>stock tubes are utter trash

Amp comes with a full set of JJ tubes lol.

I always wonder why vintage tubes are held in such high regard. I recently got a very old Sylvania 6SN7GTB, the one with a chrome top and yellow font, and to be honest, with the grain of salt that my amp is on the budget side of things, JJ 6SN7, Tung-Sol 6SN7 and EH 6SN7 Gold are all just as good from my testing.

Maybe all of this is very circuitory dependant, but my vintage tube experience has been a letdown so far. Most of the tubes hummed and some sounded very flat. The Sylvania tube sounds great, but it's not a huge change from all the newer stuff I've mentioned.

Just did a quick test with the Sylvania against the JJ6SN7: vocals are a little richer on the NOS tube, but only ever so slightly, like a 5% difference imo

Wow, lol, I just posted about the Cayin N3Pro, and then you go head and shoulders above me and post this :-)

First real sound impressions as I have now received the Sylvania 5814a & Reflektor 6V6GT tubes and I have kept the same stock rectifier tube for now....

Firstly the stock tubes are utter trash and I really didn't like them. The sound was too smoothed over and details were lost in the music and it annoys me how modern tubes are still far off in the quality of the sound compared to vintage tubes. I used the LCD 4 for this session as people say this headphone really scale endlessly to better gear and I can say this session was the best I have heard them and I didn't think it was possible to achieve such results. I have got the Topping A90D and Schiit Lyr + as my other amps and they aren't in the same solar system to the HA-3A with vintage tubes installed. I actually used the stock LCD 4 1/4 jack cable and there was no hissing compared to the XLR connection. The amount of power in the HA-3A meant that I never went past 12 o clock on the volume dial.

So with these new tubes the stage became wider and decay on notes became a lot more apparent. I could really focus on a single note in the background and hear all its decay. Music that I've listened to for years revealed extra hidden details that I could just not hear with my other amps. The background was absolutely dark and clear which was one of the most impressive things because the music feels like its just floating and appearing in a completely dark background and I was truly amazed. The tonality was also perfect in its delivery of the instruments and vocals and nothing was shouty which is tube dependent I guess but this is my 1st try with different tubes so the result is great. The bass had less punch than the Schiit Lyr + (with Sylvania Bad Boy Tube) but I feel like it was more detailed and the decay was a lot better and overall more balanced. It's also incredible of how precise but musical everything was and it all blended together to create some weeping during my listening to tracks like California Hotel (MTV live version). Lastly I didn't notice any fall off in speed and EDM tracks were highly enjoyable to listen to.

I now have the confidence in this amp to save up for the the Abyss AB 1266 Phi TC because I know this amp has the resources to take full advantage of that headphone. The Schiit Lyr + and Topping A90D can kick dust and will be sold. I will only keep the Ifi Zen Can as a backup just in case.

Nice setup!

For tubes especially it's so much more expensive for idk, a negligible change in overall audio performance. Of course I can only speak for the Xduoo TA-26 (and the Fosi Audio T3, not a good amp) and well, I do not know how good something like the Bottlehead Crack would perform (and I won't ever find out, because importing things to Europe is such a pain).

I do have heard that tube amps like the Eufonika H5 perform very nicely and I 100% trust that this is true, though I won't try it out. Sure, better capacitors, probably better circuitory too that operates at the tube's limits and such, but I highly doubt this will make a significant difference.

But all that said, reviewers and audiophiles like their beautiful words and fancy descriptions, but in reality everything is a little bit less awesome that most reviews say.

good to know thx. i will keep it off and only use it with techno cause moa bass baby

Thanks for the info! I looked into it and the hype hasn't really gotten to me honestly. I feel like anything beyond my current setup will require me to spend much more money and time researching for such a small difference that I will probably not notice, it's just not worth it to me.

Thank you

Its the equivalent of DTS: neo6 or Theater dimentional listening modes on home theater systems. Regardless if the source material contains Atmos metadata, it will either directly decode that data and output in Atmos, or, take non-atmos data and fake it do virtual atmost upscaling. ie Its trying emulating Atmos, without atmos data.

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Its preferential. Keep it on if you like it. I go back and forth, for casual listening, but off for critical listening since it boosts the volume, and obviously does some sort of EQing to bring the highs out more.

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I'd not try to EQ with it on though, its dynamic in nature and will change based on what music its given. So if you apply EQ after wards, you'll get some odd behavior between different songs.

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EQ without it for better consistency between content.

Let's just stay I got a friend in Argentina 😉

A lot of people say that the R70x sounds better with a dedicated amp, but realistically you don't need to spend that money if the headphones are loud enough and don't have pick up any noise from your motherboard. This is a bigger issue with cheaper/older components, I have an Asus x570 board and the dac is shielded from noise quite well (I still use a headphone amp but that's just because I enjoy it, not because it's a requirement).

With the Sony eq turned off and only Atmos it sounds like it's coming through a metal can.

do you have any equalization on, on either atmos or sony headphones app, if yes i suggest using only one (i prefer atmos one) as for app comparability it works on all apps at least on my oneplus 9 pro

Oh dang. That sucks.

Qobuz isn't available in quite a few countries

Don't let yourself get hyped up by tubes. Some tube amps really sound super close to solid state. Imho it can be a real waste of money, but everyone on here just blindly recommends tubes all the time.

Source: I have an Xduoo TA-26. A well received tube amp, swapped a ton of different tubes in and can confidently say that there's maybe a 5% difference at best.

Always try a tube amp next to your solid state amp before buying anything, if you can, because some of them sound so clean that you wouldn't be able to spot the differences. I love my setup, but I could live without tubes if I'm honest with myself.

What was your setup before? And also, as a former Tidal customer, I’d recommend Qobuz over them. Hi-res > MQA.

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Thanks

I got mine from offer up. It looked like a return/refurb reseller. I also saw some options on eBay and /r/Avexchange but since the price hike prices are a bit higher.

How to get open box hd6xx in Canada? Looking to order one. Any advice?

Nice setup. What cable did you get? It looks nice.

Very very nice, hd6xx is an amazing pair of headphones for the price, their vocal and mids presentation is insane versus what you pay for them.

I'd recommend the Topping DX3 Pro+, it's a tad cheaper than the FiiO K7

Yeah, it's been a huge upgrade from my Razer headset. I've read tubes pair well might consider that in the future.