wetowne

So may I assume from your answer to my first question that the answer to my second question would be no.

I can only offer advice based on my personal experience. Over the past 8 months that I have used the A10 with the tube adapters I can report no loss of sound quality or any issues at all. They work just fine. Rewiring in my opinion would be a waste of time and money. Try the adapters and don't worry about them. Just enjoy the amp.

I'm just curious. Is your opinion on adapters based in theory or in practice? Did you have a negative experience using an adapter where you could actually hear a degradation in sound?

I use dBpoweramp with Accuraterip, also my cd's were well cared for and in pristine condition. I really can't tell the difference between my rips and Tidal 44.1/16.

Today Steve Guttenberg the Audiophiliac posted a link on his YouTube channel to a free download of high quality audiophile recordings that are very very good sounding. Minimal production two microphone, two track, uncompressed recordings of some interesting jazz and ethnic stuff. There's twelve tracks and the files are 44.1/16bit wav. Worth a listen and a good work out for your system.

I ripped my whole collection of cd's to flac files and store the files on a micro-sd card. That card sits in a slot in my wireless router which acts a NAS device. I stream over WI-Fi from the router to three different systems in my house either using Chromecast Audio or a HifiBerry Digi+ Pro into whatever dac I choose. I use a tablet or phone to control everything. No PC involved except for the initial ripping. It all works great and sounds great and was a very cost effective solution. My cd's are now in a box in the basement and my cd players are decorative.

Probably not helpful to the OP but take some time to you rip your CD's to FLAC then stream them. IMO, a good streaming device with a good dac beats a cd player every time. My player sits on the shelf for looks only or to play a cd I haven't ripped yet.

Easy Peasy.

Nice post. I thought about getting one of those back in the day, opted for an omnidirectional outdoor halo mounted in my attic instead. I miss good quality FM broadcasting it's pretty much a thing of the past

https://www.ebay.com/i/292630824158?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=292630824158&targetid=886140166958&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9002262&poi=&campaignid=9426387570&mkgroupid=98549529271&rlsatarget=pla-886140166958&abcId=1140476&merchantid=101678628&gclid=Cj0KCQjwy6T1BRDXARIsAIqCTXqFzIpensnjcXzhEG0RifpfmnHlHzquHkmMPm3rfbmGrGUcgSFJyiQaAtd5EALw_wcB Plug and Play

Thanks for the suggestion. I just ordered a matched pair NOS Voskhod Rockets for 20 bucks shipped. We'll see how they sound in a couple of days.

Glorious Mono! I love it. I listen to lots of mono recordings. I do feel there is a benefit to listening on a well placed set of stereo speakers though. Sit in the sweet spot and you get a good sense of depth that you don't get with one speaker.

Let me share my experience so far. The 5z4p rectifier is for the power supply side and is not really in the direct audio stream, if it's defective it could introduce noise into both channels but unlikely, so rolling those isn't going to do much for you. You might want to get some spares for backup just in case. I went with the originals they're cheap on eBay. The 6n2's are a bit of problem, they sound just fine but there are really no substitutes available for rolling, for that you'll need to go with 12xa7 variants, to use those tubes you will either have to rewire the tube sockets or get an adapter. You can find the adapters on eBay also. I got some JJ ECC83s and these are a definite improvement on the originals, they give more detail and space to the music that I listen to, which is mostly small jazz combos and chamber music. The original output tubes are not bad at all but so far I've rolled JJ kt-77's and Mullard el34's into the mix. I've experimented with almost all the possible combinations and I like the ECC83s with the Mullards the best. The ECC83s play really well with the Shuguangs also. With rock music the kt-77's might be better, they're more aggressive and have a little more bass. I got everything from Amazon and eBay.

I am generally in the bits is bits camp but I do admit there are some variables to be considered. Here's a link that is informative even if some of it is suspect. Consider the source as they do sell expensive cables https://upscaleaudio.com/pages/bits-is-bits

I love raspberry Pi for audio. Currently running a 3B with a Digi Plus Pro hat into a Schiit Modi 3. It runs Volumio. I stream flac files from a micro-sd card loaded into my wireless router and from Tidal using the built in Tidal interface, it'll do Qubuz too. It all works flawlessly, sounds damn good and is easy and inexpensive to do. Assembly of the unit and loading the Volumio operating system took about an hour. Use my phone or tablet to control it. Great stuff indeed.