Meanwhile, it is a nice surprise that in December all ordered Amber DACs got the Engine11 upgrade for free and we ship them right now.
LampizatOr Golden Atlantic + TRP
- Thread starter Golum
- Start date
Tried my mesh G2504 + TP adapter from the Pacific on the GATRP.
Don't think for >3x the price it has a worthwhile improvement over my pre-existing reference, which is the WE 422A.
Which is already not a cheap rectifier
To those who Roll-
Hello! I thought I would put up something new tonight just in case there might be interest. I remember prior to receiving my TRP 3 I created a pdf file from all of the parsed data in this thread (up to page 110) so I would have the history of tubes tried and the comments given on tap- thanks to all for that as it’s been very helpful.
One of the things I’ve noticed though is that the TRP pursuit seems to have crapped out. The old guard have moved onto their GG’s, Pacific or Horizons. The new TRP crowd goes for the F2A’s or 6384‘s- finds a cool rectifier and calls it done. That’s it?
After trolling the tube data bases, forum comments and such I thought I would try something that I haven’t seen discussed or heard of being tried- I decided to stick a quad of triodes in my pentode dac.
As I didn’t want to be out more than a couple packs of cigs in case it went south I decided to buy a ”lightly used” quad of black metal 6J5’s- older GE models. Here they are sitting next to my favorite Globe 80.
How do they sound? They sound HUGE!! The magic here is that they are indirectly heated.
After receiving them today I unpacked them and placed them in the dac for a 2 hr warmup. I’ve been going through some of my favorite tracks for a couple of hours now and all I can say is these are definitely surprising!
The overall presentation is much different than that of other tubes I’ve used so far. The stage is wide and instruments/vocals have a nice height - they create a great image. Bass notes have power and are not lost in the mix- there seems to be better low mid separation. Mid and upper mid frequencies are performing really well here- much better definition than I have experienced with other tubes. Details that might be hard to discern (especially in busy passages) are more present and easily understood. High frequencies are produced nicely and so far have not led to any kind of fatigue. I’ll have a much better picture after I get some more time in with them but so far these have provided a great listening experience. Indirectly heated triodes work in the TRP!
Hello! I thought I would put up something new tonight just in case there might be interest. I remember prior to receiving my TRP 3 I created a pdf file from all of the parsed data in this thread (up to page 110) so I would have the history of tubes tried and the comments given on tap- thanks to all for that as it’s been very helpful.
One of the things I’ve noticed though is that the TRP pursuit seems to have crapped out. The old guard have moved onto their GG’s, Pacific or Horizons. The new TRP crowd goes for the F2A’s or 6384‘s- finds a cool rectifier and calls it done. That’s it?
After trolling the tube data bases, forum comments and such I thought I would try something that I haven’t seen discussed or heard of being tried- I decided to stick a quad of triodes in my pentode dac.
As I didn’t want to be out more than a couple packs of cigs in case it went south I decided to buy a ”lightly used” quad of black metal 6J5’s- older GE models. Here they are sitting next to my favorite Globe 80.
How do they sound? They sound HUGE!! The magic here is that they are indirectly heated.
After receiving them today I unpacked them and placed them in the dac for a 2 hr warmup. I’ve been going through some of my favorite tracks for a couple of hours now and all I can say is these are definitely surprising!
The overall presentation is much different than that of other tubes I’ve used so far. The stage is wide and instruments/vocals have a nice height - they create a great image. Bass notes have power and are not lost in the mix- there seems to be better low mid separation. Mid and upper mid frequencies are performing really well here- much better definition than I have experienced with other tubes. Details that might be hard to discern (especially in busy passages) are more present and easily understood. High frequencies are produced nicely and so far have not led to any kind of fatigue. I’ll have a much better picture after I get some more time in with them but so far these have provided a great listening experience. Indirectly heated triodes work in the TRP!
Thank you so very much for sharing your thoroughly researched, extremely interesting, out of the box and seemingly sonically very rewarding experiment
What other tubes did you compare to your new favorite 6J5 tubes?
Judging by the pictures, they don't even need an adapter.
How cool is that
The white on white looks clean, I like it!
The wealth of information already shared should be plenty for me to fine tune the perfect sound for me. Without having the TRP in my system yet my head started to spin. I'm guessing many others are in the same boat?
I ordered my GA TRP in December, I'm still waiting. I know from rolling tubes in my amp that I really like the GL KT77s. Based on others reports they give the same sonic signature in the TRP as my amp.
I have a decent selection of power tubes to try. The one I'm most curious about is the Sophia Electric KT88. I have a quad of SE EL34s. So I'll try those and see if I want to make the investment in the KT88, based on others comparisons.
