I’m sure everyone would agree that assessing sonic characteristics of parts in a complex audio system is extremely challenging due to component interactions, but here’s my experience.
Shinkohs and Riken Ohms are nice, but just too colored, in a nice way, to use more than just a few. Have tried the old Holcos, but despite added clarity, they were a little thin sounding in the system I had back then. The Dales are natural sounding as are the old Resistas, but neither of these are as transparent as the naked Vishays.
I think the resistor of choice is the TX2575. There may be some ultimate limits even on these. After swapping in almost 80 of these in the signal path of my 2 hybrid tube amps, 60 in the crossovers, and 70 in the phono stage, I had to put 2 Resistas back in to restore a little more midbass/lower mid-range warmth (the Dales would have worked equally well). That’s all it took. Sadly, I did lose just a touch of transparency.
There are always some tradeoffs. Everyone has there own preferences. It’s really amazing (maddening?) how much changing only a couple of parts can dramatically change the sound of a decent audio system. I’m hoping to be done with all this soon!
Shinkohs and Riken Ohms are nice, but just too colored, in a nice way, to use more than just a few. Have tried the old Holcos, but despite added clarity, they were a little thin sounding in the system I had back then. The Dales are natural sounding as are the old Resistas, but neither of these are as transparent as the naked Vishays.
I think the resistor of choice is the TX2575. There may be some ultimate limits even on these. After swapping in almost 80 of these in the signal path of my 2 hybrid tube amps, 60 in the crossovers, and 70 in the phono stage, I had to put 2 Resistas back in to restore a little more midbass/lower mid-range warmth (the Dales would have worked equally well). That’s all it took. Sadly, I did lose just a touch of transparency.
There are always some tradeoffs. Everyone has there own preferences. It’s really amazing (maddening?) how much changing only a couple of parts can dramatically change the sound of a decent audio system. I’m hoping to be done with all this soon!