honestly…i used chifi tube preamp with the jan 5654 tubes, into a chifi hybrid tube amp with same tubes(both the little tube guys). its about 80-85% as good. can make them sound almost identical with adjusting bass and treble gains on the mini’s. but thats just for the timbre of it. the soundstage and presentation and dynamics, most of the techinical stuff, is miles better.
i Love my chifi tube pre-amp and hybrid amp. they are just their for eye candy in that shot to be honest lol. they are hooked up to my infinity floorstanders i restored and upgraded with modern drivers.
my magni has not been hooked up in a while, thats a sys in the shot so i can quick switch between lyr3 and bottlehead.
edit: those chifi tube amps and pre amps are great. you can add some tube magic to anything with them. they will change your ss amp into a hybrid sound with a lean towards tubey.
edit2: the combo also costs a lot less then a crack + speedball. so 80+% over all as good at less then half the cost. the chifi+ss combo also has the advantage of working with low impendence headphones, something the crack can not do.
I came close to getting the Crack as my first tube amp, but ended up getting the Hagerman Tuba instead because of it’s support for low impedance headphones. To my understanding, the Crack should be pretty different sounding which is why I’d really like to give it a try.
If you plan on upgrading the tubes for the Tuba, I can highly recommend the NOS RCA 7189. Also, a more affordable option are the NOS Soviet Reflektor 6P14P-EV. Both are better than the stock Reissue Mullard EL84.
The RCA 7189 in particular sounds amazing on the Tuba. The sound is more 3D, better bass response and treble extension…just a much more linear sound.
I saw you post about those tubes earlier. Does this seem like a good buy? Ebay Tubes
I was planning to stick with the stock tubes since I was already happy with the sound. But $80 would be a small price for a significant upgrade. Are there any downsides to switching to the RCA tubes? Like is the detail or speed any worse?
I’m not personally a big fan of the stock new production mullards in the Tuba, they don’t have a particularly wide soundstage and they lack bass.
I think there is a win in replacing them, Mine has EI tubes in it, RCA are probably fine, GE tubes are reasonably priced decent performers for EL84’s, as are Tunsgram.
I got those rca tubes in hazi talks about, and they are pretty dang sweet. I agree that the stock are a bit mid centric and not as balanced, I then threw in some Holland bugle boys and they were pretty sweet for treble and mid-range, but didn’t quite do what I wanted for bass (but I knew that going in). The RCA are well balanced and overall just a generally good upgrade without making many sacrifices imo. It balances out the sound, improves sweetness, a bit more natural and accurate presentation, and a bit more detail too. Soundstage also gets a bit more immersive. I don’t think it transforms the amp or anything, but it is a general all around improvement. I think the El tubes will most likely do the same but I haven’t tried those
Edit: also just realized this is the crack thread lol, I am using nos mullard cv4003 and nos mullard 6080 and it sounds great for my 1.1 w/ speedball
Those tubes you linked I’m not sure about. The telltale sign of an authentic RCA 7189 is the tilted/angeled saucepan getter at the top of the tube. I had to shop around patiently to find a deal and ebay seller I was comfortable with. The best advice I can give anybody in shopping for New Old Stock tubes is be patient. A lot of ebay sellers are not totally forthcoming and disingenuously mislabel tubes to try and squeeze out a bigger sales price.
Also, Tube Depot and thetubestore.com are legitimate and respected sites to buy tubes from.
Looking for headphones to compliment my hd600’s on the crack. Not looking to spend zmf money just yet. Thinking about one of the beyer 600ohm, but not sure how musical they are? everyone talks about their gaming potential. Also found the GMP 400/450, was considering those as well as they are 300 ohm, but not a lot of reviews on them. Does not seem to be many for cheap besides those 3. Was also looking at the beyer t1’s, but they are a chunk more.
600 ohm akg240’s can be had for a good price used… this isn’t from personal experience (yet) but they’re usually in this type of conversation… I look forward to shooting the sh*t with you about this amp when it arrives
I think the 880 600 is incredibly musical as well (going off a darkvoice)
Joining the crack addicts, just hit the buy it now on a on a very cleanly built ebay example for less $ than a kit. I know I would have enjoyed the build process, but frankly I just wanted to take the shortcut on this one.
I will work to get a box made with some nice wood example locally though. This am is not for desktop use, it will be for a glass of port in the listening room.
After I listen to is for a while, I’ll decide if the Speedball upgrade is in order. Guess I’ll start reading this thread from its inception now.
…also I’ll have to fish for the obligatory HD600 now.
Replacing the output caps made a pretty significant difference for me. I used Solen caps. Bass particularly improved in every way - extension, definition, impact. That mod along with replacing the factory attenuator and doing the Speedball will give you the most improvement.
