Tube buffer or tube dac?

EDUBAG

Hello guys,

like the title says i have been looking at an affordable way to get my feet wet with tubes and have come across the grant fidelity b283, which is similar to the yaqin cd2. Some people say it works and helps and others not so much.

While looking at grant's website i saw the dac-09 which uses a tube in the line somewhere. The b283 is on sale for 117 shipped and the dac is 225 shipped.

In your opinion which should be a better choice to get tube sound for my system? Please read signature to see my setup, also thinking of the dac since i own an apple tv, because it should help get a better sound from it (apple tv).

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and sharing,

regards,

eduardo

ben62670

A tubed Pre.

intangible

I looked into building a tube DAC in that price range a little while back, and basically every one of the designs I looked at was just your standard DAC with a tube buffer stage tacked on at the end. Maybe someone else can comment on whether this trend holds with the commercial stuff.

I had the Yaqin buffer you reference for a while, and the only sonic difference I noticed with it in the chain was a slight rolling off of the very high trebel range. A tube buffer isn't going to give you the warm midrange people typically associate with tubes, if that is what you are after. I agree with Ben here, go big or save your money until you can afford to go big.

EDUBAG

Bump...

More opinions needed

zingo

The tube DAC is a better option for you IMO as I don't like adding extra component into the signal path that don't need to be there.

Jetmaker737

I had the Yaqin CD2 at one time and had good luck with it in line with my Oppo when it was my CDP. That was my first tube piece. Now I have a tube CDP and tube Pre.

leroyjr1

A tube pre with HT bypass.

danger boy

tube DAC.. hooked up to a decent CD player as the transport.. i feel that you'll notice the best difference there....

plus you can roll in some different tubes in it. i like to keep about three different tubes around for just the reason..

soundfreak1

I'm with the tube pre guys 100% astounding diff.

allstock

I recently purchased a used soundstage vacuum two tube pre-amp.($200.00) Best addition BY FAR in my rig. It replaces a $4000.00(new) Denon avr5800.

inspiredsports

I caught the fever a few years ago and added a tube phono preamp for my turntable and I experimented with 2 different tube buffers (using them 1 at a time) between my CD player and preamp, and also between preamp and amp.

I felt I improved my rig, but not by a lot, and I spent a lot of time and money fooling around with modding, power supplies, rolling tubes, etc. I was able to sell everything for nearly what I paid and it covered the cost of my first tube preamp.

In retrospect, the learning experience was good, but I wasted time because the tube preamp made perhaps 5 times the improvement of the buffer.

After a very short period of time, I sold the first tube preamp and purchased an even better tube pre. Shortly after, I added a tube amp. I still have my SS rig right beside my tube rig, and it sounds very good, but there is no comparison to how good tubes sound.

I guess what I'm proposing is that there may really be no way to "get your feet wet" with tube gear as I feel you will eventually be "all in" (meaning at least a tube preamp).

If you have a way of auditioning tube gear, you may be time and money ahead if you skip the appetizers and go right to the main course :biggrin: