Revising my math based on having more information. Based on using the LM508ia 500 hrs/yr : 6F8G/VT99/6sn7s = last 10,000 hrs @ $250= 20yrs = about $1/month EML 300B-XLS = last 40,000 hrs @ $700 = (more than rest of my life so)= about $2/month RCA 805 = last 5000 hrs @ $400 = 10 yrs = about $4/month Total = $7/month about the cost of a beer or a fancy coffee
They must have changed that listing to add BuyItNow, as it was auction only yesterday ... that's a great price if they play/test well!
Anyone use YOUDA Electronics to purchase the PSAVANE Acme 805s? They have them for $658 inc. shipping, best price I can find. Any other suggestions? Always scary to deal with these Chinese companies. Looks OK, but want to be sure before I plunk down my hard earned dollars.
A number of us here and elsewhere have used hifi-amplifiers.com with success. They are responsive and ship fast via DHL. I was able to get a pair of ACME 805's + ACME 300b's for $1450 all in, roughly the same price as what youda has. Unfortunately, one of the 805's was slightly broken (from factory or shipping even though packed very well) but he replaced it with a new pair via DHL. @thomaskong had a similar experience with a bad tube I believe (replaced). I had previously bought a pair of Linlai's from them and he offered to upgrade them to the higher E-series with no loss on my end other than shipping after I asked. I also believe he offered @thomaskong a free trial of Linlai 300b's. All of this speaks to at least one reputable and competitive Chinese shop.
Thanks Chris - they have them for $70 more than Youda, so I guess I'll have to decide if it's worth the savings to try them.
Chris, Yeah. They switched it to buy it now. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Under $370 with tax and shipping. Vintage RCA 805 JAN VT-143 Pair matching date codes | eBay
They gave me a 5% coupon for registering an account, so now cost is down to $625 shipped....so I'm taking the plunge. I'll let you know how it turns out. New version 1 Matched Pair Psvane A805 Acme Series HiFi Vacuume Tube 805
LM Enthusiasts, Anyone got a parts list/instructions for making the connection between the top of an RCA 805 to the LM? Or better yet, where to buy one? Thanks
I bought the acme 300b and linlai e6sn7 from hifi-amplifiers.com based on recommendation from here. The 300b pair I received pops whenever the LM 805 is powered on. I have zero pops with the stock 300b. hifi-amplifiers.com didn't want to do anything with it initially and made all sorts of stories, saying that its an issue with the amp. Upon pressing they asked me to ship it back which is a real hassle. I have always feared of this very same issue and now I am in it @Chris Amott, did they replace your 805 free of charge and you didn't have to ship anything back to them ? If so, you are lucky. I will probably skip hifi-amplifiers.com from now on based on my experience. There is one seller in ebay (I forget the name and have to look it up) said that if the tube is defective, they don't need you to return it back. The only condition is that the glass cannot be broken or something like that....
So based on experience from users on this forum and others, these are my thoughts: Psvane Tubes - it's quite possible that they have a QA issue given the number of broken tubes people seem to receive and what Grant Fidelity claimed before moving over to Linlai. When they work they sound great but there does seem to be a fairly high rejection rate on Psvane tubes. Still, less risky than buying "NOS" or vintage tubes on eBay imo. But more risky than brands like EML that seem to be super reliable. hifi-amplifiers.com - yes I had to ship the 805 back to them before they sent replacement. But I think this is pretty standard protocol with any tube or audio product reseller? So that did not surprise me. I do know that they have been responsive and have packed the items extremely well. I honestly don't think the tubes were damaged due to them. Sure, buying tubes from overseas does entail a bit more risk I suppose. I would probably do so again given the cost savings. I would be really surprised if there was any seller that was willing to replace a pair of $700 tubes without a return ... how would they get reimbursement from the manufacturer without a returned product?
Mangler, What parts did you get to connect your RCA 805 tube? Or did you buy it pre-made. Diameter of top of RCA? What goes into the little hole in the LM (what size)? Thanks
To tag someone, type the @ symbol immediately followed by the person's alias. Like this; @Jay805 I suggest you search the thread for RCA. There's a bunch of posts where a couple of members talked about this very thing. I had mine made by my tech.
