New Tubes! First Impressions

ECC88 Amperex tubes for the Schiit Valhalla 2 Set OTL headphone amp / preamp

I haven’t spent time massaging these tubes as I hear is popular among audiophiles—running them for hours with music going through but without listening. I just plugged them in and switched everything on.

First up? John Coltrane’s masterpiece A Love Supreme. Hi-Res from Qobuz but, I admit, streamed over my home wifi. The sound is beautiful. It doesn’t sound as dry and muddy as I remember. I’ve complained about the sound quality on this album before, comparing the production unfavorably with Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. The Coltrane album was recorded at Van Gelder Studio, by Rudy van Gelder himself (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rudy-van-gelder-renowned-a-love-supreme-engineer-dead-at-91-250699/amp/).

http://open.qobuz.com/album/0060253742084

I think there is a better portrayal of soundstage, with McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison taking central positions on piano and bass, with Coltrane on the left channel and Elvin Jones, on drums, on the right channel for most of the album but with the sound like kettle drums coming from the center. A lot of factors go into a listening experience, and I can’t say for sure whether these new tubes make the difference what it is, but the sense of space the Rolling Stone article quoted Van Gelder as trying to create, came through in this last half hour more than it even has on this album. The finale features Jones and Coltrane in both channels, a magical difference from their being pegged to the left or right speaker.

Qobuz autoplayed Wayne Shorter’s “Schizophrenia,” the title track of a 1967 album (two years after A Love Supreme), and I think it shows the influence of the earlier album. Herbie Hancock is playing like McCoy Tyner, using block chords and choosing harmonic arrangements that mimic those of Tyner on A Love Supreme.

In various avenues of the internet that deal with audiphile listening and gear, the term “snake oil” comes up, and the number people, usually scientific skeptics as well, as far as that goes—at least in a general way—whose stalwart adherence to certain orthodoxies is equal to the passion with which some listeners swear by expensive headphone cables and RCA interconnects. I’m sure there is a similar division when it comes to talking about “tube rolling,” or listening to a variety of tubes on a piece of equipment, as I am doing with my new tubes. And the tubes that were in already were relatively new replacements for the tubes that came with the amp, shipped by Schiit Audio.

I have to admit everything sounds smoother and yes, perhaps more “liquid.” Perhaps it is the power of suggestion. There’s no shortage of people out there who will tell me whatever I might want to hear. These tubes sound wonderful. It will take more experimentation, even double-blind experiments, to get any science-backed confidence. In any case, I’m happy with my new tubes, even if it is that my listening position is oriented differently since we rearranged the furniture.

http://open.qobuz.com/album/0060253748445

Please give these late, great tenor men a listen, whether your stereo has tubes or transistors. Shorter passed away within the last year. These is a wealth of music by them and by others, that does not get played anywhere I’ve heard outside my own home.