Hi,
Last evening Capt,Srini and Sashi,dropped by to listen to the Lyrita DHT pre and also roll some tubes in Captains Dac. Srini brought his Musical Fidelity A3CR pre and Music Hall DAC.
We had a great time listening to music and comparing the different equipment.We even managed to sneak in a listen to the 12 inch Wharfedale full range drivers.
The stock tubes in the DAC are a pair of JJ E88CC. I had some gold pin E88CC tubes by Mullard/Valvo/BEL etc but mostly singles. The only matched pair on hand were the BEL E88CC tubes.
The Acoustic Portrait DAC is very good. We listened to a few tracks with the stock tubes and then plugged in the BEL tubes. Capt and the others were not prepared for the change in sound as this was their first experience with tube rolling.
The BEL tubes tightened up the lower frequencies and overall the clarity and dynamics improved. The JJ tubes sound a little fuzzy to me. The BEL tubes are NOS and they need to break in. This is the first time they are being used,even without any break in period they sound very good.
The plan is for us to meet sometime next week and do some more tube rolling at Sashi's home with his Cayin amp. Will be trying out the Philips and RFT EL 34 power tubes and also the ECC81/ECC82(Mullard,Toshiba) tubes.
@Steven, looking forward to your blog and youtube links.
@Capt,here is the link to the 1000 watt tube amp made by Phillips.Check out those cool mercury vapour rectifier tubes.
Philips EL6471 playing stereo part 3 - YouTube
Bach Toccta D-Moll on 1000W Audio Tube Amplifier EL6471 - YouTube
Regards
Rajiv