RobLikesTubes
Ex Member
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FINALLY !!......................
I had been wanting to try these tubes for a while, but a slightly botched e-bay transaction, a USPS mis-delivery, and an elongated cryo-treatment process had me waiting for weeks.
Last night, I discovered the wait was WELL worth it ! I slapped one each of these cryo-treated 6n2p-EVs into my pair of Selects with aging sets of cryoed 6P15P-Evs and started spinning. I immediately noticed the need to lower the gain on my Shanling CDP by about 8-10 steps for normal listening levels.
Before putting these tubes in, I listened to a few tracks off Bela Fleck and the Flecktones: Hidden Land CD (one of my favorite recordings of late, highly recommended) with the NOS Mullards I had been using for months. I'm very familiar with this recording, perhaps TOO familiar ! It sounded great as always. There are a few small passages of max SPL where my system is normally pushed to the edge of clipping at higher volumes and this is where I hoped these new tubes would help. Once I swapped out the Mullards for the new 6n2p-EVs and let them warm-up for about 20min, I knew this was going to be a loooonnnngggggg night in the music room.
Everything, and I mean EVERY THING sounded better with these new tubes.
HF - nicely extended, smooth and shimmery without grain. I did notice a bit more sibilance on female vocals, but it sounded more revealing, then flawed. Cymbals were crisper, tighter, with more sustain.
MIDS - straight butter. With the added gain, I was able to get to more than adequate volumes with NO hint of being on the edge of clipping with even the most challenging passages. They also seemed to tame the slight ‘shout’ factor of the Fostex drivers.
LF - Detail, detail, detail. Victor Wootens bass lines, especially the cuts with 6-string had me hearing a bunch of new subtleties and details. I found myself cutting back my usual setting of 0db gain on the Sunfire sub, to -2 or -3db.
Things got even better when I loaded a fresh set of 6P15P-EVs into the Selects. The tubes were only about 5 months old, but have been ON most of that time, and had lots of playtime. I ended up awake in the music room until almost 3am. Haven't done that in quite a while !
Knock on wood, I have experienced none of the white noise bursts some folks here have experienced with this tube. I bought a lot of 25 from a fellow in the Ukrane for $1.85/tube including shipping ! add $5.00/tube for cryo treatment and you have no doubt THE best bargain I've come across in tubeland.
RUN, don't walk, to get yourself some of these !
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