I get a bit obsessive on hobbies, probably over the top I guess for a $100 spend. Fair to say. I am excited to hear the difference between a starved plate FX-Tube and full plate Buf. I frankly kind of dig tubes.
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Schiit Buf: tube buffer + gain
- Thread starter john61ct
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Well, I have the Buf and have been listening. I took the FX Tube out of the chain to simplify things. In general, for the price you get a linear power supply and a tube, so that is a win. Easy to bi-pass and use the gain features for testing. I am using a Amperex Tube, not the stock, that a ran overnight to break in. Out of the gate like others have said, no gain setting is still moderately louder. Full gain means I need to tune my amp volume down almost just a tweak up from off to get decent daily soft listening volume (my DACw/MUSES0 is on bi-pass so Rolls gets full signal). I do have to fiddle with the crossover high and low levels to zone into where it feels right. Out of the gate I notice a lot more punch and bass. I felt the punch and bass with no gain, and then for me the high gain seemed to bring that extra lift to the vocals as well. I ran through a series of songs Changes, Riders on the Story, Tin Pan Alley, Bubbles, Spanish Harlem, Chocolate Chip Trip, Money and Dreams and tend to land on the hi-gain setting. So, I will say that on Dreams for example, I can listen with the Buf bi-passed, with no gain and full gain and like each... In other words, there are clear differences, but its not easy to say one is overwhelmingly "best." With that said, I still tend to prefer/land on the full gain. My sense is the instrumentation, particularly drums and vocals stand out more. No issues with wide left to right sound-stage and crisp highs. So I perhaps didn't get the full on surrounded by holographic immersion experience I was chasing but that might be an impossible dream given a $2K system or the room, or all the variables to play with in the system. I still have plenty of variables to play with. For now this is sounding as good as I can imagine I need.
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Bob from Florida
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Why did you dispense with the stock tube?
Just my own preconceived notion. I still have it so I can roll it in. Another variable to experiment with no doubt will try it and try to resist buying more tubes and converters to use even more different tube types....
Bob from Florida
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Try the 6N1P. Preconceptions pollute results every time.
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Tubes roll quite well along one axis, but rather poorly along the two others their long axes.
Admittedly this is a generalization. Ancient globe-type valves and/or the current production Chinese homages to same (EDIT: see image pasted below), may do better in terms of one or both of their other axes.
(NOTE: edited for accuracy)
Admittedly this is a generalization. Ancient globe-type valves and/or the current production Chinese homages to same (EDIT: see image pasted below), may do better in terms of one or both of their other axes.
(NOTE: edited for accuracy)
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fpitas
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They ought to make tubes that way, in any event. People often crowd them too close together.
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Excellent point.
Note that I clarified my previous post after you posted! Not sure if I've had too much caffeine or not enough.
Peak humor this. Wish this forum had actual laughing emojis to pick.
Interesting. No burn in here just dropped it in. I actually like this....too?! Maybe even better. Its cleaner or clearer, more transparent, or more uniform across the entire spectrum perhaps is the word. I even thought I heard a faint strum on the left in Dreams I didn't notice before. The stock "rocket" if I can borrow term from a different tube class is more like an unsweetened iced tea vs the Port of the 1959 D Getters. Maybe my love for the romantic old tubes can be a tad rich on top the Muses02. Yet still has a role (or roll in) whenever I feel like. Its like really, different flavors of all good. I do suspect my FX-Tube was choking some of the bass in comparision to the Buf overall.
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It's been interesting to use outside/garage, the music does seem to have deeper base and crisper treble in high gain mode, which I had not really noticed when using indoors between a Schiit Saga 2 and the Gjallarhorn amp. (Due to... Playing louder? The semi-crappy Bose speakers in the garage?) I frankly doubt that my old ears would hear much different between different Buf-compatible tubes.
I went a step further and converted to a Zenith (Sylvania) 6SN7GTA and it really opened up, fell in love right away. Just feels like its in the right spot. Also, am not in bipass on the DAC so got more control back over the ZA3 Amp.
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Bob from Florida
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6SN7 has a higher output impedance - roughly double the 6N1P, which - circuit dependent - will change your frequency response. Which is probably what happened in your case. Something tone controls can do with ease.
OldManMatt
Active Member
I'm less interested in tube equipment which is biased ultra clean & linear. It looks as if the BUF is probably a pretty basic circuit & one could probably alter its "sound" by just altering the plate & cathode resister. No fun that they are using SMD resistors though.
By looking at its reported specs I think one of the better things it offers is a very high input impedance (470k) to very low tube output impedance of 75 ohms. I usually keep my tube & solid state equipment separate but if you run an old skool tube preamp with a new age quality low input impedance class D amp (or any amp) with an input impedance under 20k ohms this buffer could be useful. The extra gain on this unit could even help on some of our class D modules when in Low Gain mode.
My only question is what type of tube attributes does this unit actually give? Are we getting audible even order harmonics? Any welcomed nonlinearities or any emphasized inner detail or dynamics that I perceive from well designed tube circuits? I've owned both the Schitt Freya Noval & Plus & found them to sound better with the tubes off. Not enough "tube effect" for my liking..better off just adjusting my RME dac PEQ capabilities & going directly to quality power amp.
I do have a non-oversampling dac with a single tube output stage that I actually really like..a "colored" sound that my old ears appreciate. But it has a very high output impedance & lower output voltage. For $100 the BUF maybe worth trying. For that use case I guess it doesn't matter if this thing measures more clean than dirty. But if this unit isn't giving you a truly, pleasurable audio difference..adding an extra component in the signal chain usually does more harm than good. My experience anyway.
By looking at its reported specs I think one of the better things it offers is a very high input impedance (470k) to very low tube output impedance of 75 ohms. I usually keep my tube & solid state equipment separate but if you run an old skool tube preamp with a new age quality low input impedance class D amp (or any amp) with an input impedance under 20k ohms this buffer could be useful. The extra gain on this unit could even help on some of our class D modules when in Low Gain mode.
My only question is what type of tube attributes does this unit actually give? Are we getting audible even order harmonics? Any welcomed nonlinearities or any emphasized inner detail or dynamics that I perceive from well designed tube circuits? I've owned both the Schitt Freya Noval & Plus & found them to sound better with the tubes off. Not enough "tube effect" for my liking..better off just adjusting my RME dac PEQ capabilities & going directly to quality power amp.
I do have a non-oversampling dac with a single tube output stage that I actually really like..a "colored" sound that my old ears appreciate. But it has a very high output impedance & lower output voltage. For $100 the BUF maybe worth trying. For that use case I guess it doesn't matter if this thing measures more clean than dirty. But if this unit isn't giving you a truly, pleasurable audio difference..adding an extra component in the signal chain usually does more harm than good. My experience anyway.
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I find it very hard to believe that this little one small tube device can produce the type of harmonic distortion that tube aficionado's would fall in love with. But what do I know? I'm just guessing. Another guess, that a good VST plug in would beat that thing up pretty bad in blind listening tests using tube guys as subjects. Have a good evening.
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The target audience is NOT people that would be using anything a "plugin" could plug into.
It is a "fun" distortion toy for SS audiophiles that are tube curious, just a puddle in which to dip their toe.
Swapping tubes will give different (likely greater) effect.
As a side effect it does level up effective gain.
I put it in the same general function category as their Imp "Impedance Multiplier"
It is a "fun" distortion toy for SS audiophiles that are tube curious, just a puddle in which to dip their toe.
Swapping tubes will give different (likely greater) effect.
As a side effect it does level up effective gain.
I put it in the same general function category as their Imp "Impedance Multiplier"
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