Raysonic 168

Fatcataudio
That does change things a bit... Might be why the 168 I believe shows a 2.3 volt output and the 128 a 2.2 volt out.. Also why it costs much more its got 4 Dac's to pay for opossed to a pair..

Which two tubes are used for the RCA outputs in the CD168. Is it the pair in the center? I understand the circuit is configured in matched pairs and a identical matched quad is not needed (for tube rolling purposes) Only a specific matched pair for either the RCA or XLR outputs.

Thanks

Rebl, Don't know about the 168, but I've done some tests with the tubes in my 128 and I've concluded that the 4 tubes act in concert to some degree, for example the tubes in the RCA output will affect the sounds from the XLR outputs. This in contrary to what I've been told and read (interestingly never by an authoritive source) but I became interested when I had a tube in the XLR output fail and it affected the RCA output which alone was connected. FWIW.

i have heard the 168 in my system, during a short break-in process of about 48 hours. according to a raysonic dealer, the player opens up and becomes more resolving as it approaches 168 hours, which, supposedly is a reasonable amount of time to allow before judging its presentation. from what i heard, there is no tube bloom and has the sound of a typical burr brown dac chip. it was not irritating, but was not very smooth either.

in many respects i prefer the musical fidelity a5. if the audio dealer is accurate in his appraisal, i suspect that this player may be unforgiving and very detailed.

Thanks, for the info. I believe what happened in your unit is that when one tube failed, the filament voltage increased in the remaining tubes due to lower current draw. Resulting in a percieved change in sound. I still need to known which pair is for the RCA outputs and which for the xlr.