I love the EML 5u4g in my amp. Based on others reports I'll be trying a few different rectifiers. I did order an EML 274b mesh already. The Sophia 274b Aqua II is on the short list. I'm curious about the SE 5u4g too.
I'm not much of a tube roller. Once I found the tubes I like in my amp it's been ~2 years without changing.
The wealth of information already shared should be plenty for me to fine tune the perfect sound for me. Without having the TRP in my system yet my head started to spin. I'm guessing many others are in the same boat?
I ordered my GA TRP in December, I'm still waiting. I know from rolling tubes in my amp that I really like the GL KT77s. Based on others reports they give the same sonic signature in the TRP as my amp.
I have a decent selection of power tubes to try. The one I'm most curious about is the Sophia Electric KT88. I have a quad of SE EL34s. So I'll try those and see if I want to make the investment in the KT88, based on others comparisons.
I love the EML 5u4g in my amp. Based on others reports I'll be trying a few different rectifiers. I did order an EML 274b mesh already. The Sophia 274b Aqua II is on the short list. I'm curious about the SE 5u4g too.
I'm not much of a tube roller. Once I found the tubes I like in my amp it's been ~2 years without changing.
If the EML 274B Mesh isn't to your liking let me know, I'm looking for one of those.
Jerry (another transplant from the Decware forum)
It does look sweet- and it sounds even BETTER! Of course I have you to thank for that- coming to the rescue when the other got his wings!Very cool. Nice post. That Globe 80 looks sweet. Where did you get it?
Jerry
I had been sticking with my other go-to quads discussed in previous posts- The NOS 6BQ6GT Sylvania’s and the new Sovtek 6L6WXT’s. I did a little research this morning on the 6J5’s and it appears these were date tagged in Sept of 1949. This surprised me as many of the old metal body tubes I’ve seen in the past have looked their age- or worst. I’ll have more listening impressions coming later today as I have 4 new releases to listen to.Thank you so very much for sharing your thoroughly researched, extremely interesting, out of the box and seemingly sonically very rewarding experiment
What other tubes did you compare to your new favorite 6J5 tubes?
Judging by the pictures, they don't even need an adapter.
How cool is that
I have a good quad of 6L6GC’s that I installed shortly after receiving my TRP. I couldn’t stand the sound of the KT88’s that it was shipped with and honestly if I hadn’t found those so quickly I probably would have returned the dac- they just weren’t good at all. After tiring of trying to deal with acquiring NOS 6L6 quads I ordered a matched quad of Sovtek WXT’s and they were better yet. The 6J5’s I just installed outperform the WXT’s.
My aging memory: I used them in a Supratek preamp as the power tubes. I didn't think they could be used in the TRP, but seem to recall afterwards that some said they could. In any case, not just any 6L6, but specifically 1960-61 RCA's.
Fascinating that the Poseidon supplied/suggested tubes work in the TRP?! I wonder if the Poseidon can conversely run el34/ktXX/etc tubes, which would be a wonderful boon for those many of us with much stock in these tubes...hmmmm...
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I have the Sophia el34s and kt88s. I bought the Sophia kt88s and played them for a few days about a year ago and initially didn't take to their sound and shelved them. However, I put them in to play recently and let them playing for a couple of week non-stop, and now find them in many ways favorable to the Sophia el34s, such as in 3D dimensionality, imaging, especially soundstage depth, a bit more midrange presence or bloom, and just otherwise now more engaging with the added "burn in" time. The el34s have been in heavy use for a couple of years (rotating about evenly with F2as) and I leave the dac on 24/7 unless traveling, so they may be relative tired compared to the fresh kt88s. Also, FWIW, the kt88s also do not play as well with the rectifiers that work well with the el34 Sophias in my system. It's still not as detailed, pinpoint and pristine sounding at the striking Siemens F2a's, although the Sophia kt88 is very charming and seductive, and I'm happy to have them in collection.
Blake-
The pics always look a little off in that room due to the minimal lighting. The dac is actually a silver powder coat- sometimes I wish it were white as the finish is more of a dull grey. Hopefully I will be getting the traditional copper top and bright aluminum face plate soon- waiting for it to be sent.
Did you purchase a Poseidon? I wasn’t aware that it came with a 6J5 (honestly hadn’t looked) and I don’t know enough about the dac to speculate. What led me to try the 6J5 was the fact that it is indirectly heated- similar to a pentode from that perspective.
There is an Increase in gain with these tubes- startling at first. I haven’t put together complete notes on my impressions yet but so far there hasn’t been much of a downside.
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