Tube Rolling?

[Fido 650]

Last year I bought a Primaluna EVO 400 and love it. It came with EL34 tubes and they sound great. I recently changed the two preamp tubes to Brimars and those sound awesome. I am now considering rolling some power tubes as I have never tube rolled. So many choices and so many opinions but my wife wants a Christmas list so here is what I am considering. Tung Sol KT-150s or Gold Lion K77s or Primaluna KT 88s? have any of you tried these tubes in your Primaluna Integrated amps?

 

Since the EVO 400 has 8 power tubes I'd like to get it right the first time.

[rmlowz 108]

I would also consider the Gold Lion KT66. I just ordered a quad for my amp. I like the KT66s deeper bass and fuller mids with just the right high notes to my old ears

Rich

[Fido 650]

32 minutes ago, rmlowz said:

I would also consider the Gold Lion KT66. I just ordered a quad for my amp. I like the KT66s deeper bass and fuller mids with just the right high notes to my old ears

Rich

thanks Rich for the feeback

 

[Drewg 152]

Following, as I am in the same boat as you, Fido. I have the dialogue premium HP and I am currently using the Brimars that sound great.

[bkwa1959 300]

Fido if you change tubes and get it right the first time let me know,I can’t leave well enough alone.

I have he same amp as you and I have tried gold lion kt-66’s,factory el-34’s and gold lion kt-88’s and they all sound great in the amp.

KT-66 tubes have a tad more bass with a smooth top end

The bass on the factory tubes is not as deep as the kt-66 

I settled on kt-88’s as to me they do everything right and when I listen with these tubes on my Klipschorns it like the artist is right in front of me.

I swapped out the 12au7’s with different types of British tubes, ge 5 star and my dealer sent me 6 sylvania 6189 made in 1967 and after a couple of weeks of break in they are my favorites.15.00 a piece and they are giant killers.

[DirtyErnie 42]

Out of curiosity, have you tried JJ's?

[jimjimbo 10398]

I just installed a quad of gold lion KT 88 in a Scott LK 150 from Jim McShane and with a little under 20 hours on them I am pretty happy about the purchase.  They biased very easily and are very quiet.

[angelaudio 24]

I spent some time listening to my friends Evo 400 again recently using all the stock tubes including EL34's. When we first tried it, it was almost unlistenable on its own with the Heresy IV and Heresy II because it was just so bright and brittle sounding at first. For that reason, he was using a separate solid state preamp to add some roll-off. I must admit I was somewhat skeptical about break-in but now I'm a believer. Since he been breaking it in for many hours over the past few months, the Evo 400 sounds amazing on its own now. It doesn't sound bright and brittle anymore. Soundstage is big, wide and beautiful. 

[rebuy 678]

On 12/1/2020 at 6:37 PM, Fido said:

Last year I bought a Primaluna EVO 400 and love it. It came with EL34 tubes and they sound great. I recently changed the two preamp tubes to Brimars and those sound awesome. I am now considering rolling some power tubes as I have never tube rolled. So many choices and so many opinions but my wife wants a Christmas list so here is what I am considering. Tung Sol KT-150s or Gold Lion K77s or Primaluna KT 88s? have any of you tried these tubes in your Primaluna Integrated amps?

 

Since the EVO 400 has 8 power tubes I'd like to get it right the first time.

 

When you Tube Roll, I guess you have to have Burn in Time for the tubes?

Kinda like starting over again?

My EVO 300 only has about 20 Hours or so and I'm gonna

leave it on for a few days for that reason.

Thoughts about this?

[Fido 650]

I didn’t notice burn in differences on the original el 34s or burn in with the KT 150s but I don’t notice everything