I would guess both. If you do upgrade and get one with a VC, PM me and I will walk you thru how to tune it to how you like it with VC and other tricks.
Pacific dac: Lampizator's new top of the line dac
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the 596 is da bomb. 3 of us just got it and are in heaven. Now Chris wants one even though its fuggly.
It is not exclusive to P2P version. The updates since then have mostly been useful and going from delight to delight but I have long since recommended staying SE as that is what I believe. I am sure I must have told you that as well if you look at past posts but I can understand why you chose otherwise.
Do you have all those tubes you mentioned in quads?
I’m not that impressed with it. It’s not an offensive recti (other than to look at!) in any one sound quality direction, but the Tak, the Chatham (that you put me onto) and the KR 5U4G Anniversary are far superior in my humble testing, with the main tubes I have.
Yes, I’m sure you probably did Ked, but the rest of my system is balanced right through, so a non-balanced DAC was a mind-block for me.
Yes, I have all the tubes in matched quads, so I’ll need to off-load half of them if I do eventually go SE.
I think both Tak recti and Tak 300b artificially enhance the mids making them thick and pushing them forward so I don't like them
Same was my initial thinking, but once you overcome it, you are sailing on the clouds...
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I’ve not found that to be fair. The Tak 274b does seem to be more etched and produce more resolution - I wouldn’t call it thick sounding, if anything it’s on the leaner side to me. One of the main things I’ve found in this voyage of discovery is the recti needs to be matched to the main tubes, I haven’t found a recti that works well with all output tubes, and visa versa.
The Tak sounds superb with the 242’s for example, but sounds terrible with the 300B’s, where the Chatham or 5U4G sounds much better.
Wow, you have a nice stash of interesting tubes
What pairing sounds best to you atm?
The 242’s sound really good with the Tak, though I think they are probably driving the pre-amp input a little hard, so they can sound a little forced on some tracks. They do everything well that we traditionally search for in ‘hifi’, great soundstage, superb detail and resolution etc.
But my favourites so far are the Psvane UK 300B with the Zaerix 5R4GY recti (one I forgot to mentioned in my previous post), or the Chatham recti. It’s hard to actually put my finger on what I like about them. They don’t stand out as excelling in any of the traditional ‘hifi’ areas that many of us might look for; detail, resolution, three dimensionality, soundstage etc, there is just something intangible about what they do - the music just washes over me and draws me in more than any of the others, something just engages with me on a different level somehow - it’s hard to explain.
Most of the time when I’m trying these tube and recti combos, I’m constantly flicking between numerous reference tracks, listening for differences. But with those I just couldn’t skip on to the next track, before I knew it I’d listened to music for two hours without barely skipping a track, and without getting up to swap tubes again, which is what I was supposed to be doing. I guess that’s the best possible sign, when you find yourself actually listening to the music rather than analysing the sound, almost against your own intentions!
That’s very much what that initial p2p wired B7 did that I referred to earlier - but that did it whilst also producing a massive, palpable, three dimensional soundstage at the same time, that these 300B’s don’t particularly do.
The biggest disappointment so far have been the Kron RK 300B’s, especially given their cost. Though to be fair they probably haven’t been burnt in long enough yet (<20 hours).
Where are you located, Wookii?
Any possibility you could try the RK PX25 from someone close to you?
That one could possibly match your taste
Thanks for your experience
This is very interesting for me, because ears I trust tell me that the fugly Frankenstein (aka 596) is extremely good
The Chatham is the Potato Masher, right? IME very good, but not in the league of the RK KR 5u4g
Golum was in the same situation and ask him now
Off-loading so many precious tubes could maybe free some funds for an SE Pacific when you can trade in your B7 as well
Is this only valid for all-in orchestra or also other Music Genres?
Do you feel the Taka Combo is limitied on the frequency extremes when you say the mids are pronounced?
I won't say limited, but the mids were fattened up and stage pushed forward. I sensed that in Al's system (Big 7) with the recti and in two Alieno systems with the 300b in the power amp. The KR and Westinghouse recti were more linear and the Elrog and KR 300b were more linear as well, with the Elrog being the best of those. The RK recti is currently my favorite
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