So it turns out that the same seller listed another pair of RCA VT-143's for the same great price. I couldn't resist as admittedly the ACME 805's did not immediately impress me as much as the ACME 300B's, which I love. I still feel like there is some grain in my system that I want to get rid of and I do know that the Linlai's were a bit better in that respect compared to the ACME's (but not otherwise). Regardless, I will shortly have either a pair of ACME 805's or RCA 805's up for sale .... @Jay805 I also bought a pair of these caps/wires (to save myself the hassle of ordering white wire separately) ... Item Title: Tube Tester 9/16" Anode Grid Cap and 18" 20KV Wire for 805 811 813 572B 866A 872 ... and some 2mm banana plugs from Amazon 10sets Black/Red 2mm Small Banana Plug Connectors Gold Plate Wire Solder Type Banana Plugs for 2mm Banana Jack Plug Adapter
Congrats! The latest thing that got rid of a lot of grain and kept details intact while providing extended highs was a change in speaker cables. Kimber Kables PR8 are mightily impressive for the price! Never thought a speaker cable would yield a big difference but they sure did.
Congrats Chris, I hope you post a detailed comparison between the RCAs and Acmes. How would you describe the word “grain”? Thanks
Fair enough, “grain” is one of these amorphous audiophile terms that are hard to to objectively define. I guess to me it means course, dirty, not fluid sounding and lacking finesse in the upper mid-range/lower-treble. Most obvious in upper registers of vocals. Not sure as to objective cause entirely - possible distortion or noise or some harmonics at those frequencies? For the past few months I have been unknowingly mitigating this by upsampling to DSD from PCM which tends to smooth out sound somewhat. I didn’t really originally make this change just because of ‘grain’ but that was one of the consequences. During the process of dialing in the ACME 805’s I tried going back to PCM output and realized that DSD upsampling was smoothing things out too much throughout the entire frequency range - at least into my Lampizator DAC - and I have decided I don’t like it anymore. But now I am once again more conscious of any ‘grain’. I also went back to through my history trying to figure out when/why I had started using DSD upsampling more often. I believe it was when I was trying different tubes in the 6SN7 slots. I decided to swap out my ECC32’s for my TS BGRP’s and this seems to have helped things. I do recall that at the time the ECC32’s added a bigger soundstage but possibly with a bit more grain. Yes I know that this is counter to most subjective opinions of the Mullards (as @Stratmangler will say), but maybe the cheap pair I got from tube depot are worn out or I just seem to have an issue with the ‘muddiness’ of Mullards in general, or the extra gain from the ECC32’s in this amp gets exposed as such. 6F8G’s were good in this regard but not as big and holographic as the ECC32’s. One thing I have learnt is that the best test of a change is to actually wait a while and then take the new change back OUT and see what you think without it. This is more informative than initial impressions. Secondly, never change two things at the same time! (No matter how hard it is to wait. sorry, TMI and a very long answer to your question.
Good to know. I am not a big believer in cables and have tried to avoid going down that rabbit-hole - tube rolling is plenty big enough! But I have been tempted to try some Auditorium 23 as they were well liked with SET amps ...
I have not heard a ton of difference between speaker cables but I did sell my Wireworld Eclipse 8's to try a pair of Auditorium 23's. I did it mainly since everyone who runs DeVore O/96's swear by them. John DeVore recommended them as did Don Better (my dealer). They did make a notable difference - not enormous, but the music does seem to flow more effortlessly. Even my 17 yr old daughter said she could tell the difference. It essentially cost me $0 because I sold for Wireworld's for what the A23's cost me. I'm not sure I'd do it for amp synergy, more for speaker synergy, especially if you're running speakers with 10+ ohm impedance like mine.
I know what you mean. I had my doubts from the beginning but there was a great deal on those and I figured I wasn't risking anything by jumping on it since I could resell it at no loss so I thought "Fine, I'll give it a try". My attitude is more "Prove to me this is worth it!" instead of being immediately a believer. I've sold stuff that really didn't have anything to back up the hype in my view and I've kept stuff that I initially thought would be a fun experiment where I could confirm that component X doesn't matter. In this case, I was quite surprised at the difference and am now a bit bummed because you know that I'll eventually need to spend more to get even better sound down the line but these were thankfully a great bang-for-the-buck result so I'll likely stick with those for a long while. $150 US used is what they cost me. Most tubes I've bought cost me much more than that.
The speaker cable is a trickier one. I tried couple of different pairs with the LM. The one that works best with my Pass Amp/Speaker combo does not work too well with the LM/Speaker. I am still on the hunt to find a better match and have been experimenting currently with DIY Duelund and Neotech. They take a while to break-in, so will see how that goes but I believe a speaker cable is dependent on both the Amp and Speaker combo.
