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Post by LuisV on Feb 4, 2021 13:28:34 GMT -5
After listening... and listening... I've decided... the winner is... or should I say my favorites are... both the Sylvania 6SN7GTA with 3 hole black plates and Raytheon / Baldwin 6SN7GTB. They sound fantastic, yet each has a slightly different sound presentation from the other, so I'm finding it too difficult to select a winner. Let me try to explain... In my system and to my ears, both throw up a vast soundstage that is wide and deep... instrument separation and soundscape are the best I've heard in my system thus far... details are neither sharp nor glaring; however, the Sylvanias sound warmer... more tubey... if that's actually a word. They appear to add more presence to the music... more of that tube sound. Don't get me wrong, the Raytheon / Baldwins don't sound harsh nor cold; the Sylvanias simply provide more color / warmth. Both have oodles of details that are natural sounding and to my ears, have enough rolloff to allow hours upon hours of listening enjoyment, allowing me to get lost in the music while looking for other tracks to listen to. On the flip side, the Raytheon / Baldwins are more refined sounding... hard to explain.. less color; however, it's still very much there. Possibly better synergy in my system? Dunno... but it's a different presentation that I also enjoy to listen to. Both have great bass.. tight and quick, no boominess. The Raytheon / Baldwin appear to be bring vocals closer to you as if your in a smaller more intimate venue. I can go on an on... It's hard to decide which one sounds better as they provide slightly different presentations and add their own color... they just sound slightly different but are hands down the best of the bunch from the tubes I currently own. Difficult decision... I'm keeping the Raytheon / Baldwins in for now and will switch to the Sylvanias next week. If things change, I'll be sure to post my comments. So there you have it... too close to call, but for now... - Sylvania 6SN7GTA with 3 hole black plates and Baldwin / Raytheon 6SN7GTB
- Raytheon 6SN7GTB medium bottle
- RAYTHEON 6SN7GTB short bottle
- CBS 6SN7GTB
- GE 6SN7GTA
- RCA 6SN7GTB
- Tung-Sols
- Electro-Harmonix
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Post by chops on Feb 7, 2021 12:11:31 GMT -5
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Post by mercury on Feb 8, 2021 0:00:56 GMT -5
Great photos chops!..what camera?
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Post by LuisV on Feb 8, 2021 16:05:36 GMT -5
Great photos chops!..what camera? Forgot the model... and unless he's using something else now, they are from his phone. |
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Post by bluemeanies on Feb 8, 2021 16:48:28 GMT -5
Every now and then I think about getting back into surround, but stereo is so easy and satisfying. Trey And true to the meaning of "STEREO" I perfectly understand watching concerts in 7.1 audio but the idea of listening to music in full surround turns me off. That is not how music is meant to be listen to. However this is my opinion..what the hell do I know. 😂 |
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Post by chops on Feb 8, 2021 21:23:13 GMT -5
Great photos chops!..what camera? Thanks! All pics are taken with my Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, but I use the camera in custom/manual mode. |
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Post by chops on Feb 10, 2021 22:26:04 GMT -5
Swapped the 6FQ7's with the 6CG7's and vice versa. These two pairs of tubes sounds virtually identical. This also means that both pairs of tubes sound excellent. The only thing I think I might hear different between them is that the 6CG7's might possibly have a slightly quieter/darker background, but that's really splitting hairs. Listening at levels of around 75 dB to 80 dB all evening long, and one thing I can definitely say about these tubes, they have a very intimate presentation. You get a private performance with a really good "picture" of the venue in which the performance was recorded. A wide, deep, vast landscape of sound. Even at these low volumes, you still get that percussive, tactile impact of dynamics. I'm not referring to bass here either, but rather that of say a snare drum, musical wood blocks and the like. Treble detail such as triangles, cymbals, top register of a piano or guitar have a natural decay and shimmer to them that gives you that "you are there" feeling. Tambourines and bongos have that fleshy sound. Bass has real texture, tonality and detail. I have to say, I think that these little tubes alone may just be my new "reference" tubes. I think these are doing the impossible task of out-performing my original go-to reference tube combo of the RCA 6F8G and Raytheon/Baldwin 6SN7GTB... The Raytheon/Baldwin which has been a true "gold standard" of mine for literally 20+ years! I'm both extremely pleased and extremely shocked at these results to be honest!    |
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Post by LuisV on Feb 18, 2021 22:08:10 GMT -5
The last pair of panels for the side walls were delivered earlier this week... I just need to grab a ladder and some tools to mount them; however, I've been crazy busy with work lately. Fingers crossed I can get to it this weekend. After a long delay due to COVID, the room darkening shade will be installed tomorrow...  |
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Post by chops on Feb 20, 2021 18:20:59 GMT -5
