So, I discovered another trick. I just bought a pack of 10 6J1P-EV tubes, straight from Ukraine. And apparently with this Tube-03 pre, it’s really easy to find the best tubes: Those that glow the most distort the less (I mean, the bad distortion – I mean, instead of starting to distort with the volume at 10 o’clock, the volume can go to the max). Most of the 6J1P-EVs, or just the stock tubes, got one, little, faint glow. But if you plug one in and go “wow, this one glows a lot”… that’s a great one.
(Also, no burn-in needed… you see it in 10 seconds. Others might start to burn better after time, maybe, but I don’t think it happened to me yet.)
And of the 10-pack I bought, 4 of these glow a lot. Jackpot!
Edit: And I see there are options to buy in bulk… warning: if you buy five at 8.28$ each, it’s not five tubes, it’s 5 packs of 10! Lol. 6J1P-EVs are inexpensive.
a little late but the saga + i sold because its the most neutral thing ive ever heard.even with a 80$ black glass NOS RCA . dead flat no harmonics =( amazing build amazing remote and clean as hell sounds great but not for tube heads. aiyima a07 tube pre amp has much more tube with an adapter for ecc88 than the saga , especially with upgraded IFI power adapter . also i believe it runs the tubes at 150 volts ? or maybe half of that not sure. the saga has high voltage as well but not sure how they made it so flat with such low distortion other than not using the tube much.
Hi All,
Looking for advice from those with experience with one (or more) of these Chinese tube buffers. A few questions:
(1) Some of the brands appear virtually identical. Is there any difference between, e.g.:
and
(2) If you have experience with more than one of these, and they are different, which brand is better of Dilvpoetry, Fx audio, Fosi, Suca, Nobsound
(3) Those who have started with the above: Is it worth while picking up a unit with bluetooth/dac for 3x the price, or would you recommend just trying the cheaper version and then, if you like tubes, buy something more high end?
(4) Likewise, do those who have tried these out wish they had instead saved and bought something at a slightly or much higher price range (and thus possibly, but not necessarily, higher quality level) such as
or
or even higher up, such as little dot MkII?
(5) Those who have enjoyed these tube buffers, what kind of music do you find it works with or enhances? Would you say that it makes some recordings sound more natural and life-like, smooths off rough edges in recordings, etc.? Or was it just a glorified equalizer that added fuzz?
most of the chifi tube pre-amps are the same, just rebranded. fosi/suca/dilvpoetry/aiyima the list goes on. i have 3 different ones from 3 different brands and they all sound the same.
the smsl and xduo stuff will have more weight in the low end. the one drawback of the cheap chifi tube amps, is bass weight. they are thin in the bass range. luckily most of them have bass/treble controls built in to boost the bass some.
edit: tube pre-amps are more then just glorified eq’s. they can add soundstage width. a proper tube should not add much, if any, “fuzz”. poor implementation or bad tubes adds fuzz. proper tubes should add a more natural, and less analytical sound.
Thanks Joshua, I thought so!
Since you have 3 of them, do you wish you had saved up for a more pricey unit in the long run? Do any of your units have a dac/bluetooth, and are they problematic?
bluetooth runs fine on all of them. have had 0 issues. all 3 have BT as i do a lot of streaming. 1 of them is at my moms house jamming daily with 0 issues. and nope. i love them. they are, imo, one of the greatest things to happen to the audio industry in a long time. are they as clean and organic as my 700$ amp? nope. but they are also 7% the price for 90% the performance. i feel like you got to spend a hefty amount more for a worthwhile upgrade. and that goes for the solid state versions as well. i have a couple of them to.
edit: one thing to note. you get to about 2 oclock on the dial before they start to distort. so about 75% power.
Joshua,
Out of curiosity, which tubes do you have and what other tubes have you compared these with?
I see from your profile, for example, that you list the Crack speedball (presumably for the HD 600?) Do you find these similar/comparable? I am particularly curious re the HD 600s, as I have some 6XX on order…
Would you recommend getting any particular tubes over others (some of the Fx audio, for example, come with different tubes in the same amps for slightly different price points.)
i have tried about a half a dozen of the cheap ones.
those are the ones that work best imo of the cheap ones.
in comparison to the bottlehead crack. the chifi amps with play well with low impedance headphones. the crack has a little wider soundstage and a way more focused midrange. the chifi amps are more linear. its hard to beat the bottlehead crack with senn’s. the synergy of that combo is out of this world. but the crack costs a lot more and you have to build it.
that being said, senn’s sound good on the chifi amps as well. and bonus info. chifi tube amp + zen dac = 98-99% of a bottlehead for half the cost. the zen dac adds what the chifi amps lacks in the midrange department.
I have a tube-03 pre-amp, and for me what has worked the best was 6J1P-EV tubes. They’re really cheap, so enjoy “tube swapping”.
Also if you already have a good headphone amplifier, a “pre” saves you a bit of money. I would not trust any of these amps more than a 100$ JDS Atom / Liquid Spark or even Sap-1, for example.
I use the GE tubes Josh posted and they’re a great option. My post is around 70 on this thread. I also have extra Voskhod 6J1P-EV which I can sell you for $17. They are supposed to be great. But I found them to be unremarkable on my FX 01 unit. Your probably better off picking the 03 or one from a different brand.
I have both the suca which is the same as the FX t03 and it is like you say doesn’t add a ton of bass thickness but does add some tube qualities and eq. No I just got the aiyima tube t7 and I have yet to find someone else with it It was $99. And has significantly more internal parts I will post some here.
Extremely good reviews on Amazon. I added some NOS tubes and I think it sounds quite a bit better than the suca with GE tubes. I just got rid of my bellari tube pre amp on my headphone set up and I had no idea how much goodness it was adding until I took it away. Everything sounds dead even with the IE magni and modious DAC which some people say are warm. There was so much meat on the bone with the bellari with gold lion 12ax7.
Anyways I will be going back to the suca or tube t7 for my headphone set up I doubt it will have the meat of the 12ax7 but we will see how good the best of the Chinese pre amps are. Here are some internal pics of the aiyima tube t7.
Yes. I was really hoping I could get the Chinese ones to sound similar but I haven’t been able to yet. They sound cleaner and brighter but that’s not what I want. They do sound better than stock class D or solid state . And definitely do that without taking anything away . But the bellari is legit pure tube pre amp. Each tube you change into it sounds vastly different because the output is tied directly to the plate of the tube. Made in America very simple but gorgeous sounding. The Chinese ones are like 50 60% of the way there and that’s with upgraded tubes I’m going to upgrade the op amps and power supply of the Chinese ones and see if they get closer. I highly recommend the IFI power adapters
Interesting. : )
I have the FX Tube 3 with Burson opamps, linear power supply and Voskhod russian tubes. Would be interesting to compare that creation with the Bellari WIll have to see about shipping options to Europe and also will probably need a power supply for it, since its probably only US-spec (110V)
yes i got a IFI power supply for it, its 15 volts. it would be a great comparison. i do think it has a lot to do with the tube type. the 12ax7 is legendary pre amp tube while the 6n3 and 565 whtaver itsnt quite as well known for pre amp . but maybe its all about how they are used internally. id love to know more about my tube t7 but no one has one yet.
10 o’clock, the volume can go to the max). Most of the 6J1P-EVs, or just the stock tubes, got one, little, faint glow. But if you plug one in and go “wow, this one glows a lot”… that’s a great one.
WIll have to see about shipping options to Europe and also will probably need a power supply for it, since its probably only US-spec (110V)
will try one day.