I can’t answer directly as I’ve not owned one. But if you buy one used ( $2500 single ended / $3000 balanced ) it is not cost effective. Plus they have JJ tubes and you’ll probably drop another $500 tube rolling plus an extra pair of interconnects and a power cord. If I were in your position I’d buy a nice tube integrated amp like a Prima Luna or a Rogue ( Rogue is more SS sounding ) or one of the dozen nice integrated amps at the $3-4K used range. Or sell the Yamaha and get a used Coda or Luxman integrated. I think you’d be happier in the long run. Now if you can get a tube buffer for under $1K that would be worth considering. Cheers , Mike B.
ModWright Tube Buffer
Does anyone have any experience with the ModWright Analog Bridge Tube Buffer? I'm thinking about adding it between my Musician Pegasus R2R dac and a Yamaha A-S1200, but am a little put off by the price (~ $3,000 used) considering it's nearly as much as the Yamaha.
I'm generally satisfied with the Yamaha/Pegasus combination, but miss the tube flavor that used to power my Klipsch Cornwall IVs. I've contemplated returning to a full tube amp, but I really don't want to deal with the revolving door of tube replacement (I put a lot of hours per week on my system).
Thanks for your thoughts.
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If you want to get serious about a tube buffer -- https://spl.audio/en/spl-produkt/tube-vitalizer/. I used one for about three years. In use it can be complicated or quite simple. It's balanced input/output only. |
I had the original Musical Fidelity tube buffer back in 1996. Excellent build quality and made in England. I think it was $200.00 if I recall and had a cool design. It didn’t hurt the sound at all, but also didn’t make any appreciable positive difference either. It was certainly cool looking though. I ended up selling it along with the matching Musical Fidelity X-DAC a few years later. |
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