just sounds like you haven’t found the ‘one’… the tube amp that opens the world to you.
perhaps check out the forum on CAM n see if there is anyone close enuff to you that has something to demo? or get on the horn and reach out to resellers of potential tube amps you find interesting / intriguing from what you read and see if you can demo? 
There are pretty much no sellers around me. All my “testing” is done via buy and sell. And of course lots of losses. 
time for a ROAD TRIP!!!
Hello,
Let me put it this way.
Many people have huge expectations of something like this, and I was one of them.
Because one is always occasionally carried away by test reports, reviews and whatever else one reads.
To be honest, it is something else, but that something else comes later.
With the Feliks Euforia, I had such high expectations at the beginning and was disappointed.
I was two steps away from returning it.
When I saw that the tubes really need this time to develop, I gave them this time.
It really got better in the end when I replaced the tubes.
Where you then noticed okay there is really something going on.
I regretted buying the stock tubes at Euforia, for example, because they really weren’t anything special and my research confirmed this in the end.
Bit by bit, through small tube bargains, I got to where I wanted to go, which is my personal requirement.
The whole thing takes time in the end because not every manufacturer fits the tubes to the consumer at the beginning.
While others like it a lot, the other part of the community hates it.
But that is normal.
There is always one set of tubes that is better than the other and so on.
It’s also a bit of a head thing, especially when you come from an SS amp, you compare a lot of things against each other.
Once that’s out of your head, once you’ve tried 2-3 tubes, that’s when the trigger starts.
Because you realise that the tube was good or not so good for me, but on the other hand, these areas of music reproduction were better than before or worse.
The rest is automatically done by the head with the question if this tube was already passable you know that it is not the amplifier itself and you start looking for more tubes until the ideal one is found.
Exactly then you learn your own listening preferences to want / need to develop them further.
This also happens with a hybrid amplifier.
It happened to me with the Little Dot 1+ and also with the custom hybrid amplifier I had built.
In the meantime I know where I stand and say okay, this fits so more is really not possible.
With the Ify, you could probably also swap the tubes for a Wester Electric if you want it to be a bit warmer and juicier.
The 5670 tubes would not be too expensive.
Most manufacturers tend to have everything neutrally tuned out of the box.
Which usually gets boring very quickly.
As I read this, I’m trolling the web for tubes. And I JUST received 2 pairs this afternoon. Damn this hobby!
This TA-20 has been a good amp for me. It has given me a taste of what tubes can be like, and I am really impressed with it in the pre-amp role. It has given a quality to the SP200 that I never could have imagined. I think I see a full-on tube pre-amp in my future. Or I’m just gonna say the hell with it, get a WA22 and be done with it.
@ShaneD It seems like it’s gonna be tough to find one under that 1K mark. But half the fun is in the hunt.
Hello,
The Woo wa22 doesn’t look wrong, what bothers me personally is the 6080 tubes.
The 6080 can only be found as Nos tubes and are no longer manufactured.
You pay on the Nos market for good tubes, like a Mullard 6080 for a pair 200-300$.
So it’s a bit outrageous in that respect.
Even if they are good tubes.
If you want my advice spend the money for the Wa22 in a custom build and design the sockets so that you can use the new tube production on the market.
Instead of 6080, El34 or equivalent, the rest could be 6sn7 and 5u4g, for example, there is a lot of variety from old and new production.
Then you will have a very good tube amplifier in the long run and also a very good resale value.
And you can also roll tubes as you like without always having to watch the money.
This was an important aspect for me personally when I had the hybrid amplifier built.
For example, I found 6SN7 tubes where Sophia Electric charges $200 each, which is actually a Nos tube, under a different name for $60 a pair, but only because I got a good tip from another forum somewhere.
The Ta20 doesn’t look bad at all - the 12au7 tubes are quite good on the market.
Both on the Nos market and from the new production.
Do you use the Dac in your preamplification or do you just feed the signal through?
I had decent luck with a 728a preamp. Tube rolling was a nightmare on it but yielded some pretty nice results. I think they go for like $200.
