That is one of my questions. Problem is, if the two options (DV and cheap buffer) sound reasonably close, I wonât know wether to be ecstatic or pissed. Weâll find out!
Youâll know the difference between what people might call âtrueâ tubes and⌠âlesserâ ones, and youâll sell one of these, at least. 
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Just ordered Voskhod 6J1P-EV tubes. Yay!
Still havenât received the Voskhods, but right now Iâm âtubingâ my PS3. Lol. (PS3 â Tube-03 buffer â Atom)
Whoâd have thunk!
Trying Voskhod 6J1P-EVs 
Theyâre smaller than the stock ones.
Even after only 5 minutes they add low-end warmness and detail, IMO.
Man I love messing with cheap shit. 
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I got a splitter, and I got enough wires. Yay! A/B time.
FX Audio Tube-03, standard tubes:
A/B-ing, with headphones, what can I say⌠Either T50RPs or HD58Xs, I press my JDS Atom RCA-or-3.5mm switch, and thereâs a saloon in my head. More detail. More echoes. I press it again and thereâs a veil. Thatâs not an EQ thing. Not a volume thing. Iâve been doing this for one hour, lol.
The Voskhod 6J1P-EVs⌠adds warmth and maybe a bit of sparkle compared to the stock tubes if you leave the bass + treble switch alone. And everything sounds more⌠classy. Quality tubes.
Someone told me I wouldnât hear much of a difference with HD58Xs because they donât really play well with tubes. False: Thatâs a tube buffer, so it works well with everything. 
I hear the exact same difference with my T50RPs or my HD58Xs.
Whatever the tubes you use, the Tube-03 definitely adds width. I received four tubes and they werenât perfectly matched. Switching one from left to right made the left channel or the right channel louder. Yup. The FX Audio Tube-03 is a stereo tube amp, wired in stereo. 
No regrets, this will make my quarantine sound classier. 
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Headphones:
The simplest definition of what I hear is, without the tube amps, you hear the sound is coming from⌠âsomewhere in front of youâ. And with the tubes, the sound is right there, left-right, singers whispering at your ears, etc. More soundstage, more wideness, but more closeness too.
Trying with speakers.
You know what Zeos said about good speakers? They âdisappearâ. What does theeze do to speakers? Yup. They make my 125$ Fluance SX6s âdisappearâ⌠more than usual. I recently bought a Micca center channel. I just verified if it was on. Nope. I think I just understood why Zeos doesnât use centers.
Random song, with tubes: The piano is somewhere 10ft, a bit at my right, echoing. The singer is in front of me, 4ft away from me. Two acoustics guitars behind him. Left, right⌠and I just heard the left one screw up. Never heard it before. It was not subtle at all.
Same song, no tubes: The piano is 8ft away from me. The singer is 6ft away from me. The guitarists are beside him. The left one screwed up, but it was subtle.
Final verdict: In all cases, drum kick volumes are reduced. A lot. The bass knob on the Tube-03 might help, but if youâre a basshead, pass. This tube ampâs job appears to be to smoothen everything and make everything sound âairyâ, not âbassyâ. If you want to know what is âholographic soundstage and depthâ, give this a try. I find it quite disconcerting that headphones and speakers can do this actually. Inexpensive ones even. Will a 30$ tube amp and tiny 5$-or-less Voskhod âCCCPâ â tubes make your system sound better? Thatâs subjective. Will it make everything sound different? A lot.
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Here is the review from the next best thing⌠he loves this piece of chifi hardware. Iâm till skeptical on build quality.
Listening to the new Testament album through my Tube-03 â because why not.
Iâm wondering if itâs normal but Iâm âbreaking inâ tubes (voskhods) and if the volume on the tube-03 is at more than 10:00 
thereâs a ton of distortion (the one you definitely donât want to hear). Oh well, my 1 watt per channel JDS Atom is useful right now!
These ones work for sure though, lol. They glow twice as much as the 2 others I got (bought 4). Oh well, time to leave these on for 10 hours (too!) I guess (âŚand not unattended).
Nope. Oddly enough, these donât do mids at all, and glow a lot, and distort a lot. I guess I got two good ones and two bad ones.
I feel like this tube buffer makes everything âairyâ and really âcloseâ to you, lifts the veil off everything â but maybe too much. You can actually control how much âairâ, and âveilâ, therefore how much soundstage you want, with this little 90$ Class A amplifier.
The SMSL SAP-1 is bass and mid-focused and lacks âairâ. This is the perfect match.
And to continue with that, yes, apparently, the higher the volume, the more the little Tube-03 works. I said âmore tubesâ or âmore Class Aâ without realizing what it meant.
Itâs a tube pre. Leave the volume at max.
Sometimes itâs as if I can hear the reverberations coming from the wall at the back of the studio.
Have you tried any other tubes beside the Voskhod 6J1P-EV? Iâm considering picking one of these up. Iâm also planning to pick up a Bottlehead Crack 10 months from now when it probably goes on sale. But 10 monthsâŚ
Has anyone compared one of these cheap tube buffers (tube swapped) with a nice amp like the Crack?
How 'bout 1000 too many words comparing a tube buffer to a Darkvoice?
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What GE tubes specifically did you use for the preamp? Are those still the best oneâs youâve heard? I think I may give this thing a try since itâs so cheap.
The link to the Amazon page where I bought those tubes is in that post. I donât know if theyâre the âbestâ but there seems to be limited options for that tube type. These GE tubes are much better than the stock tubes.
Yeah all I know is the Voskhod sound better than the stock tubes. I said they sound âclassierâ, which might be a new one for audio descriptions, lol. But yeah, it means good mids and a ton of clarity, good soundstage. Stock tubes also sounded⌠muddy, or just lacking detail, compared to these.