Reisong Boyuurange A10 EL34B

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lukecho

Audioholic Intern
Good morning everyone, this is my first post and I have many questions to follow!!!!

I'm thinking about getting a tube amp for around 500, this one seems to have great reviews and looks great. It clearly says it won't port tower speakers or speakers with lower dB of 89. I'm currently running polk rtia7s with a sensitivity of 89. Do you guys think it'll be ok with them? I don't listen to my music loud but am worried about buying it.

Anybody using this amp with tower speakers?
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
If you listen to music loud, tube amps are not for you with those speakers. If you want a tube sound, get a tube preamp but IMHO I'd skip tubes all together as they never measure good with very few exceptions. Also here are the measurements and they're not great...
 
L

lukecho

Audioholic Intern
I've actually seen that review and others where people measure it and it's actually bad and filled with distortion.

I like the look of tubes and already have a receiver so really the only thing left is to get some tubes and try it out.

I actually thought about getting a tube pre amp and connecting it to my receiver. That way I could use my tower speakers and not have to buy new speakers.

Is there a difference in a tube pre amp or this a10?
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I've actually seen that review and others where people measure it and it's actually bad and filled with distortion.

I like the look of tubes and already have a receiver so really the only thing left is to get some tubes and try it out.

I actually thought about getting a tube pre amp and connecting it to my receiver. That way I could use my tower speakers and not have to buy new speakers.

Is there a difference in a tube pre amp or this a10?
You have been listening to misguided 'Pig Dribble' stupid gurus who are wrong more often than by chance.

A single ended tube amp is an expensive way to really downgrade your system.

I should know, I built and owned one seventy odd years ago. And no physics has not changed in that time.

I was a kid of about 8 years of age, and had saved my pocket money to purchase a Mullard 33 amp kit from Sterns Radio in Fleet Street.

I built it, and much to my surprise it worked, and somehow I managed to avoid a mistake. I used it the drive the first speaker I built that had an 8" driver in a Voight quarter wave pipe. The amp had an output of 3 watts and had a built in passive preamp.

I can tell you I saved and saved to afford the kit for a push pull Mullard 10/10, 10 watt per channel amp. That was a good sounding amp. That was at the dawn of the stereo era.

Using a single triode output is a terrible idea and only suitable to drive cheap portable record players, of which years ago were legion.

There is no way to square the circle and make a good single ended tube amp. It will have a boat load of distortion and other defects whatever you do.

There is absolutely no justification for tube amps at all in this day and age. They are of historic importance only, except to self appointed 'experts' who are pig dribble stupid and wrong more often than by chance.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Nice to see they got the THD below 5% with the volume at 50%.
 
L

lukecho

Audioholic Intern
I do believe older stuff is worse than newer items but it'll look pretty in my setup and will be kinda fun. I wanted to connect two amps to my speakers but now I think a tube pre Amp would be much more suitable for my situation.

I get great sound out of my rz810 but I'm bored.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I do believe older stuff is worse than newer items but it'll look pretty in my setup and will be kinda fun. I wanted to connect two amps to my speakers but now I think a tube pre Amp would be much more suitable for my situation.

I get great sound out of my rz810 but I'm bored.
No, older tube stuff was at least as good, and may be better. Those Mullard kit designs from the fifties and sixties compete handily with tube gear of today. There is no rocket science here.

That is a really expensive way to assuage your boredom, and it would be less trouble to just burn that money. Gear is designed to be heard and looking pretty is not part of the game. So back off and stop acting the idiot.
 
ski2xblack

ski2xblack

Audioholic Field Marshall
With a more saggy supply that thing would make for a nice guitar practice amp. The low order monotonic harmonic distortion profile sounds more pleasing than pp amps, which inherently filter out the even harmonics, making them more edgy and biting (they're better for cutting through the din in live gigs though).

As for using it in an audio system? I'll second the other's opinions that it's a bad idea. If you want the closest thing to "straight wire with gain" performance, go straight to a purify or hypex based class D amp.

Specifically for that amp, per the measurements in the ASR thread, the supply is clearly not up to snuff, as psrr is critical with these single ended class A SETs and that one exhibits way too much hum, and the output transformers are also sub-par and limiting bandwidth. It's cheap chi-fi, so no surprises. Dude also should have included some square waves in the measurements, they reveal a lot.

The measurements do reveal some aspects of the amps performance in reductive terms. Of note is the low order monotonic distortion, which, if only occurring in greater quantities on transient peaks, you'll never notice as distortion, but rather as increased loudness. This compressor-like behavior is the root of the myth that "tube watts are more powerful." It's really just more ear-friendly clipping behavior. And as with any compression, it can bring up low level details. I think all that would account for the positive subjective impressions from the reviewer.

Back to your specific questions, don't waste time on a tubed pre. Those can be as squeaky clean (or as dirty) as desired, feeding a fixed high impedance load, but the proverbial "tube sound" results from a high source impedance amp interacting with transducers of varying load at different frequencies, with all the power limits/clipping behavior and distortion that comes with it. Unless your speakers are sensitive enough to meet dynamic range goals at 1.75 watts maximum, it's a no-go. Your Polks aren't such speakers.
 
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lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I'd not bother buying that amp myself. Not sure why a tower would be harder to drive than a bookshelf type speaker, though, as towers are generally more sensitive.
 
