No matter what the "known,believed" excellence of anything audio is... You can be relied upon to basically come up with a new,not usually known/considered take on the subject!
Wow, thank you.....I think! 8-) I've tried to behave myself since my "contributions" to the Gabriel Gold thread last year.
I notice that my system-implementation priorities are much different than many people here. I read the reported major improvements of moving a VTA adjustment 1 mm or 2 and suddenly hearing images lock in. But I notice that many such systems use stock power cords, have little attention to power distribution, use stock tubes, have severely compromised ICs and tonearm cables, etc., and I shake my head. In my system I can move the Graham 2.2 VTA dial quite a bit and not observe anything like what I read about here. But I can change the IC from the line stage to the amp and hear changes that far exceed the claims of VTA adjustments. And thus I have focused much attention to this system link.
And look at the discussion concerning the RIAA accuracy to 0.1db. But if I can not be convinced that there is a piano before me with its incredible fundamental tone and follow-on harmonic structure and decay, the whole technical discussion of RIAA accuracy to this level is irrelevant. No matter how accurate the tonality might be, without the dimensionality being convincing, the game is over for me.
Last night the differences between two 7062 D-getter tubes in the Aria line stage were HUGE. I was going back and forth between the Graham2.2/ClearaudioAccurate and Zeta/KoetsuRWS because I could not decide which one was more fun to compare these two tube pairs. One pair was so much more holographic and dynamic and the other mellow and smooth. But both pairs put the piano in the room. With any number of other tubes on hand, this one key performance parameter would nose dive in an instant even though the tonality is much the same amongst all these tubes.
I have observed such tube differences since I got the tube-rolling bug with the Aesthetix 5 years ago. That's why I wanted to suggest to Noguerol not to commit exclusively to Tele or any other tube brand.
Trying different tubes can result in a discovery that can take one's system to a level that even a preamp upgrade can not achieve. Look at those who upgrade their preamp loaded with Sovtek tubes for another preamp loaded with Sovtek tubes. Gosh, it makes no sense as they never had a chance to hear the potential of what they had before.
