Tube rolling the Purity One

[etcarroll]

Drove up to Endicott NY and met Bill and picked up the Purity One Custom pre-production unit this past Monday;

http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=2644.0

I think I now have my basic system altogether, now to begin tube rolling. There is one more issue though, and that is proper speaker placement. I think I'll start a separate thread and include the layout of my home so people can make comments as to what people think well improve my soundstage by speaker placement, but in a nutshell, my house is a McMansion, with all the negative implication of that statement. As a result, my speakers are in a family room that's wide open to both kitchen and kitchen eating area so it's one big rectangle with the speakers firing across the short end from the end of one long wall towards my seating position at the end of the opposite longwall. But back to the preamp.

Bill supplied the Purity One with Sylvainia tubes, as he doesn't care for the sound of the Chinese tubes available today. Right off the bat I noticed two things, the overall sound improved markedly from the sound of my passive preamp, but the resulting sound didn't match the sound of my recent tube preamp shootout. The top end was a little bit thin with the Sylvania tubes. So I pulled them promptly and replaced them with a pair of Raytheon Hammond tubes that Shadowlight had lent me. Now we were getting somewhere.

There was immediate, overall minor improvement in the quality of the sound. The one negative so far was on Joni Mitchell's Hejira album, on some notes especially ones she sustained in the end of a sentence, the tone just wasn't quite right, almost as if she had her mouth partially over the microphone. I think if she'd been a male singer this would be the quality people speak of when they talk about a singer coming across as chesty. Outside of that, there's really nothing negative I can say about the overall sound or presentation.

More to come as I roll in different tubes.

[etcarroll]

Just reread post to correct spelling, realize the discussing on soundstage may invite posts concerning speaker placement in this thread - please dont - I'll create a seperate thread for that.

After I return Deepaks Hammonds this Saturday, I have a variety of RCA blackplates, greyplates and cleartops to try. Also some Amperex Bugleboys, and a matched pair of Telefunkens.

[Bunky]

I see there is a pair of Amperex D-getter longplates relabled as Rodgers on Agon for $125. these are fine sounding tubes and very cheap at this price 

[shadowlight]

Gene,
Try the rca black plates.  That is what was installed in the Bella pre.

[Werd]

Hello

I own a max bella/14B combo. I can heartily recommend a full out assault on power cables with these response audio pre's. I have a gutwire powerclef/2 that i used to dedicate to my 14B. I was getting a little too  much toob rush with that pre in my system. I moved that Gutwire to the Max bella. Its a huge cord(10gauge at least) that has an adjustable jacket ground that you can fix back onto the component. This  reduced the noise out of my pre greatly and changed the presentation, it gave it a lot more depth and wrap around. Bigger the better imo with these preamps for power cord gauge i am finding.

[etcarroll]

I agree Werd, I have 3 or 4 meter length of DH Labs Power Plus cord, just have to terminate it.

[etcarroll]

Rolled in the RCA 5963 long grey plates '50s I got from hometheaterdoc, fixed the issue with how Joni Mitchell sounded. But, while listening to Donald Fagen's Kamakiriad, I thought the bass was a little too phat. But then, Fagen usually has a strong and pronounced bass track in his work it may just be the RCAs allowing the Purity to show me what's truly there. I'd like to put on Morph The Cat, but I'm afraid to.

Listening to Getz/Gilberto, it's delightful.

[tmazz]

Rolled in the RCA 5963 long grey plates '50s I got from hometheaterdoc, fixed the issue with how Joni Mitchell sounded. But, while listening to Donald Fagen's Kamakiriad, I thought the bass was a little too phat. But then, Fagen usually has a strong and pronounced bass track in his work it may just be the RCAs allowing the Purity to show me what's truly there. I'd like to put on Morph The Cat, but I'm afraid to.

Listening to Getz/Gilberto, it's delightful.

This is really kind of weird. My son upgraded his Paradigms today (from the Mini-Monitors to the Phantoms), and as I am writing this he is road testing them with guess what, Morph the Cat. 

[Response Audio]

I really appreciate al the continued feedback on tubes and cables. For the record, I use a VH Audio AIRSINE power cord on my Purity preamps and amplifiers. Like tubes, the Purity will show you the truth with cabling as well. Especially interconnect cables (Gene, your Harvest II's will be done shortly).

 This weekend I swapped in some custom Silver/Gold foil interconnects and a pair of Silver/Gold balanced interconnects. Big difference over the copper Harvest II. Soon as our new mono blocs are up and running, I will swap speaker cables over to our SG Series (Silver/Gold) foil cables. These are only 4 footers so I need mono blocs to use them. Right now, I am running a pair of Harvest II speaker cable.

 By the way, yes I do like silver The downfall [can] be that it brings out the truth in your system so if there is a bottleneck anywhere, you will know. I wonder if Jim Salk would let me rewire the HT2-TL speakers in all solid silver wire

[Hugh]

I had an opportunity during RMAF to listen to Bill's Pre and I have to say it's an excellent unit.

Bill really knows his stuff.

[etcarroll]

hi Hugh, welcome aboard at AN.

And yes Bill does, I'm on some RCA greyplates, and as Bill says, the Purity shows the unique characteristics of each tube type. So far these sound great, yet I still have RCA blackplates and cleartops, Amperex Bugle Boys from '64, and some Telefunkens. I'm getting held up a bit as I'm wrestling with my vinyl presentation. But I don't feel like I'm losing out 'only' having the greyplates in Bill's creation.

[Hugh]

Hi G,

Thanks.

According to what I've been reading thus far from other places, the new Shuguang Pavane supposes to be good too.

I got no personal experience on those yet though.

hi Hugh, welcome aboard at AN.

And yes Bill does, I'm on some RCA greyplates, and as Bill says, the Purity shows the unique characteristics of each tube type. So far these sound great, yet I still have RCA blackplates and cleartops, Amperex Bugle Boys from '64, and some Telefunkens. I'm getting held up a bit as I'm wrestling with my vinyl presentation. But I don't feel like I'm losing out 'only' having the greyplates in Bill's creation.

[Response Audio]

According to what I've been reading thus far from other places, the new Shuguang Pavane supposes to be good too.

I heard the Pavane 12AU7 briefly when another member brought them up to the shop. Unfortunately, there were not completely broken in. They did seem to have potential but at their price, there are a lot of great NOS pieces waiting to be grabbed up.

[tmazz]

According to what I've been reading thus far from other places, the new Shuguang Pavane supposes to be good too.

I heard the Pavane 12AU7 briefly when another member brought them up to the shop. Unfortunately, there were not completely broken in. They did seem to have potential but at their price, there are a lot of great NOS pieces waiting to be grabbed up.

But it is nice to know that somebody is starting to figure out how to get good sound out of new production tubes.  Because there is only so much NOS stuff out there and someday we are going to simply run out. 

[Bigfish8]

Because there is only so much NOS stuff out there and someday we are going to simply run out.

I think the largest market for NOS Tubes is for guitar amps!  Those guys are willing to shell out big bucks and their amps tend to suck tubes, according to my neighbor!

Just think there are probably some stashes of old tubes from TV Repairmen, from years gone by, sitting in a garage or basement and the wife or family have no idea of their value!

Ken