will
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Hey Jack...not sure what all is up, but I have a lot of nice tubes than tend warm and tend hardish in the upper ranges too, especially since the tube sound depends on all else, and each tube influences all else. In my case, it is often too much signal power from one or more tube positions that can too easily consolidate the signal information enough to harden the upper ranges... When it happens, it sounds like it is packing the textures and air into rigidity and seeming bright, when it is often more just too consolidated based on my experiments.
In my Toriis, all else the same, the greater force of most good quality E88CC/6922 types compared to good ECC88/6DJ8 types, can for me kill enough space and fine detail to cause cause irritating forcefulness and hardness. It can "sound great" on some stuff, but not like natural music across most recordings. I just stopped using E88CCs for input tubes for this reason except at times when I am exploring a change up with mild rectifiers, VRs, and/or open power tubes that tone things back enough to allow good space and textures while using E88CCs, perhaps especially in the mids to in the upper ranges.
I find that resolving heaviness/thickness (smearing) bass into the mids can also contribute to more notable space and textures with good tubes, though if done by reducing bass more than resolving it, this may become an issue depending on all else. Still, even with all else toned down, I rarely leave E88CCs in with my Toriis or CSP3 inputs. And I almost always use OB3s rather than OA3s for the same reason, as well as having a steady preference for RGN1064s rectifiers and equivalents, which are old school Euro tubes, 4 pin, and rated at 4V and 1 amp DC, plate/anode ±500V (2x), and 60mA with max output of 30 watts. This is not a "powerful" tube, but to me, the most complete and musical in my particular settings... their allowance of subtle fine detail and space a big one for me.
Not to say that this combination would work in your setting, just some information based on my experiments that I hope may help. For me, it is all a very fine line to get things set so that most recordings sound pretty great, actual tube synergy really important to get that good sound from a lot of recordings. For example, I can replace my preferred 75C1 input tube VRs with milder OB2s, OA2s or similar, and it can sound really good with most of the rest of the tubes amped up just so, but it becomes difficult for me to get a good sound across recordings. So in my setting, my input tube sound obviously needs the 75C1s for the broader balances of sound I need, and creating a baseline that is pretty consistent from the inputs no matter what else I try. Same with OB3s before the power tubes, OC3s and OA3s able to work really well on many recordings (with the right company), but across recordings styles, not so broadly flexible. To me, in my settings, both tend a little off balance, the OA3 a little too forceful, and the OC3 a little too open.
Also, once the tube set is well balanced for average recordings, that balance for me requires some latitude from the tubes used so that they don't easily become overstated with a little more signal juice since I need some quality gain tuning to make most recordings sound good... With gain riding a pre-stage with the amp gain, I can beef up the signal a little if the recording is lean, and tone down the signal if the recording is too dense and dark and needing opening.
Also, I find power and power filtration can have loads of influence on how powerful the signal feels/sounds, and related, how consolidated it is. Including the upper mid ranges sounding hard, when too consolidated and dense, it can fill in space and textures, limiting open, unsmeared sound necessary for harmonic textures and air. Like with tubes, I find more voltage at the wall leads to more signal intensity, which can lead to more consolidation. It can also happen from overdoing or using less transparent and fast parts for filtration, power cords and ICs. Or even pretty nice PC and IC designs, when too big for a system/room setting, can act the same, contributing to the feel and sound of overdoing signal intensity. Yet another set of relatively delicate balances toward finding an average balance that allows for tuning a range of recordings styles with gain tuning.
Clearly this can go the other way too, especially PCs into power conditioners and transparent tube amps, a too small cable can leave a system/room lean, which can also contribute to sharp upper ranges even when using really good cable materials and design, if they off-balance the spectral range toward too clean without enough warmth to carry that cleanliness. Or a cable might just be too hot due to less transparent materials and other design choices, and that can kill space and textures.
But again, even with nice cables that can allow good textures top to bottom when well balanced with the system/room, to me, if a little too big, they can sound like they create too much density/compression/consolidation.... So I find that generally, bigger/bolder cables of good quality, can be similar to bigger bolder tubes of good quality... these can be good, but sometimes they can seem good for "warmth" and bass, while also killing space and harmonics, and potentially making the bottom slow and even muddled, and the mids/upper mids too hot.
In my experience, all this points to the need to listen across the spectrum, and to a range of recording styles when analyzing the benefits or lack thereof of a system/room, and for changes. For example, the spectral balance alone could seem pretty good, but if there is not good fine detail and space from good speeds and resolution top to bottom, then to me, some balances are off. And overstating it is seductive, often making many good recordings sound good, or masking the highs with too much "warmth" and/or tubes, cables, etc can make an off-balance system seem more balanced for good recordings especially, but a broad range of recordings, to me, needs most balances balanced together. Similarly, compensating with tubes or cables that balance dark, and do not go high with good space and resolution across the spectrum, creates its own set of issues for getting the most from a broad range of recordings.
And on and on, everything effecting everything, I find it can be challenging to pinpoint issues and solutions until we have sorted most of them out without big compensations, big compensations sometimes seeming to help, but doing so from off-balancing the system/room just so, and rarely working across recordings in my experience. And even when things get pretty close, where everything is supporting everything else, we, and it are always changing, tubes being especially sort of alive and changing with use, contributing to the benefit of gradually trying to refine our discernment of most all ranges of what is happening in a system/room sound, while making it easier to get the magic.
And this is not even looking at room influences. So I am not suggesting that some of what you are having difficulty getting is not from recordings or your cartridge or setup.... but I have found that in the few relatively larger untreated rooms I have tried, I can get upper mids and highs that are not hard without killing bass and warmth. But I have worked at these balancing acts a long time inside and outside the gear, and the rooms I have tried without a lot of treatment still need a pretty notable bass EQ that is gradual and pretty mild from about 50 to 30, and growing steeper from about 30 down to 20, clearing up the lowest room aggravated muddle that can make the rest of the bass thick and smeared, which can also leak into the mids.
Lots of general observations, but things I have found to help in discerning issues and solutions toward balancing system/rooms.
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Dynagrid Jr. Reviews and Impressions (Read 4925 times)