Did a thing today... Been itching for a while for some DIY action, and I've had these sitting at the other house for a few years now doing nothing. Figured I'd get them fired back up and actually finish them off properly. Here's the quick and dirty. And please excuse the mess at the moment in the room. There's been a lot going on in this room today. LOL The dbx Driverack Venu 360 still had all of the crossover and level settings, as well as the old EQ settings for the old room. Just ran the "Auto EQ". Sounding better than I imagined it would, especially since they just replaced the Martin Logan's. In fact, these are doing extremely good right now. The little silver amps are the Nuprime STA 9's that I used to own and sold to one of my brothers a while back. The Emotiva is powering the Audio Nirvana fullrange drivers, the top STA 9 is powering the Eminence woofers, the bottom STA 9 is only there to send a signal to the JL subs. More to come!  |
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Post by chops on Feb 21, 2021 20:04:03 GMT -5
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Post by LuisV on Feb 24, 2021 11:12:13 GMT -5
Did a thing today... Been itching for a while for some DIY action, and I've had these sitting at the other house for a few years now doing nothing. Figured I'd get them fired back up and actually finish them off properly. Here's the quick and dirty. And please excuse the mess at the moment in the room. There's been a lot going on in this room today. LOL The dbx Driverack Venu 360 still had all of the crossover and level settings, as well as the old EQ settings for the old room. Just ran the "Auto EQ". Sounding better than I imagined it would, especially since they just replaced the Martin Logan's. In fact, these are doing extremely good right now. The little silver amps are the Nuprime STA 9's that I used to own and sold to one of my brothers a while back. The Emotiva is powering the Audio Nirvana fullrange drivers, the top STA 9 is powering the Eminence woofers, the bottom STA 9 is only there to send a signal to the JL subs. More to come! Curious how these compare to your MLs. I've never listened to open baffle speakers before... |
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Post by LuisV on Feb 24, 2021 11:15:39 GMT -5
Been streaming more than listening to CDs, so putting the Oppo up for sale... that being said, the shelf looks so empty now.  |
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Post by chops on Feb 24, 2021 20:10:02 GMT -5
Did a thing today... Been itching for a while for some DIY action, and I've had these sitting at the other house for a few years now doing nothing. Figured I'd get them fired back up and actually finish them off properly. Here's the quick and dirty. And please excuse the mess at the moment in the room. There's been a lot going on in this room today. LOL The dbx Driverack Venu 360 still had all of the crossover and level settings, as well as the old EQ settings for the old room. Just ran the "Auto EQ". Sounding better than I imagined it would, especially since they just replaced the Martin Logan's. In fact, these are doing extremely good right now. The little silver amps are the Nuprime STA 9's that I used to own and sold to one of my brothers a while back. The Emotiva is powering the Audio Nirvana fullrange drivers, the top STA 9 is powering the Eminence woofers, the bottom STA 9 is only there to send a signal to the JL subs. More to come! Curious how these compare to your MLs. I've never listened to open baffle speakers before... Well, put it this way... I ain't missin' the ML's! Granted, the ML's are great sounding and great looking speakers. These particular open baffles in their current state are also great sounding, but pretty ugly looking. LOL They're actually more similar than they are different. Where the OB's are different (better) is dynamics, transient response, deathly spooky realistic vocals, and an overall purer sound. Treble is silky smooth, extended and detailed. It's absolutely incredible that a 12" driver can reproduce this type of treble. Heck, all three of my brothers swore up and down I had tweeters installed somewhere. That's how good these drivers are. Like I said, vocals are scary good. I was making my coffee in the kitchen the other morning and something starting playing on the system which started out with some guy talking. I thought for sure someone came in the house (one of my brothers possibly). It scared the crap out of me! I had to come around the corner and check to see if someone was here. Turns out it was the recording. Imaging and staging are spot on. There's lots of air and space between instruments and musicians, and the sound stage is wide, deep and tall. It presents a very life-size image. And because these drivers are very efficient (the fullrange drivers are nearly 96 dB @ 1 watt - woofers are 95 dB @ 1 watt), there's a sense of ease and effortless to the sound. Everything is quick and snappy with plenty of energy, texture and body. Now the crazy thing is, these temporary baffles are a little bit on the small side due to the fact that they were made with some scrap plywood I had left over from another project. The final baffles will be slightly wider, not to mention that each channel will be receiving an additional three woofers, so that woofer efficiency is going to go up that much more, and they will be able to dig a little deeper before I have to rely on the JL subs to take over. If you do a Google search for Pure Audio Project Quintet, you'll get an idea of where I'll be heading with this project. |
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Post by LuisV on Feb 25, 2021 9:48:11 GMT -5
Nice... very nice! Looking forward to seeing the progress of your project and reading about the build process and listening experience.
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Post by chops on Feb 25, 2021 20:38:02 GMT -5
Me too! LOL
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Post by LuisV on Feb 28, 2021 11:07:18 GMT -5
Oppo, Modi Multibit and Cthulhu power supply have been sold... that means my home audio slush fund has been replenished... soooo A DAC replacement is needed... Bifrost 2, Denafrips Ares II or Black Ice Tube DAC... decisions, decisions...  |
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Post by chops on Feb 28, 2021 11:55:35 GMT -5
Oppo, Modi Multibit and Cthulhu power supply have been sold... that means my home audio slush fund has been replenished... soooo A DAC replacement is needed... Bifrost 2, Denafrips Ares II or Black Ice Tube DAC... decisions, decisions... The same three DAC's I considered. In the end, I decided on the Bifrost 2 Multibit due to its balanced outputs, reputation, simplicity, upgradeability and the fact you can switch inputs via remote. |
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Post by chops on Mar 7, 2021 22:49:45 GMT -5
Been tweaking speaker positioning more, adjusting levels, crossover points and such. Really getting these dialed in. The result of all that work was that the AutoEQ in the dbx Venu 360 had to implement a lot less in order to make corrections. Afterwards, I played my reference songs from Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight, I Don't Care Anymore, and Genesis - Mama. Songs/albums that I have lived and breathed for the past 30+ years. Also Carley Simon -Coming Around Again and Sting - Why Should I Cry For You and When The Angels Fall. Especially while playing the Phil Collins and Genesis tracks, tonight was the first time in a very long time that my system made me get chills down my spine and actually start laughing to myself because how damn good it sounded! The last time this happened was when I was running HUGE open baffles back in the early 2000's with Usher Audio 15" drivers and Altec Voice Of The Theater 511B horns and 908-8b drivers. And this system is more refined than that system was, and much smaller by comparison! Sheer dynamic swing, purely effortless slam, in-the-room vocals and drums, stage width and depth galore! And the naturalness and realistic presentation of it all... And this is STILL with the flimsy temp baffles and only one bass driver per side. I still have six more of these Eminence Acoustinator N2012 drivers to install (three per channel). This is the RTA on the dbx Venu 360 after all the tweaking and running AutoEQ again, now with a lot less processing needed.  |
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mfeust
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Post by mfeust on Mar 8, 2021 14:39:48 GMT -5
Been tweaking speaker positioning more, adjusting levels, crossover points and such. Really getting these dialed in. The result of all that work was that the AutoEQ in the dbx Venu 360 had to implement a lot less in order to make corrections. Afterwards, I played my reference songs from Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight, I Don't Care Anymore, and Genesis - Mama. Songs/albums that I have lived and breathed for the past 30+ years. Also Carley Simon -Coming Around Again and Sting - Why Should I Cry For You and When The Angels Fall. Especially while playing the Phil Collins and Genesis tracks, tonight was the first time in a very long time that my system made me get chills down my spine and actually start laughing to myself because how damn good it sounded! The last time this happened was when I was running HUGE open baffles back in the early 2000's with Usher Audio 15" drivers and Altec Voice Of The Theater 511B horns and 908-8b drivers. And this system is more refined than that system was, and much smaller by comparison! Sheer dynamic swing, purely effortless slam, in-the-room vocals and drums, stage width and depth galore! And the naturalness and realistic presentation of it all... And this is STILL with the flimsy temp baffles and only one bass driver per side. I still have six more of these Eminence Acoustinator N2012 drivers to install (three per channel). This is the RTA on the dbx Venu 360 after all the tweaking and running AutoEQ again, now with a lot less processing needed. At the very end of "When The Angels Fall" Sting says "Good Night". Where does your system place this in the soundstage? |
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Post by chops on Mar 9, 2021 20:25:33 GMT -5
When he says "Good Night", he's right beside me to my left, about 5 feet away from my head. Almost like I could swing my left arm out to my side and smack him in his face. LOL
It's an extremely convincing experience with these speakers. Almost to the point of being creepy when I play those last couple of seconds of the track over and over several times in a row.
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