It's been a LONG LONG time since I've really done any critical listening, so it was fun to get back to it a bit today. Walls was kind enough to send me his LD2++ to try out (sorry it took so long, Walls), along with three sets of preamp tubes - or whatever you call the smaller tubes in a headphone amp, never did quite figure that out. Here's the rig:
The Jade is on the left, the LD is the one with the headphones connected. The silver box is a user-upgraded DAC that I got on Head-Fi years ago when I started all this. You can't see it in this photo but the DAC is connected via optical toslink to a squeezebox. The headphones are my only current full-size cans, my heavily modded Denon D5000.
I picked a set of 10 songs to demo with, tracks I've (mostly) not used before as demo material, but things that have struck me in recent years as particularly good recordings. Everything from Norah Jones to Liszt piano to Beth+Joe to Brahms symphony. Tried to get a good variety.
Here's a closeup of the three sets of preamp tubes. These are, from left to right, Mullard M8161, Ediswan EF92, and Mullard EF92. The larger/power tubes in the LD are some sort of Chinese from what little I could tell, maybe Walls knows more.
Observation: the LD2 runs HOT. And I don't mean the tubes, of course those warm up, but the whole body of the LD2 gets really hot to the touch even after an hour or so of listening. Wow.
As you can see in the photo, I wrote down a few brief notes for each track, and for each set of tubes with the LD2 and the Jade (didn't do tube rolling with the Jade today, already been through that years ago). Here's my overall impressions of each rig:
LD + Ediswan: generally a bit mushy and soft, especially when the music is loud and full, detail gets lost. Soundstage is a kinda narrow. Imaging is not great.
LD + Mullard EF92: obvious improvement over the Ediswan. Imaging is tighter, soundstage broader. Still a little strain when things get loud and full, especially if a lot of bass is present. There's an odd emphasis in the upper midrange that I didn't quite like.
LD + Mullard M8161: the clear winner with the LD2, IMHO. Good balance with nice crisp high end - I tend to like some "crispness" in the very high frequencies. Maybe possibly a bit bright, but I liked the overall balance. Good imaging and soundstage.
Jade: Good clean and punchy low bass. Excellent soundstage (I kinda optimized for that when doing my tube rolling). Maybe not quite so crisp on the top, but a little smoother overall.
So now... while I'd love to claim that my beloved Jade is far superior... well it is in some ways, but not others. Where the Jade shines for me is in the low end, and the breadth of the soundstage. Overall I thought the LD2 lacked a little in the bass, it was a little muddy down there; and when there's a lot of bass in the mix the rest of the instrumentation suffered a bit in clarity. Not so with the Jade. It's bass is low and tight, and other frequencies still come out well even when bass is full. However, there's occasionally some audible distortion in some cases with the Jade, that I didn't hear with the LD2; in particular a couple spots with solo violin where there's a bit of an overtone/echo, and some distortion in a full choral piece when it gets loud. These are things I had heard when I first got the Jade, but thought I had gotten rid of. It's possible my tubes are wearing out after the many many hours I've put on them. Not sure I want to go through that all over again.
Dammit Walls, now you've got me wanting to try a really good solid state amp to compare with the various tube amps I've heard. :angry-banghead: :laughing-rolling: I've said before, tube rolling is the blessing and curse of tube amps. You can tune it to a way that is pleasing to you - not claiming it's more "neutral" or anything, just that I like the sound I get with my Jade. I've tried some cheapo ss amps which were clearly lacking. So now I want to see if I go higher end in ss, whether that will be as pleasing to me as the "tubey" sound. Sigh.
Anyway, this has been a fun experiment. Thanks, Walls. Neither the LD2 nor the Jade are really that high-end in the tube amp world, either. Next time I visit Zing I'm gonna have to bring my Jade along to do some head-to-head with the Woo. (No Zing, I don't think I want to buy another tube amp right now... :hand: ) Maybe I'll go troll around on head-fi and see what's out there in the ss world, it's been a long time since I've looked into any headphone gear.
