I'm poking around for Jolida input/driver tube options also...Just to throw some other opinions in there, Michael Allen at Jolida likes the (expensive-ish) Phillips Mini Watts, and Jolida Jerred likes GEs. I have reservations about buying older NOS or "used but tested" tubes only because of inconsistency issues (although likely not an issue) and the fact that those little socket wires often look shopworn and corroded. Maybe an easy fix but still...it bugs me. I'm looking at new versions of various things that are both high gain and quiet but maybe sound different than the stock Tung Sol/EH that came with the 502P. Gold Lions maybe...or those Psvane versions. Again, so many opinions that I get dizzy, but I'll try something eventually. |
First, I'm no gentleman. Second, instead of wasting my $$$ on vintage tubes I'm merely enjoying my inexpensive, although perhaps not properly designed, Jolida. Apparently the rapidly aging triodes sound great. Who knew? WU KNEW! |
Jedinite24 makes a good point about Jolida in general...other amps I've looked at (and some I've actually listened to) are from VTL (85), Conrad Johnson, Cary, Rogue, and even a Tim de Paravicini EAR thing...all sell for multiples of the Jolida cost, and are they better? I'm not so sure...heresy yes, but really...the 502P sounds amazing. |
I hardly "fight it" (the low cost excellence of the 502P)...I think I celebrate it! (ad nauseum maybe, but I prefer enthusiasm to cool). I use a Chinese Kavent S-33 (before going out of production it was built alongside Vincent stuff) that is a Giant Killer so I'm hip to great things from our Chinese brothers, without whom I'd have paid several times over what my rig cost. |
Please don't lure me into the lurid world of Old Tubes. It just seems like an network of crazed and sweaty audio geeks yanking dusty old tubes from abandoned 1950s radios to put on questionable testers while trying not to knock the painted logos off. Give me a New Sensor shiny glass product instead! |
Although Philips "Mini Watts" are on my short list of things to try someday...is that so wrong? |
I've had insane luck with guitar amp tubes...the last time one failed on me was in my Magnatone combo in 1968. This includes constant gigging for YEARS using an old Boogie, a HiWatt, a 1960 blonde Bandmaster, various Twins, Marshalls, etc., etc... I had a 1960 all original brown tolex Deluxe that I used as a studio amp seemingly forever and finally changed some leaky caps and it sounded exactly the same. I mean really...all the effort used by me and everybody else to isolate and pamper our hifi stuff, and I watch an airport lunatic drop a Twin Reverb in an Anvil case 10 feet out of an airplane...that amp worked perfectly for about 6 more years until I sold it. |
Mechans...yeah...lurid is extreme as sometimes is my humor (only in the context of an often tedious forum) ...I'll change it to "tawdry." And besides, I'm into it anyway and I can afford it, but I tend to prefer "newer things I can break in myself." I admit that like other tube heads I sit there and think, "hmm...what would a dusty Bugle Boy sound like in there?" And who doesn't want to announce at a party that they scored a pair of Bugle Boys? Like when I "pounded 6 Circus Boys" with my girlfriend (Circus Boy wheat beer from Magic Hat). I've already got 3 sets of output tubes for my Jolida, and you can bet the small tubes will be piling up too. |
I use a PS Audio Humbuster III plugged into my trusty Adcom ACE 515. Seems to work splendidly. By the way...I noticed a very small mechanical (not in the speakers at all) buzz from the 502 when using the KT120s...not a big deal...but there...so I put the Sovtek KT88s back in (after trying the stock Tung Sol 6550s for a few days) and the buzz got smaller, and they seem work really well with the Tubestore "preferred 7025s." I keep swapping between these 3 sets of power tubes...I can't help it...I'm becoming really good with my bias meter. Considering some Gold Lion KT88s now and that will give me enough power tubes to last until 2047. |
Update: I switched the speaker outs on my 502p to the 4 ohm option, put the KT120s back in (I switch the power tubes around so often that I might wear out the sockets), and the slight mechanical hum went down to nearly inaudible. The combination of the new 7025 input tubes with the KT120s is sort of, like, awesome. I'm tellin' ya...this amp is astonishing. |
Yeah man. I've thought about the mono 502p path but my speakers seem to be efficient enough to make me not want to bother...and I don't really have the room with my current rack space...HOWEVER...let me know how that works out as I've never heard anybody's thoughts on 502p monos. And I could get a different rack...hmmm... |
