Thanks for the detailed responses. By ālow end controlā, what I had in mind was clarity/tightness and punchiness/macrodynamics in the bass.
Thereās not really a singular ideal tube sound since both wet or dryer sounding tube amps can be great. What I look for in a tube amp is a more natural sound and perhaps some tuning adjustments. M0N or one of the other tube enthusiasts here could elaborate much more on the subject.
One thing you may want to try is using the 604 as a preamp and feeding it into the 789. Youād probably end up with something in between. I run something similar with my 789
Iām happy to hear that my ramblings werenāt too overboard haha. I was worried that I was going a bit too in depth.
As far as the bass goes, I feel that the headphones I used had more of an impact on the punchiness. Ive been using the track 2049 by Hans Zimmer to test bass and I didnt really notice a huge difference on bass when swapping amps. Id say the bass was slightly more upfront with 604 and was more pronounced. Now having said that, I might be mistaking bass with distortion. The rumble is less seperated from the other notes when using the 604.
Thanks for more info on the tube sound. If I were to put it into a category of Dry versus Wet; Iād say its more dry.
Iād love to try this as a preamp for the 789 but I dont have the proper break out cable to do it currently. Maybe Iāll add it into my order of tubes
I have just upgraded my tubes on the M604 to four matched Mullards. The phrases, game-changer, night and day, and fuck-me-sideways, spring to mind. They are sublime now, so I canāt wait until they have burnt in.
Now Iām on the hunt for a set of Telefunken tubes (my favourites).
If anyone wants a couple pairs of Voskhod 6J1P-EV, I can sell them for $29 shipped (USA). No idea how well theyād pair with the MT-604. But theyāre generally well regarded. Iām assuming itās fine to have two different matched sets since the amp has dual volume control.
I bought extras because they were cheap coming from Russia, but the shipping was stupid slow.
Yes. I messaged them first and asked if it could be done, and they said it could, just order two pairs and theyād match them.
I ordered them and messaged them to say I had, and they replied that theyād sort it.
I have no means of testing the tubes, other than with my ears, and they sound amazing.
Negative and Positive in this context are often misunderstood.
Positive just indicates the outgoing signal has a 0Ā° phase shift while Negative indicates a 180Ā° phase shift.
āCombining the negativesā or ācombining the positivesā is THE SAME electrically (except when the amp is ground-referenced).
I purchased this amp and paired it with my smsl m200 dac, wbc xlr, and hart audio cables. I donāt really know why, but my amp the way its set up sounds like itās mono. Is it supposed to sound like this, or is something wrong?
No, Iāve sold the MT-604. The stock tubes are not good. I was trying to find a matching set of 4 new tubes and I was not lucky. For IEMs I would get MT-601 or 602 because itās easier to buy 1 or 2 matching tubes than 4.
and Iām at around 50% volume with the P1āsā¦so the 604 with itās 2000 mW at 32 Ī© should be fine I reckon 