Ugh, the curse of being a critical listener. Never pay too much attention to your gear unless you want to risk requiring an upgrade! :teasing-tease:
The Jade is on the left, the LD is the one with the headphones connected. The silver box is a user-upgraded DAC that I got on Head-Fi years ago when I started all this. You can't see it in this photo but the DAC is connected via optical toslink to a squeezebox. The headphones are my only current full-size cans, my heavily modded Denon D5000.
I picked a set of 10 songs to demo with, tracks I've (mostly) not used before as demo material, but things that have struck me in recent years as particularly good recordings. Everything from Norah Jones to Liszt piano to Beth+Joe to Brahms symphony. Tried to get a good variety.
Here's a closeup of the three sets of preamp tubes. These are, from left to right, Mullard M8161, Ediswan EF92, and Mullard EF92. The larger/power tubes in the LD are some sort of Chinese from what little I could tell, maybe Walls knows more.
Observation: the LD2 runs HOT. And I don't mean the tubes, of course those warm up, but the whole body of the LD2 gets really hot to the touch even after an hour or so of listening. Wow.
As you can see in the photo, I wrote down a few brief notes for each track, and for each set of tubes with the LD2 and the Jade (didn't do tube rolling with the Jade today, already been through that years ago). Here's my overall impressions of each rig:
LD + Ediswan: generally a bit mushy and soft, especially when the music is loud and full, detail gets lost. Soundstage is a kinda narrow. Imaging is not great.
LD + Mullard EF92: obvious improvement over the Ediswan. Imaging is tighter, soundstage broader. Still a little strain when things get loud and full, especially if a lot of bass is present. There's an odd emphasis in the upper midrange that I didn't quite like.
LD + Mullard M8161: the clear winner with the LD2, IMHO. Good balance with nice crisp high end - I tend to like some "crispness" in the very high frequencies. Maybe possibly a bit bright, but I liked the overall balance. Good imaging and soundstage.
Jade: Good clean and punchy low bass. Excellent soundstage (I kinda optimized for that when doing my tube rolling). Maybe not quite so crisp on the top, but a little smoother overall.
So now... while I'd love to claim that my beloved Jade is far superior... well it is in some ways, but not others. Where the Jade shines for me is in the low end, and the breadth of the soundstage. Overall I thought the LD2 lacked a little in the bass, it was a little muddy down there; and when there's a lot of bass in the mix the rest of the instrumentation suffered a bit in clarity. Not so with the Jade. It's bass is low and tight, and other frequencies still come out well even when bass is full. However, there's occasionally some audible distortion in some cases with the Jade, that I didn't hear with the LD2; in particular a couple spots with solo violin where there's a bit of an overtone/echo, and some distortion in a full choral piece when it gets loud. These are things I had heard when I first got the Jade, but thought I had gotten rid of. It's possible my tubes are wearing out after the many many hours I've put on them. Not sure I want to go through that all over again.
Dammit Walls, now you've got me wanting to try a really good solid state amp to compare with the various tube amps I've heard. :angry-banghead: :laughing-rolling: I've said before, tube rolling is the blessing and curse of tube amps. You can tune it to a way that is pleasing to you - not claiming it's more "neutral" or anything, just that I like the sound I get with my Jade. I've tried some cheapo ss amps which were clearly lacking. So now I want to see if I go higher end in ss, whether that will be as pleasing to me as the "tubey" sound. Sigh.
Anyway, this has been a fun experiment. Thanks, Walls. Neither the LD2 nor the Jade are really that high-end in the tube amp world, either. Next time I visit Zing I'm gonna have to bring my Jade along to do some head-to-head with the Woo. (No Zing, I don't think I want to buy another tube amp right now... :hand: ) Maybe I'll go troll around on head-fi and see what's out there in the ss world, it's been a long time since I've looked into any headphone gear.
Ugh, the curse of being a critical listener. Never pay too much attention to your gear unless you want to risk requiring an upgrade! :teasing-tease:
but ... eh what the hell, I did a 180 on my comment to Zing above, and just bought his WA6 - couldn't pass it up when he told me what he wanted for it. :banana-rock:
