Lab12 Melto 2 - tube rolling

@billstevenson 

Your recommendations on CH P10 and CJ Art phono’s are well noted. Unfortunately, they’re a bit outside my budget especially new, though I might get lucky on the used market. I’m trying to keep the phono stage under $20K so I can properly allocate funds toward the two cartridges….the Etsuro Gold and the Murasakino Sumile Mono which is already a $20K commitment.

Another reason I’m not leaning toward CH is that I want at least one tube component in an otherwise solid-state system, and the phono stage is really my only opportunity to do that. The rest of my setup is pretty much locked in.

That said, I’m keeping an open mind and really appreciate your input. At the end of the day, it’s all about finding that one piece that puts a big smile on your face.

among 6922s that are performing within RCA manual spec, there should not be much difference.
 

should is the key word there @lewm 

I heard a pretty substantial difference last night between the Siemens and EH. 
But then again I hear differences between power cords, Ethernet cables and usb cables…and there shouldn’t be any…

i have literally a couple hundred 6dj8/6922 type tubes from years of running c-j and arc gear, mostly collected in the 80s 90s 00s - usa western eastern european as well as japanese origins

happy to help if there are some varieties folks here may want to try

Audphile, were those all new in box tubes you compared?  Differences can be due to age of the tube. Tubes lose transconductance as they age.  But I certainly do not doubt you hear what you hear. I hear differences between a 12AU7 and a 12FQ7 used as a CF in my Quicksilver preamp, even though those tubes have identical specs.  The FQ does draw twice the filament current of the AU, so somewhere in there may be a key to the sonic differences.  The difference is decidedly in favor of the FQ way over the AU, in this case.  My other point was that the sonic difference probably would be lessened in the presence of a CCS, and for the overall better than eithr tube without a CCS.

@lewm the tubes I borrowed from my buddy: Siemens are from 1976, the Russian 6H23P EB are between 20-30 years old.
The EH tubes that came stock with the phono stage are from 2022.

I ordered the current production Gold Lions to baseline against the NOS and help with the decision making process on how to proceed.