I have been looking for the WE396a’s. I get what you mean about expectations. I am going to be patient and not spend too much.
edit: designed to play to 32 ohms
edit2: you can also try a tube preamp as well to alter the sound of your current amps
I came very close to buying this previously, but I settled on a MAD amp. I don’t want to drop another grand (in Canuck bucks) on a maybe. I have spoken to other owners that had the same reaction to this amp that I had to the MAD amp: “Nice amp but I moved it along after a few months”.
The pre-amp thing may be the way I go.
I am really tempted to try the XDuoo MT-604. I will have to adjust for the volume of course, but it sounds kind of like what I am looking for and it is cheap. And I can even send it back to Amazon if I am not impressed.
Preamps.
Hmmmmm.
In the beginning these pre amps were and still are to amplify low AC signals coming from low output voltage devices like a “record cartridge”…millivolts and most amps had to have a higher input voltage to drive them…and there was and still is an impedance matching concern between a pre amp and an amp. This is for efficient and maximum power transfer acros the frequencies.
So it was a pre amp to an amp to a transducer…all analog. Voila music at the transducer.
Many head amps have pre-amp outputs. Why?
To drive other devices. But what other devices? And what are the ramifications?
The present day dacs have an output that matches most amps and dont need any pre-amplification to drive them to their design limits. Some have fixed and variable outputs to match the downstream amp.
So adding a preamp to a good working dac to amp is well, adding stuff to the chain…which may not be the best thing to do.
Say take the preamp out from a Schiit Asgard 3 into a Schiit Jotenheim 3 then its pre-amp outs to another amp…what happens is your adding lots of stuff to the chain and yes it can have an affect on the output…the potential to added noise etc…
Most pre-amp outs are there to drive other devices like powered speakers (for convenience) and the pre-amps in these relatively low cost amps arent the best quality. YMMV.
But lots of folks just plug stuff in and see what happens without really understanding the +/- 's…
Its relatively safe but the results are all over the map…lots of oh yeah its tons better…again YMMV.
The only pre-amp that I have used recently is in my PassLabs HPA-1 which has a really world class pre-amp and I use it to drive a speaker amp. What its really designed for. Makes sense IMO.
Enjoy!
Alex
Yes, I have never used a pre-amp out ever. Just exploring all options.
I have done this several times but it most often doesnt make the sound any better and hides or morphs what the original amp was designed to do etc…
So many things…
When you have pre-amped, does the pre-amp control the volume of the end amp?
When I used the pre-out of the HPA-1 the volume on the HPA-1 controls the amplitude of the sound from the speaker amp.
If you pre-amp from an amp that has a vol pot into another amp with a vol pot then both could control the amplitude.
It depends on the design of the stuff.
With my iFi iDSD dac I connect to the iFi iCan amp with balanced and se cables…the volume pot on the dac and the vol pot on the amp can change the amplitude…(only with using the variable out of the dac).
If the output of the dac’s pre is too hot and the gain of the amp is also such then the vol position on the amp might not be able to get out of the low end area…in my case I find this and I use the variable output to control the drive out of the dac so the amp is not over-driven.
You have to look at each amp and see how their pre-amp out levels are controlled…
Such fun!
I just had someone point me to the manual and see how to do it with Violectric V220. There are two ways to “line out” and I can choose the variable option to control the volume. I am sure iFi probably has the same option. It would be interesting to compare both. However since Violectric has negative gain options (-6 Db’s and -12 Db’s), it might be the ideal partner for what I have in mind.
I will have to dig into the iFi.
your ifi has tons of power on reserve too but you cant get it all at lower gain and volume so you might be able to crank that behemoth up and control volume with your v220 and get decent results with your he6. i have no experience with vioelectric stuff as a preamp though but i would assume it’s awesome though.
Actually it didn’t have enough for power for my HE6se V2’s at all, even in high gain. I would be using the pre-amp option to reduce volume on an amp that has a lot of gain, like the Liquid Platinum (Xduoo MT-604).
I select the variable output of the iFi iDSD dac from the back panel selector.
There is no pre-amp out here just the output of the dac.
If I use the fixed and use the iFi iCAN amp the volume control on the amp hardly gets over 9 oclock…and I want the vol to be more around half way or 12 olock. I use 60 to 420 ohms cans even with the 420 ohm cans i still need to use the variable out in my case.
I run the iFi dac at about 10 oclock and the amp is then around 12 noon for a decent loudness.