L

lukecho

Audioholic Intern
shitty, i was looking forward To a tube amp to make my room glow at night. Maybe I'll just upgrade some parts on my record player to keep me occupied.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
shitty, i was looking forward To a tube amp to make my room glow at night. Maybe I'll just upgrade some parts on my record player to keep me occupied.
Lots of cool ways to explore lighting effects other than tubes :) Maybe a nice star gazing projector.... :)
 
L

lukecho

Audioholic Intern
Any recommendations for a decent tube amp from someone who knows a little bit about them?
 
M

MrBoat

Audioholic Ninja
Averting boredom from buying a tube amp or any other gadget will last about a day. Best to learn how to build them, even if from a kit and dive all the way down the rabbit hole for a couple years. Maybe find an old Dynaco to restore, or something.

I have tube amps, preamps, including the Korg Nutube kit waiting to be built. Also had a Dynakit on loan to me for awhile but they just didn't do anything for me. I was already used to better sound.

Here's the Starving Student preamp/headphone amp as a preamp to an Icepower kit amp and my CD player with some DIY speakers.

Fun stuff as a side hobby but it's just a novelty, really.



Perhaps instead, explore the headphone amp aspect of tubes. No rules that say you can't do both. These work as preamps too so there is options for little side speaker systems as well.

 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Any recommendations for a decent tube amp from someone who knows a little bit about them?
There are decent tube amps. However, it gets complicated as tube amps have a high source resistance, because of the resistance of the wire in the output transformer. Solid state amps have a low source resistance and the best ones very low. The issue is that speakers have an resistance/impedance that is all over the map. So tube amps tend to have a frequency response that tends to follow the impedance curve of the speaker. Modern speakers frequently have wild swings of impedance with frequency. In the tube era, speaker manufacturers took steps to minimize this. Raymond Cooke of KEF used to add impedance correction networks to his crossovers, because of this issue.

So with tubes you have to look to amp and speakers in tandem. The other issue is that tubes start to deteriorate as soon as you start using them. Their grid bias needs change over time, and you need to check and re-bias by instrument regularly. The filaments take quite a bit of power, which never goes to the speakers. Tube amps are lower in power output than their solid state counterparts by a big margin.

Since Quad introduced their Quad 303, which was the first truly reliable solid state amp, I have not used tube power amps since. I do have a vintage Quad tube preamp in my rig though. I bought this in the nineteen sixties. I have it for nostalgic reasons, but also because it is connected to a classic turntable that has LP and 78 RPM heads. This Quad preamp has all the EQ curves for the different brands of 78 records. So there is some purpose to this madness. You can't see the tubes though, so no visible glow.

78





LP
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
Since Amazon has the amp you originally mentioned, buy it and try it. This will help you understand if you want all the downside of tubes with low sensitivity speakers and playing loud. Again, if you really want the tube sound there are tube preamps that measure good and there are some preamps that have 2nd harmonic distortion "dials" that allow one to add the sound without the tube/s.

IMHO opinion save your money and get better speakers/subs as they have the largest impact on your music experience, your room being the next.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I do believe older stuff is worse than newer items but it'll look pretty in my setup and will be kinda fun. I wanted to connect two amps to my speakers but now I think a tube pre Amp would be much more suitable for my situation.

I get great sound out of my rz810 but I'm bored.
I thought the point of improving an audio system was to have better sound. Sure, cosmetics are great, but it's putting lipstick on a pig if it doesn't sound good.

I don't know if you're aware, but a few cautions about using two power amps for one set of speakers-

A) NEVER connect both amplifiers at the same time
B) NEVER connect both amplifiers and turn the power on
C) NEVER turn a tube amplifier ON or OFF without a load and NEVER connect or disconnect the speakers while the amplifier is ON.

A tube preamp doesn't risk the same kind of damage but connecting sources to an active input risks damaging the speakers. Power should always be turned off.

I'm posting these cautions because I have seen damaged equipment due to the user doing exactly what I posted.
 
L

lukecho

Audioholic Intern
Since Amazon has the amp you originally mentioned, buy it and try it. This will help you understand if you want all the downside of tubes with low sensitivity speakers and playing loud. Again, if you really want the tube sound there are tube preamps that measure good and there are some preamps that have 2nd harmonic distortion "dials" that allow one to add the sound without the tube/s.

IMHO opinion save your money and get better speakers/subs as they have the largest impact on your music experience, your room being the next.
The next setup will be a pair of 801 d4s with mcintosh. Sadly right now is not the right time to spend 100k
 
L

lukecho

Audioholic Intern
I thought the point of improving an audio system was to have better sound. Sure, cosmetics are great, but it's putting lipstick on a pig if it doesn't sound good.

I don't know if you're aware, but a few cautions about using two power amps for one set of speakers-

A) NEVER connect both amplifiers at the same time
B) NEVER connect both amplifiers and turn the power on
C) NEVER turn a tube amplifier ON or OFF without a load and NEVER connect or disconnect the speakers while the amplifier is ON.

A tube preamp doesn't risk the same kind of damage but connecting sources to an active input risks damaging the speakers. Power should always be turned off.

I'm posting these cautions because I have seen damaged equipment due to the user doing exactly what I posted.
Ya that was going to be one of my question, I was wondering if I could connect two amps to my speakers and only use one at a time. But a tube pre amp would be better for my situation. I'll just poke around and see what I can do, it seems like a tube amp for me is the last piece to my puzzle.
 

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