LampizatOr Horizon - Tube Rolling Paradise

[steve williams]

Putting aside the fact that these adapters are eye candy I remain gobsmacked that the sonic uptick using them is as good as. It gets. It continues to make the point that ” sonically everything matters“

 

[Sampajanna]

“Gobsmacked“ is right. I just installed my 4X OS1 adapters w/ silver grounding. Holy moly. I wasn’t expecting such a difference. These 4 made more difference than the others. Wow! Truly gobsmacked. Everything is smoother, more open. Soundstage has improved and more presence everywhere, high to mid and in bass.

 

[Thundersnow]

Gentlemen, it’s the Black Friday Horizon tube extravaganza!!

I will try to summarize my first impressions in a couple of words. Superb. More life to the music. Warm and musical, yet detailed.

Thanks, Laszlo!

 

[Anyoldears]

So what are they? Some c3g I see, but what are the others? And why no earth cable?

 

[Thundersnow]

So what are they? Some c3g I see, but what are the others? And why no earth cable?

It’s the RS1003 and the Tele 2004 Solid Plate. I prefer a more dynamic and shall we say accurate sound but what surprised me is that even though this combo is dynamic and accurate, it’s also supremely organic sounding and musical.

Haven’t yet played around with the grounding.

 

[Anyoldears]

Haven’t yet played around with the grounding.

Be interested in how much difference it makes. Other reports are that its significant...

 

[Malcng]

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Nice photo’s Steve. Can I ask a couple of questions?

- What is the purpose of the adapters? Is it to save wear and tear on the Horizon with all the tube rolling that you do or is it to adapt to different pin configurations?
- Why do you have different tubes on left vs right? I have the same KT170 and prefer them to KT77 and KT88 that I tried.

Ah, I’m guessing that you play SE and you’re just keeping the spare pair warm?

I’m a bit odd in that I tend to read threads backwards - I now see the KT170’s are just there for your mental balance.

Thanks

Malc

 

[steve williams]

As for adapters truly everything counts. Using the TP adapters , special edition plus special Edition Star grounding made a big uptick in the sound

 

[Malcng]

I’m still working my way backwards through the thread and am a little confused. I’ve been running guitar tube amps since I was 15 and have acquired 16 of them over the years, but this ‘HiFi’ stuff is very new to me. From what I have gleaned in this thread:

- You can run different tube pairs left and right in Horizon, even if using balanced output on XLR? If so, the permutations just became enormously larger. How does that work?

- If you do have tubes in the right hand side, it affects the sound when running Horizon in SE RCA output and is not the same as running with tubes in the left hand side only. Again, more permutations. Even something apparently simple like comparing SE vs Balanced output is now somewhat more complicated than I imagined.

I determined that Balanced sounded better than SE in my system, but that was with 4 matched tubes in situ. I will try SE again with no tubes in the right hand side to see if that makes any difference, but I’m kind of hoping that I have misconstrued all of the above.

Fair play to you intrepid tube explorers, and it is very interesting watching your exploits, but I’m glad that I found a sound that I loved fairly early on.

As an aside, I visited a high end AD last week to listen to a headphone amp and he asked me what I would be feeding it with. I said Extreme into Horizon and he replied that Horizon was the best DAC that he’d ever heard. Reiterated just how fortunate we are.

 

[dminches]

If you are running balanced all 4 tubes should be the same.

 

[Malcng]

If you are running balanced all 4 tubes should be the same.

Makes sense - Steve’s great photo’s threw me. Don’t tell him it looks unbalanced the way he has it loaded.

 

[steve williams]

It is unbalanced. I run SE using SRS 551 in the left bank and I use kt170 just to fill the right bank. It’s all good

 

[Sampajanna]

I am right now running balanced with different tubes on left and right and it sounds great. I have OS1 on the left and the Chelmer 1003 on the right. No issues and excellent sound. I had had issues with the 1003 dampening sound, but it was an adapter issue. Now they are singing. I will be trying 4X 1003 soon.

 

[Sampajanna]

These adapters continue to amaze me. Mine are still burning in and changing in nice ways….

 

[ctydwn]

Same here. Run balanced w different tubes on either side. best of both worlds to further refine the sound and cross pollinate favorable sonic signatures. most incredible sound from the 80+ tubes rolling here. thank u plasmod! (have 2 or 3 combos that have risen to the top).

horizon really can offer something for everyone. thank u team lampizator and Lukasz. (will add, as Lukasz said from the beginning, there isn’t a bad tube for the Horizon. trying dozens of tubes is by no means necessary but can be fun)

EDIT: I should add that I am no expert as to whether you can mix and match ANY pentode tubes in this manner.

 

[Malcng]

Same here. Run balanced w different tubes on either side. best of both worlds to further refine the sound and cross pollinate favourable sonic signatures.

This is quite a big additional layer of complexity in shaping and refining the sound to suit preference. It’s a real eye opener as I would never have even considered doing that. Are there any rules or technicalities that need to be borne in mind? Some tubes are more powerful than others, does that matter? Is it safe for a rolling novice, or do you need to know what you are doing?

I tried KT77, KT88 and KT170 and settled with the latter as I preferred the spatial presentation and refined detail, especially once I put the TAK 274B in. The KT77 were louder and punchier but less refined - from the comments here, it seems that I could replace the KT170 on one side with KT77 or 88 and get a blend of both. Is that correct?

Forgive my naivety, but this is all very new to me and quite mind blowing. Simply put, no two Horizons are likely to ever sound the same which some won’t like whilst others will find very exciting. I love the idea but shudder at the thought of all the testing not to mention the cost involved.

Great info though in this thread and I am starting to appreciate even more now the beauty and ingenuity in the design of my Horizon.

 

[christoph]

Same here. Run balanced w different tubes on either side. best of both worlds to further refine the sound and cross pollinate favorable sonic signatures.

Guys, from a logical POV wouldn't it make much more sense if you do the "seasoning" with different tubes ON THE SAME CHANNEL?

Otherwise you should get a proper channel imbalance (at least!) tonality-wise.
For example, the left channel is pure OS1 flavour and the right channel is pure 1003 flavour

As an added benefit, it would also look better symmetry-wise if you mix tubes/flavours WITHIN each channel

 

[ctydwn]

Guys, from a logical POV wouldn't it make much more sense if you do the "seasoning" with different tubes ON THE SAME CHANNEL?

Otherwise you should get a proper channel imbalance (at least!) tonality-wise.
For example, the left channel is pure OS1 flavour and the right channel is pure 1003 flavour

As an added benefit, it would also look better symmetry-wise if you mix tubes/flavours WITHIN each channel

Ha, yes, different channel flavors sure could be funky. that is why they are positioned where they are. the back pentodes are the left channel. front are right channel…

 

[christoph]

Ha, yes, different channel flavors sure could be funky. that is why they are positioned where they are. the back pentodes are the left channel. front are right channel…

Ooops, you are completely right.
Thanks for clarifying.
Mea culpa, sorry

 

[steve williams]

Same here. Run balanced w different tubes on either side. best of both worlds to further refine the sound and cross pollinate favorable sonic signatures. most incredible sound from the 80+ tubes rolling here. thank u plasmod! (have 2 or 3 combos that have risen to the top).

horizon really can offer something for everyone. thank u team lampizator and Lukasz. (will add, as Lukasz said from the beginning, there isn’t a bad tube for the Horizon. trying dozens of tubes is by no means necessary but can be fun)

Now that is very interesting as it has always been my impression that to run balanced you need a quad in left and right banks. If you run SE you can either put nothing in the right bank or any tube that fits there