get a new amp.

No way you'd be able to back to using the EHX 6C45Pi and be satisfied? Also, I still see Woo is still offering the 417 tubes w/adapters.
Although I don't see the 417 for sale separately, Woo doesn't offer just the 417 to buyers who've already purchased the 417 w/adapter from them to begin with?

 

[James824]

I have backup (complete set) for my WA7 and WA2.

Naturally, if had gone SS would not need these. However, my 800 and 800S sound so good with the WA2 it makes more sense to purchase backups than trying to replace the Woos with SS amp.

 

[Leotis]

Been a while since I posted. Are people still in love with Woo WA5?
Now that the WA33 came out is WA5 yesterday's news?
I have a WA5 I am ready to consider parting with.
Appears I can't list even though I was pretty active on the forum a couple years ago.
Apologies if this seems like a lame thread hijack.

 

[ThanatosVI]

Been a while since I posted. Are people still in love with Woo WA5?
Now that the WA33 came out is WA5 yesterday's news?
I have a WA5 I am ready to consider parting with.
Appears I can't list even though I was pretty active on the forum a couple years ago.
Apologies if this seems like a lame thread hijack.

Both the Wa5 and Wa33 have their loyal followers but neither are the "hot crap" anymore.

In order to list classifieds you need to have 2 factor authentication activated

 

[Leotis]

Did the 2 factor but I think they want a quantity of recent posts.
So even the WA33 isn't hot stuff anymore? Dang.
When I got the WA5 I thought I had the worlds best sounding amp. Was disappointed to learn that everything keeps getting better and leaving me behind.
What amp is getting the buzz now?

 

[ucmgr]

I love my WA5-LE. Was considering buying a WA5 just because I’d like to hear it with speakers. Any WA5 V2 owners out there have any input regarding its capabilities as a headphone/speaker amp? Love to hear your take on it

 

[Leotis]

So looks like they let me list it.
I've used it with a variety of speakers including Zu Audio Druid MKIV and Pure Audio Project Duet15.
Sounds excellent with those speakers. Has power to spare.
Stereophile lists it i their Class A category if that gives you an indication of how it sounds with speakers.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/woo-audio-wa5-integrated-amplifierheadphone-amplifier

 

[SteveHulk]

I love my WA5-LE. Was considering buying a WA5 just because I’d like to hear it with speakers. Any WA5 V2 owners out there have any input regarding its capabilities as a headphone/speaker amp? Love to hear your take on it

I had both WA5-LE v2 and WA5 v2, both with the internals upgrade.

With the headphones (Utopia, LCD-4, HD800) that I used, it performed very well.

At a CanJam London I heard the RAAL sr1a and fell in love. I have heard full-spectrum ribbon speakers before and I have always loved the magical liquid sound in the upper registers, and the freedom of the bass. I bought the sr1b, the ti1a interface box, and the star8 cable.

On the basis of confused advice I tried to drive them with the WA5-LE. Even with the interface box it was a disaster because of the impedance mismatch.

I was in the foothills of an extremely steep learning curve about valve amplifiers!

I traded in my WA5-LE with Woo for the WA5 in the expectation that I could drive the RAAL from the speaker terminals.

RAAL @aleksandarR kindly supplied me with the necessary 4 bananas to XLR custom length cable free of charge, one of many brownie points for them!

Throughout this saga, the level of support they gave to get my use case to work is just stellar.

It still didn't work. Simply didn't go loud enough, and distortion associated with the bass was still there.

@aleksandarR even sent me - free of charge - an interface box with transformers wound especially for me to impedance match 4Ω and 8Ω rather than the 16Ω and 32Ω of the standard box. He was just as stubborn as me about getting the Woo to drive the sr1b!

Now it was close to being loud enough, but the ills associated with the bass still remained.

I tried tweaks like rebiassing the output tubes, replacing the output tube cathode bypass capacitors and using solid-state rectifiers in the psu.

All these things made improvements to the sound, but it just wasn't there. The bass was still unsatisfactory, heavier bass making the rest of the sound just fold up.

I decided to rebuild the amp section. So I gutted it...

After the rebuild - I also put the valve heater circuits outboard to prevent any ac whatsoever coming into the amp section - it looked like this:

This totally fixed all my issues except for a tiny tendency for the sound to sag - again with heavy bass.

I sorted that out by getting rectifier double adapters from @Deyan and I now run a quad of 5Ц3С. This stiffens the B+ supply without the need to rebias the amp tubes to deal with a different voltage on the HT rail.

This is the final system and the sound is everything I ever dreamed of, but never thought I could afford.

I have learned so much.

I still can't emphasise strongly enough the absolute commitment RAAL @aleksandarR showed to their product to help me to get this to work.

My intentions for the system are now two-fold: first to improve the stand to give better vibration isolation; and second to re-implement the amplifier using seriously gorgeous casework - for which I have some strong ideas.