Tubes to roll...
Finding that Winged C EL34s were an NOS thing as of last year, I figured I'd get a set or two for spares, but was shocked at how expensive they've gotten. Yes, they're good sounding tubes for recent production. But at recent prices, there are more desirable NOS out there. Worse still, there are lots of factory second Winged Cs floating around on the NOS market.
So I decided to keep an eye out for other good NOS tubes for my HXDA - the DG30 already has NOS preamp and power tubes, as well as a spare set of NOS power tubes.
I lucked out, finding a lovely set of NOS Siemens EL34s for about the same price as the Winged C, and the icing on the cake is that I scored an NOS CV4004 (12AX7) Mullard at a not-too-terrible price from a vendor I trust. CV4004 means that the Mullard is a military-grade tube, with tighter tolerances than usual production. The Mullard will go in the V1 of the HXDA; I may or may not go with BRIMAR in the other two preamp positions, or I may stick with the JJs it came with. I guess trial and error will judge. One thing about the BRIMARs is that they can be a bit iffy in terms of signal strength and some are unacceptably noisy. I only have a couple left, and this pair are two that didn't make it into the DG30 as they didn't sound as good as the two that are in there now. I don't know how they'll sound in the HXDA, so I'll try 'em at the least.
If neither the remaining BRIMAR tubes nor the JJs meet expectations, I'll order a couple of NOS RFT (East German tubes), as I understand they're very capable in an amp like the HXDA, though a little dark. However, that would be fine in my HXDA, as long as they aren't noisy or weak, since I like a warmer sound, and I tend to turn the treble down in that amp as it is. They're about a third the price of an NOS Mullard, so I guess they're kind of a bargain in NOS-World.
I'm saving the Siemens EL34s for eventual replacement of the Winged Cs, as the amp was built this year, and has gotten pretty light use, sharing time with the DG30. So the Winged Cs are still very strong and sound "as-new."
It'll be interesting to see how this all comes together. With any luck, I'll have the killer-diller sound I'm hoping for (obviously the amp already sounds great, this is to make it sound even better!).
Finding that Winged C EL34s were an NOS thing as of last year, I figured I'd get a set or two for spares, but was shocked at how expensive they've gotten. Yes, they're good sounding tubes for recent production. But at recent prices, there are more desirable NOS out there. Worse still, there are lots of factory second Winged Cs floating around on the NOS market.
So I decided to keep an eye out for other good NOS tubes for my HXDA - the DG30 already has NOS preamp and power tubes, as well as a spare set of NOS power tubes.
I lucked out, finding a lovely set of NOS Siemens EL34s for about the same price as the Winged C, and the icing on the cake is that I scored an NOS CV4004 (12AX7) Mullard at a not-too-terrible price from a vendor I trust. CV4004 means that the Mullard is a military-grade tube, with tighter tolerances than usual production. The Mullard will go in the V1 of the HXDA; I may or may not go with BRIMAR in the other two preamp positions, or I may stick with the JJs it came with. I guess trial and error will judge. One thing about the BRIMARs is that they can be a bit iffy in terms of signal strength and some are unacceptably noisy. I only have a couple left, and this pair are two that didn't make it into the DG30 as they didn't sound as good as the two that are in there now. I don't know how they'll sound in the HXDA, so I'll try 'em at the least.
If neither the remaining BRIMAR tubes nor the JJs meet expectations, I'll order a couple of NOS RFT (East German tubes), as I understand they're very capable in an amp like the HXDA, though a little dark. However, that would be fine in my HXDA, as long as they aren't noisy or weak, since I like a warmer sound, and I tend to turn the treble down in that amp as it is. They're about a third the price of an NOS Mullard, so I guess they're kind of a bargain in NOS-World.
I'm saving the Siemens EL34s for eventual replacement of the Winged Cs, as the amp was built this year, and has gotten pretty light use, sharing time with the DG30. So the Winged Cs are still very strong and sound "as-new."
It'll be interesting to see how this all comes together. With any luck, I'll have the killer-diller sound I'm hoping for (obviously the amp already sounds great, this is to make it sound even better!).
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