Any tube heads here?

Speaking of tubes, does anyone have a line on where I can get a matched quad of 12B4s or 12B4As. This is/was a relatively inexpensive tube but finding a matched quad is like looking for hens teeth.

I sent you a lead via PM

@huang

thanks @rrwwss52 I sent a couple of sellers a note requesting a matched quad, anxious to see what they come back with.

What are you using them for?

Current Tube Gear

Tuner: Magnum Dynalab MD100T
Phono Stage: Herron Audio VTPH-1
Headphone Amps: McIntosh MHA-200; Ray Samuels Audio Emmeline II “The Raptor”

I have a Modwright Tryst headphone amp… that sounds scrumptious. The output stage uses 4 12B4s in a push pull configuration.

Current Tube Gear:
ARC SP-11
Modwright Tryst
Rogue RH-5
Balanced Audio Technology (BAT) VK-60
BAT VK5 SE

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I grew up with tubes as my dad was a Heathkit hobbyist and always up to something fixing tv’s and radios. A well assembled tube amp just makes things sound so much warmer then a lot of solid state I find.

For my office, I have a Topping D90 DAC into a Monolith Cavalli Liquid Platinum amp. I roll various tubes, but the Mullard Holland E188CC 7308 are definitely the best all-round and warmest sounding. Amp and DAC were pandemic buys and been looking to update both but just flipping tubes makes it sound totally different and I question why I need to upgrade anything! I hate my audio hobby because it always finds a way to separate me from my money.

20220925-PXL_20220925_101632474.MP - Copy

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My latest toy, Cayin HA-3A:

Still on stock tubes (2x JJ 6V6S, 2x JJ12AUT(ECC82), 1x RCA 22DE4), already great, will see if I will dive into tube rolling, probably not necessary here. Prior I had a Feliks Echo MKII, but found tube rolling not so effective.

My High-Amp Antares V3 uses a pair of 6SN7GTB General Electric/USA NOS tubes
(down at the bottom).

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Bit of a valve fan :slight_smile:

Currently using a little 1.5 Watt 45 amp with the speakers (LV Tone Scouts)

Also have:

Border Patrol 300B
Radford STA15 (rubbish with LV but I’m not a fan of the EL34)
Audio Innovations second audio 2a3 parallel push-pull mono blocks
Audio Innovations first audio 6b4g mono blocks (sound lovely but hum like crazy)

Audio Note (Kondo) M7 silver sound preamp that I often use with a First Watt F4

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I have a very modest set up next to my bed of an Allo Boss 2 as a Roon endpoint feeding my Little Dot with Millard tubes. It is my morning rig, in that I like to use it an hour before I get up to help set my mood for the day.

On holiday I have an Ifi rack that includes the tube section, as well as the power/music splitter and the iDSD DAC/AMP.

Got double bit by my PrimaLuna pre-amp and amp.

First, I lost one of the rectifier tubes on the pre-amp. While screwing around with a spare tube from my junk box, I managed to blow the fuse. I had a spare which I put in a place which was logical to me at the time, but wasn’t logical when I went to find it.

While straightening out my pre-amp problems, I used my DAC as a pre-amp. One of my amp’s EL34s then decided to die a screaming painful death.

Hence -

Once all this was fixed, my Bricasti ($80 a pop) 12AU7s started acting up. Luckily, I kept the PrimaLuna supplied tubes. So, good for now.

Tubes! Fck me.

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Willsenton R-800i

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