Headphone Heights

RE: Two inexpensive DAC/headphone amps - initial impressions (warning: long post)

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In Reply to: RE: Two inexpensive DAC/headphone amps - initial impressions (warning: long post) posted by willkayakforfood on June 30, 2012 at 12:40:58

I saw that you got another amp. I thought I would just let you know that
The 6AK5 vacuum tube is a miniature 7-pin sharp-cutoff pentode used as RF or IF amplifier especially in high-frequency wide-band applications at frequencies up to 400 MHz. A lot of mfrs are using R/F tubes in these Applications latley they are cheaper and easily obtainable and using a 'Starved plate low voltage desighn ' I have to wonder if an old School 12AX7 at full plate volts being a triode might sound better unless of course and likely they are running the pentode in
triode mode .

Edits: 08/21/12

Follow Ups:

Whoosh! :) Hey, did you lift most of your second sentence--verbatim--from Wikipedia? - willkayakforfood 10:19:08 08/22/12 (0)
Your second sentence:

"I thought I would just let you know that
The 6AK5 vacuum tube is a miniature 7-pin sharp-cutoff pentode used as RF or IF amplifier especially in high-frequency wide-band applications at frequencies up to 400 MHz. "

From Wikipedia's first sentence on 6AK5 tubes:

"The 6AK5 vacuum tube is a miniature 7-pin sharp-cutoff pentode used as RF or IF amplifier especially in high-frequency wide-band applications at frequencies up to 400 MHz."

In any event...

Being not very well versed in the finer points (or even blunt points) of electronic circuitry, most of your post just flew right by with nary a hint of comprehension on my part. So much of this is just "magic" to me, so I'll admit that primarily, I listen to the music, and if it sounds good to me, then it's good. I should mention here that no matter how much magic is going on in these electronic devices, and no matter how much I appreciate what they can do (indeed, I appreciate it a great deal), they'll never perfectly reproduce live performance in lovely acoustic spaces in my home, so "sounds good" is a relative matter, and I'm not willing to make a hobby of trying to perfect something that will not be perfected.

That said, I'm interested in your mention of "old school 12AX7". My main system's preamp uses 12AX7 tubes, but they have nine pins (and they're larger overall), whereas the smaller 6AK5 tubes I'm using (in both my HiFi Man EF2A DAC/headphone amp and Maverick Audio TubeMagic A1 desktop integrated amp) have only seven pins. Obviously, not a direct replacement possible here. Is there some sort of "old school 12AX7" that's smaller, and with only seven pins?

When I was researching both the EF2A and TubeMagic A1, both came "stock" with 6J1 tubes, and everything I read seemed to recommend replacing those with the 6AK5 tubes for better sound. My first EF2A (defective, and returned) had only the original 6J1 tubes. Sounded pretty good, but when I got my replacement EF2A, I put a pair of 6AK5 tubes in it, and it sounded even better. When I later purchased the TubeMagic A1, I ordered it with the 6AK5 tube option (paid a bit extra for this "upgrade"), so I don't know how this amp would have sounded with the 6J1 tubes.

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