Musical Paradise MP-301 Mk3

717a tube

well no one replied and so I decided to pull the trigger on a set of NOS 717a tubes, they work great, they are still burning in so I won't give any impressions yet.. but noise floor is quiet and they seem to have around the same gain as a 6sj7, maybe just a tick more. will update later on sound after some hours of listening :music:

20150323_160409.jpg some tube porn :drool:
 
rayray83 said:
cool! looking forward to see how they work for you. What brand are your 717a's?
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they are tung-sol, most of them are advertised as western electric because that is who held the patent for this design, what I have learned is that there was an explosion at a the western electric factory shutting down the line, but the us military needed these tubes so tung-sol was given the tooling to manufacture them, right on the top of the tube it says.. western electric 717a by tung-sol. kind of a neat story
 
Ordered MP-301 MK3 - but no response from Musical Paradise yet!

I wonder whether it is normal for MP to not respond right away with the status of the order? It's been 3 days and I have not heard anything from Musical Paradise - I have sent several emails to info@musicalparadise.ca but no luck yet.

Anyone else had this kind of experience with them?
 
alphaone said:
I wonder whether it is normal for MP to not respond right away with the status of the order? It's been 3 days and I have not heard anything from Musical Paradise - I have sent several emails to info@musicalparadise.ca but no luck yet.

Anyone else had this kind of experience with them?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be too worried.

I placed an order on a Monday and then emailed them on Wednesday because I had not heard anything other than my order was received.

He emailed back saying they were very busy and apologized for the delay. He sent me tracking numbers for each shipment that went out. They arrived quickly and VERY well packed. I think it took about two weeks to get everything, but it was a smooth transaction.
 
juno said:
I wouldn't be too worried.

I placed an order on a Monday and then emailed them on Wednesday because I had not heard anything other than my order was received.

He emailed back saying they were very busy and apologized for the delay. He sent me tracking numbers for each shipment that went out. They arrived quickly and VERY well packed. I think it took about two weeks to get everything, but it was a smooth transaction.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I will be patient then :)
 
Did you get an email from them with an order number saying your order had been received? I think I got that pretty quick. I just had not heard back after that so sent an email stating I had received an order confirmation and that my money had been transferred and could they update me on the status of the order.

Sometimes Paypal will hold things up, such as if you payed with an electronic check rather than credit card.

The main thing is does it look like your funds were transferred and did you get an order confirmation email from them?
 
Well i have had the amp for a bit now and have rolled some different tubes and settled on the Gold Lion KT88 Cryo'ed and RCA 5693 red cans. It sounds good and not too bright. The Chinese tubes would makes the highs so high it felt like my ear drums were being shredded. Lows sucked and everything sounded as if it was piled up in the center of the 2 speakers. Flat.
Speakers are Fluance SX6-BK Bookshelf Loudspeakers (89db) and their subwoofer.
TT is a Audio-Technica AT-LP120-USB and i play my CDs on a blue ray player.
I just ordered the Little bear T10 Pro 6N2 tube phono pre amp and learned from another thread here what i need to do to lessen the hum.
All of this is budget because i am not a rich guy!

Rolling tubes is like playing with an EQ. I can see how it would get expensive so i stopped and went with what most people here said sounded good. It does!
Also, the recorded material makes a huge difference as well. I can really tell the difference between different CD's and LP's. Some were recorded better than others and this setup really makes it apparent. The tube preamp i ordered has more gain so i am hoping for better sound from the LP's
Also, music with alot of distortion, such as Electric Wizard, still sounds a bit better on SS. I tend to listen to death metal(not satanic, that schtick got old a long time ago) with a subgenera of Swedish and Nordic metal and my 18 year old daughter likes music from the 20's up to the mid 60's. Hers sounds very nice. Some of her old stuff, like the Andrew Sisters, well they might as well be live in my living room. Bluegrass i can hear the pick ON the string plucking. Nice....
Old Black Sabbath sounds really good too.
I now know what sound stage, depth and instrument separation means. Its like listening to music in 3-D. Turn the lights off, imbibe and just melt into the music....
Noise and hum.....dimmer switches are the worse. I turn off all the lights
 
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I recently installed some KT88SC tubes because I was finding the 6P3S tubes to be a bit bright and wanted more bass response. Well, the brightness problem was solved and the bass response is great. Van Halen debut, The Cars debut Boston debut, and Guitar, Bass Drums type music in general sounds amazingly good. Whammy! by the B52s sounded great as well.

