Do you mean bringing in delivered electronics from the cold outside? Then it's indeed a good idea to let it sit for an hour or so, in case the cold-warm change let a bit of moisture condense on it. General thing and nothing to do with tubes. They're sealed and airtight.
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Schiit Buf: tube buffer + gain
- Thread starter john61ct
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Thank you for the response, but I what I meant is as far as first powering it up before listening. Should I keep the volume level lower for a bit, to allow the tube to warm up before listening at my normal volume level?
Tube circuits usually need a few seconds to stabilise. That's sometimes done with automatic delay switched by the device on power on.
Dunno what this here is doing. Either way as long as you're not pushing full blast through it until 10-20 seconds after switching on, you're golden.
Awesome. Thanks again for the replies.
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Ideally, yes... although one might speculate boutique audio companies specifying tubes with a soupçon of a carefully curated admixture of gas molecules* added before sealing to balance the harmonic structure or somesuch malarkey.
Also -- and, mind you, I am generally pro-Schiit and I'll confess that I am sorely if inexplicably tempted to get one of these things** -- I've gotta say that the marketing genius of developing and selling a ninety-nine dollar box that does nothing (check that: nothing beneficial) is admirable. The fact that they are clearly flying off the shelves (see: other audiophile forums -- not naming names!
) shows their prescience. The pent up demand for useless hunnert dollar boxes was, apparently, mammoth!
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* Noble gases, no doubt.
** I mean, I could use a little tube warmth, I guess...?
Y'all know how cold, sterile, and clinical digital audio can sound through a single-ended 2A3 amplifier.
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True enough.
It would be interesting to read his impressions of it, though.
Interesting, at least, to me.
Plus -- It would save me a hunnert smackers (plus shipping) to find out myself...
pretty sure I have better things to do with a Benjamin. Food. Paying bills. Maybe splurge and buy a few gallons of gasoline.
It would be interesting to read his impressions of it, though.
Interesting, at least, to me.
Plus -- It would save me a hunnert smackers (plus shipping) to find out myself...
pretty sure I have better things to do with a Benjamin. Food. Paying bills. Maybe splurge and buy a few gallons of gasoline.
Report back on the Mimir too. I happy with my dacs, but if I was buying new today, that's the one I'd get.
Bob from Florida
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keep the 6N1P - it is a Russian military tube that was used in MIG fighter radar equipment - very rugged and reliable - easily the quietest tube I have used to date for any circuit
I once ordered 55 off Ebay from a seller in the Ukraine - maybe 20 years ago for $70 shipped. When I got the shipment, I found there were 56 in the box. After testing them all for noise and gain, only one failed test! I have run them hard with plate dissipation that had the plates bright red and they still worked and did not fail. I still use one as the input/driver tube for a home brew self-split 8 watt 6v6 guitar amp I built many years ago. Original tube in it and still working as designed.
Will do. It’ll take the place of a Modi 5 which I like but like a lot of others I like to try out different gear. Everything has been delivered. Come on 5:00!
- Thread Starter
- #51
To find out what exactly ?
The device has a very clear purpose, spelled out by Schiit in the thread "Chapter" post and on the product page.
That purpose is to add distortion, intentionally wreck the transparency measurements.
Some people like the resulting sound, others don't, purely subjective.
Also of some tubes as opposed to others, many pay thousands to try different ones, invest in custom adapters etc etc
These facts are not in dispute, and re-read the OP please, not to be judged in this thread.
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To find out what it sounds like.
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Indeed, Schiit's leaving money on the table: they could have easily added a couple of pots to adjust the operating point(s) of the two triode sections of the tube to tune the distortion spectrum and thus that sound.
This is, of course, an ancient and venerable thing to do
-- but there is much that is ancient and venerable being regurgitated as new and innovative nowadays. Cf. Jones and Cerreta's coaxial field coil driver. Altec's debuted in 1943.
This is, of course, an ancient and venerable thing to do
-- but there is much that is ancient and venerable being regurgitated as new and innovative nowadays. Cf. Jones and Cerreta's coaxial field coil driver. Altec's debuted in 1943.
I'm mostly interested to see if I find the distortion in any way pleasing compared to that Little Bear tube buffer I had a few years back. It actually seemed to reduce gain if anything and added nothing to perceived sound. If I don't like the Schiit Buf, I'll just return it, pay the restocking fee. Or sell on the 'Bay.
- Thread Starter
- #56
But that varies enormously between each person's taste!
IF you really are curious to find out if a particular distortion is pleasing to your specific psychoachoustic matrix, you can only find that out with YOUR "two ears + a brain".
For the price of a nice meal out, that experiment can be easily applied, without making fundamental changes
to a highly "straight wire with gain" transparent system, even more easily bypassed thus A/B tested
Bob from Florida
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You are confusing the 6N1P voltage gain possible - circuit and B+ voltage dependent - which is a voltage gain of 35, not 35 db. Schiit specs the selectable gain as 0 db - gain of 1 - and 12 db - gain of 3.981. What Schiit is most likely doing is using a basic triode gain stage, selecting a plate resistor and cathode resistor for a bias current with no signal resulting in 100 volts on the plate for an inverting gain of 3.981 at the plate. Cathode output is non-inverting gain of 1. The 0 db out selection is taken at the cathode coupled to a BJT configured as a split-load buffer that uses the emitter output to drive a emitter-follower BJT buffer with output impedance of 75 ohms. The 12 db gain selection will take the tube output from the plate's inverting output to the same split-load BJT buffer except the output of the BJT is now taken from the inverting collector output - keeps overall phase non-inverting - to drive the same emitter follower BJT buffer output.
Essentially, you have no gain or gain of 3.981 with a solid state output at 75 ohms impedance maintaining absolute phase with gain or no gain.
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- Thread Starter
- #58
Wow, all that's way above my pay grade.
I have seen comments though that users are surprised by how much gain Buf delivers, in fact one user needed to add an attenuation control.
Which could maybe be passive like Schiit SYS with the right impedancematching bridging
I have seen comments though that users are surprised by how much gain Buf delivers, in fact one user needed to add an attenuation control.
Which could maybe be passive like Schiit SYS with the right impedance
- Thread Starter
- #59
What unit is that?
Can someone post good ELI5 links to fill in a noob's learning gaps on these units, all the "different kinds" of gain / volume?
Step 1: get Buf. Nice distortion profile, high gain, cheap enough.
Step 2: get another Buf. Chain the two.
Step 3: High gain from Buf 1 overdrives Buf 2 into oblivion, 100% distortion or more (you actually want this)
Step 4: 200 moneys nice and "authentic" tube distortion effect! Maybe add Aiyima T1 for even bettererer distortion (has EQ!)
Step 5: ??
Step 6: PROFIT!!
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