Quote:
Originally Posted by khashmi
Yeah, it took a lot of research and persistence to secure the 5 hole Melz variant (lot’s of fakes in the market) at a price I was willing to bear, but it’s been worth it. The VT-231 variety are a close second (and among them the Ken-Rad for low end and the RCA for midrange). Stayed away from the bad boys as I was told, they weren’t optimal for the Freya, but perhaps the Inspire amp will be more forgiving. Haven’t lucked out with the Tung Sol BGRP just yet. One British tube I keep hearing about is the Brimar, so that’s on the radar, along with the Raytheon VT-231. I believe with the Inspire amp, I no longer have to be dependent on buying matched pairs.
I’ll definitely check it out your other thread! Curious on your use of the passive mode though. I thought tube stage would be the way to go to achieve that extra gain or do you prefer to only hear the tubes on the Inspire amp at any given time to evaluate their signature better? Asking because I only use the tube stage almost exclusively for 2 channel and thought that marrying that with a tube amp would take it sonic nirvana even further.
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I originally got the Freya+ to pair with some active monitors. I found the tube section to help out with the sound. When I bought the Firebottle and then some passive speakers (Phase Technology PC 3.5), I found that the tube section just doesn't sound as good to me. With the Firebottle the tube section of the Freya+ sounds veiled and it's missing some detail. To be fair that is exactly what I would expect from putting another gain stage into the chain. You can't add clarity, only obscure it.
As crazy as I am about tube rolling, and I am certifiable, I never did much with the Freya. A big problem I have with it is that using adapters is a real pain. I have simply refused to pay the money that the best 6sn7 tubes go for these days. On the other hand, I've never met an adapter I didn't like lol. Love 7n7 and 6f8g. I have put in some run of the mill Sylvania and RCA 6sn7 into the Freya and I've tried some sylvania 6sl7w tubes in it as well.
I bought a Supratek Cabernet which is also an 6sn7 based preamp but it is a completely different beast. I have found that it does not suffer as much clarity and detail loss as the Freya+. It better outperform the Freya+, it cost me almost 4 times the price! Diminishing returns are a bitch though, my system certainly isn't 4 times better sounding! I can use either 6sn7 or 12sn7 in it and so I have bought the 12v versions of tubes instead of paying the crazy premium of 6v.
Adding a gain stage can make you go crazy though. I also had a short thread here about my difficulty getting better sound with the Supratek. I eventually figured it out but it was frustrating. Tube combos that sounded amazing in the Firebottle using the passive sounded much worse when I used a gain stage. Or at least they sounded really different. And while you might think you have a good grasp on the "character" of a tube, they can combine in unexpected ways across gain stages. I usually end up with different tube combos in the Firebottle if I use the active preamp. Tube rolling in the amp usually requires tube rolling in the preamp to get the best sound. That's a lot of moving parts!