BUT

I noticed a downside. I am losing some content. The female background vocals in Wicked Game are very faint. Same with female background vocals on the Human League's League unlimited Orchestra album. On the latter, some synth parts are virtually lost as well, and I really have to listen closely to even hear them. This also occurred while listening to the Boomtown Rats Mondo Bongo album. Some of the quiet background vocals on some songs were very faint. Same with some synth parts and vowel like treated guitar parts. For example The vowel like sounding guitar or synth that follows the piano flourishes throughout the song This is My Room are very faint. Another example is on some of OMDs songs (Architecture and Morality album, for example)they used a mellotron with choral tape samples. With these tubes much of the choral/vocal effect with these notes is lost, sounding more like a keyboard note than a choral sample.

I was also not impressed with how Joe Jackson's Heart and Soul sounded or Brubeck's Time Out. Mazzy Star didn't sound very good either.

This is all very troubling! It's like the audio equivalent of watching a Pan and Scan version of a movie.

CD and Vinyl were the same, as I have most of these in both formats.

When I switched back to the 6P3S all of these things were back to "normal."

So I am guessing the midrange is being slightly sucked out or reduced with these tubes, which makes it good for straight up rock music but not so good with music having a lot of background sounds/vocals going on.

I am using 6sJ7 Preamp tubes as well as 5693. I don't notice a difference between them. The KT88s have about 10 hours on them.

Maybe I should post this in the TUBE section as it really has more to do with the tubes.

I'm relatively new to tubes. Maybe I should try a 6l6 or else I can deal with the perceived brightness by turning down the volume as I had been doing.
 
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I have decided to make some space in the office/man-cave and get rid of my 5.1 setup as I rarely watch movies up there or listen to 5.1 tracks. I use Q-Acoustics 2020i's (88db sensitivity) as nearfield monitors on my desk with a Denon X-3000 to provide amplification and processing, but will now get rid of the Denon, centre speaker on the desk and the two bulky surrounds (UK Glades. Lovely speakers). As the vast majority of music I am listening in the cave comes either from one of the two computers or a DAB radio in there, I have ordered an Arcam Irdac for the digital sources and the DAB radio will work nicely on the second line input with the MP-301 mk 3. I am planning to keep my Canon subwoofer and use its high level input with the MP-301.

Any thoughts on the setup?
 
Among the Gold Lion power tubes: KT66, KT77 and KT88, which is the best choice?

I plan to use MP-301 MK3 primary for low impedance headphones and also to drive bookshelf speaker.
 
I finally tried some Tung Sol 6l6 tubes and am very happy with the sound. Very balanced with good bass response.
Good bye Russian 6PN3 with your shrill high end.
 
I got my MP-301 Mk3 for x-mas and I feel it has enough hours on it now to comment. My first move was replacing stock tubes with gold lion KT66 and JAN CRC 6SJ7Y. Sounded a bit bright, still, through the AKG K712s, so I tried Sylvania JAN 6SJ7WGT. Still bright only now there was a bit of crackling that could be heard after lifting the stylus. Next was replacing the KT66 with Russian 6P3S and trying the CRC 6SJ7s again. Result was no crackling and much smoother, eliminating brightness. I still want to try some EL34s for the liquid mids which for me will be perfect.
 
Just picked one of these up. Can anyone recommend some speakers to use on there? also I have a pair of 6SN7 tubes but not sure if the amp can use them. I have the MP-301 MKII with PSvane power tubes and stock preamp tubes. Thanks!
 
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