Ready to break my Tube Gear virginity

Strong Bad

Thanks to all you ****'s talking up tube gear, i'm in the midst of completing a deal with Shizelbs for a sweet Dodd ELP. I should have it in hand on Thursday, home and hooked up in the evening and probably touching myself in weird ways at the anticipated sweetness coming through my SRS 2.3's (w/silky dome tweets). I was told that a set of Jan Phillips tubes were added in the deal.

In the middle of the mix is a Carver m1.5t amp. Gotta get rid of the cheesy **** old monster cable speaker wires. I have a set of Audioquest interconnects bridging the amp/preamp gap.

Stay tuned tube gear fans....

ohskigod

your in for a treat. while I dont use my Dodd anymore, I still wont part with it. its a great little pre, and a HELL of a way to enter the world of tubes.

my personal fave is the Amperex bugle boy 6dj8's

with the Carver amp and the SDA's, thats gonna be a honey of a rig.

reeltrouble1

great way to get into tubes, the Dodd popped my cherry as well.

RT1

audiobliss

Awesome news! Let us know what you think of it!

Shizelbs

What speakers are you using?

I agree with ohskigod, the Bugle Boys were my favorite tubes in that pre so far. The Jan Phillips were not far behind.

Strong Bad

SDA-SRS 2.3 w/silk dome tweeters. I'll see about the bugle boys down the road a little bit.

steveinaz

I know what you mean John, these bastads have got me looking at tubed pre's as well.....


...must not do it...must re---sist....cannot afford....must resist...

ND13

The ELP was my cherry buster, too!!!
Still have mine and will never let it go.

+1 on the Amperex Bugle Boys, PQs, or Orange Globes. I prefer the halo getters a bit more over the dimpled.

Ricardo

Congrats on a good decision; you'll love it. I've got my 1.2 TL's with a Dared tube pre (and a JBL Urei SS amp) and they sound really sweet....

jtgranby

Gotta get rid of the cheesy **** old monster cable speaker wires.

John I'm sending you a PM.

JT

halo

Popped my cherry with the Sheng Ya tube CDP. IMO - The more tube gear you add, the better it gets.

Strong Bad

jtgranby wrote:

Gotta get rid of the cheesy **** old monster cable speaker wires.

John I'm sending you a PM.

JT

Damn, I wish my company would make me an offer on that position. I need more $$$ to keep up on this habit!

dorokusai

Just listen to the tubes you have, worry about what to buy later.

Enjoy what it adds to your rig, don't overthink it or you'll ruin it for months.

Fireman32

I was against tubes myself untill ohskigod hooked me up and now i dont want to listen to anything else

halo

Fireman32 wrote:

I was against tubes myself untill ohskigod hooked me up and now i dont want to listen to anything else

Ya, same for me except it was SCompRacer that got me started. He brought that Ah! Njoe CDP with him for a visit. Once he hooked it up that was the begining of the end for SS in my rig.

Strong Bad

Unit arrived today in perfect condition! Packed the regular Polk Forum member way...to withstand a nuclear attack! Great job Shizelbs! The check is in transit.

What a cool looking piece of gear!!! It has it's own unique badass look!

Hooking it up tonight. After my first few test tracks, I'll report back. He did include the Jans Phillips tubes.

John

Shizelbs

Glad to know it arrived in good shape. Get to listening.

marvda1

is this one of gary's last six elp's in which he outboarded the power transformer?

F1nut

John, well what do you think?

Strong Bad

F1nut wrote:

John, well what do you think?

Amazing overall. There is a buzzing sound that gets louder as I turn it up. With music playing you can't hear it, except for real soft passages.

Any ideas?

F1nut

Could be a microphonic tube. Try tapping each tube without any music playing to see if it makes noise thru the speakers. It could also be a transformer issue, which I believe isn't uncommon with the Dodd's. If the latter, you'll have to send it back to Dodd.

jfb4548

john d. strong wrote:

Amazing overall. There is a buzzing sound that gets louder as I turn it up. With music playing you can't hear it, except for real soft passages.

Any ideas?

Background noise has been an issue with some folks and their ELPs. That's why, I believe the last few had been upgraded with the outboard power transformer. When I received mine I found I had to change the input setting on my amp., from what it was for my SS pre, as the ELP seems to have alot more gain. My amp has a switch on the back that made this easy to do. I have also noticed that the type of tube used can affect the noise floor as well as the power cord. I use a PS audio PowerPunch and it seem to be very prone to picking up noise from other cables and power supplies. Routing it away from everything helped. One last thought is the ground loop. Make sure you don't have more then one power cord with a ground. All in all after a bit of tweeking and placement the ELP is a beautiful thing. Hope this give you some ideas. Sorry for the less then technical wording!

Shizelbs

Its a very high gain pre, so, if there is any buzzing anywhere in the system, the Dodd is not going to kill it. Also, remember that the SDAs are very efficient speakers. I had the same problem you did when I was using my SDAs also. The transformer in the amplifier buzzed, very slightly, and between all the high gain and efficiencies, I could hear the buzzing too.

Strong Bad

Thanks for the replies gents! I'm going to make a list of items to troubleshoot, then go through them one by one. I'm sure most of the buzz is NOT from the Dodd, but perhaps where it sits and the cheapy interconnects I had to use until I get very nice ones.

Strong Bad

I did some unplugging of cables and found a TON of interference coming from the cheapy interconnects running from the CD player to the Dodd. When I unplugged them from the Dodd, most of the buzzing went away.

Well, time to upgrade to better interconnects! Any recommendations? Might as well do the set from the amp to the pre AND the set from the CD to the pre.

disneyjoe7

AudioQuest cables my $.02

organ

Congrats, John. Your cherry has been officially popped by the Dodd. Lost mine to an old lady (Dynaco ST-70). Since then, I said good bye to transistors and have become tube crazy.

The buzz is most likely an impedance mis-match between your pre and amplifier. Some tube pre's don't get along with SS amps. My ASL pre buzzed very loud with my NAD ss amp, but is dead quiet on all my tube amps. But it's hard to tell until you do some troubleshooting.

Don't forget to power up the pre for about 1 min before your amp. When turning off, amp first. When the caps in the pre are charging up with your amp running, it will send a very loud pop to your speakers.

Once you've solved that problem, you're in for another one. That's tube rolling. It's crazy, highly addictive and will probably never end;). My tube stash just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I love it!

I agree with Disneyjoe. I find AQ cables to give very good bang for your $.

reeltrouble1

+1 to Organ on the impendance mismatch, just add one thing, the mute switch kills the output so you can use that first when turning the Dodd off, so in the case of a Dodd you can turn the pre off before the amps, just make sure to mute first.

Sounds like you are headed in the right direction with eliminating the simple things first. FWIW, Gary Dodd took good care of me when I sent mine into him for this same thing, my unit checked out fine, but he still took care of me if you get my meaning.

RT1

shack

Never got the hum out of my ELP. Different SS amps, different speakers, different cables, different tubes...no real change. I sent it back to Gary and he got it a little quieter, but it never went away completely (similar to what Shelby is describing). I considered selling it but maybe one day I will upgrade to an outboard power transformer. Besides I'm not going to sell my issues to someone else. The hum is not noticeable when the music is playing...but because I know the hum is there...I hear it in the quiet passages. Maybe I'll hook it up to a tube amp someday and see what happens. I hope you get it worked out.