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My First Tubes

greeny

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This just arrived ..

IMG_20200314_143403.jpgIMG_20200314_143513.jpgIMG_20200314_175734.jpg

My first tubes amp/dac. Hearing so much of how tubes can give you audio bliss, I pulled the trigger and purchased a below US$300 unit from AE.
Will be using this to power my HE-4XX, Takstar HF580 and DT880 Pro. Have to temporary retire the Topping DX7s.

The unit is compact and built like a tank. Not very heavy to carry it around. The small footprint is just right to have it place ontop of the DX7s.

How long must I burn this before I can listen to the blissful sound of tubes. Hear about tubes rolling where you can have a better performance over the default supplied tubes.

Hope to learn more on this matter with experts here.
 

BDWoody

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How long must I burn this before I can listen to the blissful sound of tubes.

Well, that's a loaded question... not all of us look to tubes for our bliss, but I hope you enjoy your new dac/amp!
 

mhardy6647

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manage your expectations :)
(and I say this as a pro vacuum-tube-as-amplifier-element kind of guy)

I think much modern vacuum tube audio equipment (especially on the lower rungs of the ladder) is purpose-built to add euphonic distortion. This is not necessary -- but it's more or less endemic in 2020 (note that I didn't say pandemic! ;) )
 

cleareyes

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While the creed here at ASR seems to be transparency above all else, I do think that finding a sound that's pleasing is more important.
I do think that transparency aids in that, but I don't know if transparency is the be-all end-all to that question.
If Gordon Ramsey prepares a dish for me, of course I'm interested in tasting his vision of a dish, but I don't think it would be wrong
of me to ask for some salt, if that's what I prefer.

I've never heard a tube amp. All my gear, except headphones, I've bought on recommendations from here, but I'd like to hear one some time,
to see if I prefer a more tuby sound.

Congrats on your new amp! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on that one. Personally I was looking into the Bottlehead Crack or SEX,
as it seems to be a good deal, and I want to try my hand at some diy audio project.
 

BDWoody

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If Gordon Ramsey prepares a dish for me, of course I'm interested in tasting his vision of a dish, but I don't think it would be wrong
of me to ask for some salt, if that's what I prefer.

Of course not wrong...

But, if you became the chef for a night...would you insist upon putting your preferred level of salt on everyone's dish, there by preventing them from EVER tasting the original dish as created by Mr Ramsey?
What you describe is maybe like turning up the treble a shade... By all means, season to personal taste...my issue is handing over a permanent preference over neutrality to someone else.

I think many here, including me, enjoy different distortion effects. I also like to be able to turn them all off, and get back to the uncolored original.

Certainly not arguing your point...
 

cleareyes

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Of course not wrong...

But, if you became the chef for a night...would you insist upon putting your preferred level of salt on everyone's dish, there by preventing them from EVER tasting the original dish as created by Mr Ramsey?
What you describe is maybe like turning up the treble a shade... By all means, season to personal taste...my issue is handing over a permanent preference over neutrality to someone else.

I think many here, including me, enjoy different distortion effects. I also like to be able to turn them all off, and get back to the uncolored original.

Certainly not arguing your point...

Audiowise, I wouldn't insist on everyone listening the way I do. We are different, people like different things, and by being exposed to what other people like, I'll probably find something I like even better, or at least it'll add to my perspective. But I would want to present the way I like it, so that there could be conversation, exposure and feedback.

If I am chef for the night, and the expectation is that the dish is true to Ramsey's vision, then that's what I'm going for. Trying to replicate it as truthfully as I can. Ideally though, I would hope to serve both the original version and my version to see what people prefer or if I was on the right path to improvement. I would also like for people to be able to tweak the dish they are being served by putting seasoning on the table.

I think we are in agreement. I would prefer to listen to the original material as truthfully as I can afford, and from there tweak it to my own preferences. But that can also be done by utilizing different gear. I got the transparent gear first, but I'm interested in adding a tube amplifier to see if it is to my preference. I can always switch between my would-be tube amp and my original gear. I see it as the same with headphones.
You can eq a particular headphone to be more neutral, but you also might want to listen to it without eq.
 

SIY

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A tube amp will do one of two things- either pass a signal transparently (so it won't sound different than a solid-state amp) or alter it. If the latter, there is nothing special about the presence of a tube. Different broken designs will distort the signal differently, irrespective of the device used. There is no distinctive "this is a broken tube amp" versus "this is a broken solid state amp." There's a bazillion ways for either of them to be broken.
 

TheBrandon

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This just arrived ..

View attachment 54210View attachment 54211View attachment 54212

My first tubes amp/dac. Hearing so much of how tubes can give you audio bliss, I pulled the trigger and purchased a below US$300 unit from AE.
Will be using this to power my HE-4XX, Takstar HF580 and DT880 Pro. Have to temporary retire the Topping DX7s.

The unit is compact and built like a tank. Not very heavy to carry it around. The small footprint is just right to have it place ontop of the DX7s.

How long must I burn this before I can listen to the blissful sound of tubes. Hear about tubes rolling where you can have a better performance over the default supplied tubes.

Hope to learn more on this matter with experts here.

Congratulation. Deployed TA-20 yesterday and extremely happy coming from my ATOM.
 

majingotan

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majingotan

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Guaranteed :D

Luckily, my Schiit Saga preamp only uses 1 tube so having 6 tubes (Hytron 5692 Brown Base NOS tubes) will give me over 20 years of playback time :)
514E24FD-EC08-459D-AA5E-D5818031FE57.jpg
 

0bs3rv3r

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How long must I burn this before I can listen to the blissful sound of tubes.

Wrong term. Tubes just need to warm up, and it only takes a minute or so. Once operating temperature is reached, no further "burn-in" is required for them to sound good.

On the other hand, some report a change in character to the sound after some hours use. It's all a bit nebulous as to how long that takes, and my experience is that any change must be quite subtle.
 

milw50717

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Yesterday I replaced the original battery in my Pink Floyd Pulse CD, so I am enjoying the newly invigorated pulsing LED alongside the glow of tubes from an Onix SP3.

For grins, I'd give the tubes a couple of hours and call them broken in. In my experience they stabilise after a short period of time.

Simple things ... except I have a UK version of Pulse, so I literally had to break out a knife and fork to get to the PCB
 
OP
greeny

greeny

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Hello guys ..

IMG_20200317_091213.jpg

I need to use the XLR output from the Topping DX7s together with the Xduoo TA-03s. SSource if from PC using usb cable. How should I do the connection for this job? At present, my connections -- PC -> TS-03s usb -> RCA output to a pair of powered Edifier speakers. Should I connect the RCA output to the input on the Topping DX7s.

Advice highly appreciated.
 

donpablo

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You shouldn't connect XLR output to TA-03's RCA input.
Topping's RCA outputs -> TA's RCA inputs. This way.
 
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