yrly
Breaking records is good?
Well I bid on the 4th NOS RCA EL84 for the Kailin just a few minutes ago, had 3 from a lot of tubes I got at the flea market, and cast the bid for a Mullard 7025 to complete the triad for the Audio Experience preamp. Should tell once and for all what this stuff can really do with good tubes. Got all Sylvanias in the Audio Experience now, 5Y3G and 12AX7s, have swapped around the 5Y3s a bit, might go back to the Mazda 5Y3GB if I get that third Mullard, since its soft start it will help extend their life. Have tried many different 5Y3s, the Philco and the Mazda were the best sounding, followed by the Arcturus, though this 5Y3G is not bad at all. Had Ei, then GE, then United National 12AX7s before the Sylvanias which have been in there a good while now. The Kailin right now has a set of Sylvania 12AU7s I took over the chinese ones it came with and a set of Russian EL84s that I got very cheaply but sound surprisingly good, better than the other two sets I had tried prior, the RCAs should tell definitively how good this thing actually is. Gives me something to look forward to. Anything is an improvement over the shipped stock tubes, Sovtek 5Y3 in the AE was absolutely terrible, put that thing in and it sounds almost solid state! Who says rectifiers don't make a difference? The Kailin sounds really warm when you ditch the Chinese stuff though the EL84s themselves were not too bad, I have found Chinese preamp tubes to be quite harsh sounding regardless of what I have used them in, though the power tubes tend to be OK. In my Peavey Classic 120 replacing the Chinese 12AX7s with a pair of Silvertones I pulled from a reel to reel was quite an improvement. The Chinese 12AT7 was even worse, hardly used still tested only about 75% of new, tossed in a Tung Sol which buried the meters of both the Dynamic 85 and Conar 221, and I am not even certain it was NOS. Only my Masco amp and Electrohome pre have never seen a foreign made tube. RCA 12AX7s and Tung Sol 6X4WA in the Electrohome, all Sylvanias in the Masco except for the matched RCA 6L6s. Well as you can probably guess I look forward to rolling some tubes with eager anticipation, lets hope I win these things!
